L
LUKE'57
Guest
One of the show-concept cars making the rounds in the mid sixties was a special Dodge Coronet with a top that resembled the Mustang 2+2. It proved very popular and was added to the regular model line with very few changes. It didn't take the Dodge Boys long to remember how much the "Starlift" and "fastback" roofs helped the Fords on the superspeedways and they decided to put the new model to work.
While the Ford roof designs helped to eliminate some of the turbulence that caused drag and helped the Fords to turn better lap times the Charger was a different proposition all together. The Ford roofs still stopped in the normal places and had a conventional trunk area for the wind to work on.
While it looked "racy" if you looked at the side view of the Charger it rememinded you of an airplane wing from area of the windshield back. Now think about that for a moment. What does an airplane wing do? It lifts the airplane off the ground when the air flows around it so it's gotta creat lift, right? Now, if the heaviest part of the car is in the area in front of the firewall already then you don't need the area behind the firewall to get any lighter, do you?
Able to do a pretty good job with or without that little strip, here's part of the reason that David Pearson won his first championship, a Cotton Owens first generation Dodge Charger. But since the Arthor Murry Studios didn't have any 3800 pound partners that could aid in the dancing lessons the drivers needed to learn how to get these little darlings around a superspeedway something else had to be done to make sure the back bumper didn't become the front bumper at speed.
It turned out that a little strip of metal across the rear decklid was a great help and the powers that be immediatly authorized it and all was well in the land of Mopar again. But in the land of Nascar that little stip of metal turned out to be the equivilent of letting the camel's nose into your tent. By the time the '60's ended that little stip of metal had spread to the whole car like an aerodynamic version of kudzu. But that's a story for another time.
While the Ford roof designs helped to eliminate some of the turbulence that caused drag and helped the Fords to turn better lap times the Charger was a different proposition all together. The Ford roofs still stopped in the normal places and had a conventional trunk area for the wind to work on.
While it looked "racy" if you looked at the side view of the Charger it rememinded you of an airplane wing from area of the windshield back. Now think about that for a moment. What does an airplane wing do? It lifts the airplane off the ground when the air flows around it so it's gotta creat lift, right? Now, if the heaviest part of the car is in the area in front of the firewall already then you don't need the area behind the firewall to get any lighter, do you?
Able to do a pretty good job with or without that little strip, here's part of the reason that David Pearson won his first championship, a Cotton Owens first generation Dodge Charger. But since the Arthor Murry Studios didn't have any 3800 pound partners that could aid in the dancing lessons the drivers needed to learn how to get these little darlings around a superspeedway something else had to be done to make sure the back bumper didn't become the front bumper at speed.
It turned out that a little strip of metal across the rear decklid was a great help and the powers that be immediatly authorized it and all was well in the land of Mopar again. But in the land of Nascar that little stip of metal turned out to be the equivilent of letting the camel's nose into your tent. By the time the '60's ended that little stip of metal had spread to the whole car like an aerodynamic version of kudzu. But that's a story for another time.