Teardrop aerodynamics... in reverse!

[graydonengineering]

Originally Posted by aerohead

It's almost an open-wheeled vehicle! The entire sides would be turbulence between the tire faces,certainly negating some of the 'positive' features.
Manly though,like a pop-up castration-mine.

Yea, the body of the car has a very nice profile but the side of the car is a aero train wreck. Not sure what the deal is with the rear wheel wells, I'm guessing there is a small radiator on eather side so the open face surves as the "grill".

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

For the super high mileage competitions, prone driver position is outlawed. Probably here too.



I'm sure they thought of pivoting boots. Question is why they didn't do it.

That's a head scratcher for sure! The Honda Dream-2 car had the turning wheels on lazy-susans which allowed an airtight, minimum frontal area, along with wide articulation of the wheels.They could have just ripped Honda off.

[Bicycle Bob]

[QUOTE=euromodder;256790]I doubt they'd have rear wheel steering, which is fine for low speed forklifting but a bear to handle at high speed - these vehicles can hit 60mph / 100kph.

Rear wheel steering works fine for the Dymaxion car, and many others since. The key is to use the same geometry as a regular car running in reverse, but to add a steering damper. That way, it wants to go straight. The only real disadvantage is the extra time and road width needed for maneuvers. You have to swing the back end to steer the front.

[Cd]

I know that this is image isn't correctly positioned, but it gives some idea of what goes through my head every time i see a Honda Fit.

I thought i would Fit it to the the template backwards and ...wow ...pretty close Fit !

[Rokeby]

Re: the Lotus 2002 concept car in post #106:



I don't believe that the front of the vehicle is to the right as has been supposed.
Granted, whichever end goes first, airflow along the sides is going to be a mess.
For reasons I can't comprehend, ~85% percent of Inter-web photos are from this angle.

I'm betting the front is the end to the left. Here's what it looks like:

It's even got headlights of a sort!

FWIW, here's a link to the best set of pictures that I could find: Concept Carz

I believe that the rearview camera stalks have been moved aft of the doors to
cleanup the A-pillar.

[Cd]

I remember reading that Ferrari mounted their mirrors high on the Testarossa to reduce A pillar drag.
I guess it didn't help much, since I have never seen that configuration again.

[Piwoslaw]

I sometimes wonder if the sole purpose of that Lexus wasn't so that Tom Cruise could have a futuristic ride in Minority Report Anyhow, that car (ie the rolling mock-up used for filming) is on sale, if anyone is interested in coastdown testing it

IMO the mirrors (on the prototype, not movie, version) are mounted high to get a view of more than just the rear wheels:

More pics here.

[CargoBoatTails]

This is a good thread. Funny thing is .15 Cd was already achieved in 1939, so why can't they make a minivan like this: The Schlörwagen or

Or what was wrong with taking the .137 Cd 1985 Probe V to production with practical modifications?

The answer is simple, sheering the sheeple. They never will.

[arklan]

Ok so iv been wondering about this a lot
The good aero shape has the round part of the tear drop at the front and tapers at the back but a lot of the new cars with good aero
Whats up with this?

[Frank Lee]

Yes they are and it's been that way forever: