Jalopnik
volvo
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tuners
Cheshire Cayenne: Techart Aerodynamics Package
You say you can't afford the full monty of TechArt's Magnum package? (Dr. Freud call the front desk.) Don't think yourself a halfling, just slap on the German Porsche tuner's new Cayenne aerodynamics kit. If your potency is indeed in question, though, your therapist may recommend the Magnum's 600-hp twin-turbo V8 upgrade. More » -
nascar
Haas Builds Rolling Road Wind Tunnel
Aerodymics play an ever greater role as racecars start hitting ridiculous speeds. Wind tunnel testing can help figure out what's going on, but wind traveling at 200 and something miles per hour likes to try to stick to the floor of the wind tunnel, and creates an error in readings. The race car usually makes this same ground disappear in a hurry as it rolls. Haas CNC Racing NASCAR team owner Gene Haas in conjunction with Jacobs Engineering has created the first rolling road testing facility in the United States known as WindShear Inc. The one-millimeter thick continuous steel belt will roll at over 180mph, and features sensors under the bed that can take readings at each wheel. At top speed the wind tunnel fan will circulate 2.85 million cubic feet of air per minute! The facility will be available for rental to motorsports teams and manufacturers when it opens later this year. And yes, that's a genuine actual-size race car up on the rollers. Second photo for scale after the jump. Don't forget earplugs. More » -
retro
Know Thy Germans: 1921 Rumpler Tropfenwagen, a Slippery Tugboat
Lady and gentlemen, we present for your viewing pleasure, a creation of Edmund Rumpler. This mid-engined mechanical marvel, the product of wartime aviation experience and sheer Germanness, featured a W6 engine long before Volkswagen began fusing Vs together. Winglets, a teardrop-shaped cabin and body, and that gnarly center headlight, somehow conspire to produce a super-slippery drag coefficient. When the boys at V-Dub pulled one out of the Deutsches Technikmuseum Berlin in 1979 and ran it through their wind tunnel, the Tropfenwagen returned an astonishing figure of 0.27 Cd. (They wouldn't be able to create a peoples' coefficient that low until the 1988 Passat.) Keep in mind, Rumpler's creation predated even the concept of a digital computer. Sadly, the high point of the Topfenwagen's life was when a couple of them were torched for fun in the famous 1927 Fritz Lang movie, Metropolis. Only two remain in German Museums, where I'm sure they're kept company by other vacky but precise Deutchland flotsam. More » -
retro
Meet Harry Stevinson: Canadian, Awesome.
This started out as a single-sourced, "ain't that a great car?" sort of post. On a whim, I Googled Mr. Stevinson and found he was a fairly remarkable bloke worthy of a little more screen space than your average crackpot/savant. First, as you may have noticed from the picture, Harry is not only Canadian, but also born a really, really long time ago. At 11, he was driving the family car through the Canadian Rockies, which in the 1920's were little more than mountain-goat paths, because he was better at it than his father. At 17, Harry got his first Model T from a junkyard. This, remember, was an era in which airplanes and aerodynamics were in vogue — even toasters and desks were streamlined — so the talented Harry set to work to do the same to his T... More » -
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news: racing
New FIA Wing Would Keep Downforce During Close Racing Maneuvers
C'mon people, what's more important, ad space, race drivers' safety or the excitement of the sport? (Yes, you can give us an answer in the morning.) The FIA has proposed a new wing design (pictured) that will keep F1 cars from losing downforce when attempting a pass, thus making for more successful overtaking of cars during races. (According to the FIA, 94% of the viewing public wants to see more overtaking.) Most aerodynamic wing design, the group says, focuses on improving performance in "clean" air, not while operating in another car's wake. The new design would render a car attempting a passing move more slippery, thereby improving its chances to get by the leader. We haven't thought about it much, but we'd be in favor of nearly anything that would make F1 more interesting to watch. As for the reduction in ad space — it's not our problem. More »
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1-6 of 6 for "Aerodynamics"
