the wind tunnel: innovation or curse

LOL great thread

CURSE !

Only actual track cars should be form follows function. Street cars should not have to abide by those rules.

Car design today is a disaster.

 

Not all windtunnel-designed car have to look terrible like the 458; the F1 is good looking (especially as the GTR/LM).

 

Excellent thread. My own opinion is that the slavish devotion to aerodynamics is the less evil twin of government mandated design considerations (crush zones, headlight height, etc.). The two, equally absolute, have combined to make most cars look very similar, within each category of body styles. Most cars that we enthusiasts like turn out looking like some variation of an egg, distinguished mostly by surface details which, if not conceived and executed properly, end up detracting further from the design. Comparing cars of different eras, just to make the point, to my eye the 250GT Lusso is so much more appealing than the 599 Fiorano that they might as well be from different planets. (Recognizing the popularity of mid-engined cars, I would make the same comparison between the 246GT and the F430). The Lusso and the Dino look the way the do because of the imagination of the designer. The 599 and the F430 look the way they do largely because of bureaucrats and aerodynamic engineers.

 

Beautiful cars can still exist and they do. But we are in this era of "added" lines and “drama” in the design. There are just too many unnecessary lines on cars now a day (for STYLING sake). I think what really has hampered things is all this crash safety, emissions, and now pedestrian safety. Ferrari is going in the right direction by starting to make smaller cars.

For what it’s worth, I don’t believe the wind tunnel to be a curse or a blessing. It’s a tool.

 

I imagine that the aircraft engineers could step in and offer the perfect bullet/egg shape as dictated by a wind tunnel and we could all just be done with it.As we all sat in our perfect eggs in highway stand still and slow mo we would then realize that this a fools errand.Designers would start getting back to beauty-everything is realized in circles you know!

 

Mainstream coachwork designers have always copied from each other. There were only a few innovators in design.

Look how many cars were copied from the 250 GTO.

The "aerodynamics" buzzword may be the current excuse for making all vehicles look alike, but look around some day.

Toyota and Ford SUVs look alike --- and both have the aerodynamics of a brick wall.

 

Good and poor design can occur with or without wind tunnels.

I'm sorry... I think cheese grater grills are ugly. And, I'm sure really poor aerodynamics. If they weren't, we'd see them on all kinds of modern cars.

My point:

Just because something wasn't designed in wind tunnel does it mean that it will automatically be more attractive than a car that was.

 

Is what it is.

An attractive car but nothing special.

 

Interesting.

The cars of yesterday have great style and automotive aerodynamics was in it's infancy. Bubble cars, cars with wings, rear spatz, etc..progressed to moveable aero elements, wings, spoilers. I can only imagine what's to come as engineers and designers re-invent the shape of vehicles and how will it continue to look fresh without looking the same.

Innovation for daily drivers - quiet on the highway, good gas mileage
Curse for sports cars (unless you care about top speed)

 

And the Veyron? It's had all kinds of wind tunnel stuff done to it and it's down right ugly when compared to the 458.

It's not the wind tunnel that decides the look. It's the designer.

 

What he said.

I should just let you post for me while I'm on holiday.

 

the Veyron is uglier than the 458 but I like it more because it feels emotional to me. I feel there were risks taken. I feel there was an attempt to be unique. I can at least respect that.

The 458 is an attractive car that wouldnt make me spin my head around in a good, or bad, way. Its just another Ferrari and if I had the money I wouldnt even glance at it on my way to buy an Alfa 8C or a Murci (which isnt attractive, but again, is emotional)

While ugly , boring , cookie cutter cars can (and are) designed without a wind tunnel leading the way, as soon as you add the wind tunnel it is far more likely to come up with something ugly, boring or cookie cutter.

I like emotional design. I dont really get into purposeful design. I want to see a raw piece of art that is the sole vision of one person...even if I dont like many of the design choices. I dont care about drag or getting that last 5 mph top end. I would be perfectly happy with a Ferrari that did 0-60 in 5 sec and had a top end of 150mph IF it was gorgeous.

Of course I am not the typical Ferrari customer (aside from the fact i cant swing $300k). As I said even if I could Ferrari wouldnt be on my list of cars to buy...at least not any new ones.

We all know design is subjective so we're all just spitting into the wind.

 

Very true.

But nothing iconic ever came out of a wind tunnel.

 

Also true. But, blame the designer, not the machine that makes cars more efficient.

In the world of art and science, there is always some way to skin a cat. If there was only one perfect solution, we would have had it already.

 

At its core the problem is the customers that , for some reason, feel another 1/10th of a second matters. Its bragging rights and goes hand in hand with the superficial nature of our race.

Now if we were discussing race cars, then sure...milk every 1/0th of a second you can out of that ***** because there is something at stake. We are competitive creatures.

But whats laughable to me is when someone BUYS someone elses creation and then boasts about it as if THEY made it ! That always cracks me up...

"my so and so can spank your so and so" Who the F cares unless you built that syht with your own hands ?

 

I like the 458 too.

The wind tunnel is just an easy target for a no talent and intellectually lazy designer to blame his poor work on. No need for form and function to be at odds with each other.

Ferrari built many ugly cars before the common use of the wind tunnel. It only stands to reason they will build ugly ones after. After all, it is the existence of the misses that causes us to appreciate the winners

 

The impact of aerodynamics on vehicle styling is far overstated. Simply put, the vast amount of a car's appearance is still dictated by styling alone. In many cases minor, hardly visible tweaks can have a significant effect on aerodynamics properties.

Flat bottom floors for example, are not visible to a standard observer but can significantly reduce drag. Simple changes in the profiles of mirrors can do the same too.

Ferrari's of recent years have been somewhat polarizing in terms of styling but I do not believe this is simply because of the impact windtunnel time.

Exactly

 

72 years ago today Bernd Rosemayer died in a wind-tunnel tested Auto Union while going well over 200mph.

http://jalopnik.com/5458030/remembering-bernd-rosemeyer

A street car should be tested in the wind tunnel for noise and airflow over the open cockpit.
If downforce wasn't needed on F1 cars in 1967, I certainly don't need it.

It'd be nice if my car doesn't become airborne at 125, but don't expect me to buy an ugly car that will generator more g's above 150mph than I will ever test.

 

An excellent point. But, one of the fundimental issues in marketing a car (any car) is it's performance. Whether that performance is top speed, acceleration, fuel economy, cargo capacity, towing capacity, number of passengers, cup holders, etc.

It's easy to throw away these numbers as meaningless (as in most cases they are) but without them, people don't buy the cars. I hate to think what the members on this forum would say if the 458 was slower in any category than the 430.

Of course, they won't buy ugly cars either. That is where the gentle art of compromise comes in.

 

All cars should be designed with no speed induced lift for safety. Amature drivers should not have to worry about their steering getting light, etc.

Other than that we have no need for a wind tunnel.
Pete