Why did cars have tail fins? The twin-boomed, radical P-38 WWII Lightning Fighter Plane "One day in the late Thirties, Earl [GM's Design Czar) received government permission through a friend to take some of his best designers to Michigan's Selfridge Field to see a secret military aircraft. Designers Bill Mitchell and Frank Hershey were among the group. Though no one knew it then, this field trip was destined to become legendary in the history of automotive design." "There on the runway, sat the thirteenth Lockheed P-38 Lightning, the twin-boomed aeronautical marvel that after some further development was going to set combat records in the coming war. Its radical design opened Mitchell's, and especially Hershey's, eyes to possibilities unthought of before -- they were transfixed by the elegance of the plane's design. " "You have to understand the value of what we saw in that plane's design. We saw that you could take one line and continue it from the cowl all the way back to the tip of the tail -- that you could have one unbroken, flowing line." "Hershey was also impressed with the plane's aerodynamic flow, but when he got back to his studio he began experimenting with the line of the tailfin he had seen." http://www.100megsfree4.com/cadillac/cad1940/cad48s.htm "In 1951, of course, General Motors publicly exhibited the "LeSabre" with great fanfare, and the concept of car fins was catapulted to the front pages of the automotive world. By the mid-1950s, Most GM cars had fins, and Chrysler was pretty much forced to follow the popular trend." http://new.idsa.org/webmodules/articles/an...?a=274&z=62
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(HBO6 @ May 18 2007, 08:35 PM) [snapback]445395[/snapback]</div> I learned to drive in a 1963-64 Cadillac Sedan de Ville and drove it in High School and College. About 5 years ago I bought a 1960 Sedan de Ville and had it for a few years for the occasional weekend joyride. Finally sold it to get my garage space back for my daily driver. I miss both those cars. If it didn't have fins it wasn't a car. maybe that's what the Prius really needs.....fins.
I'm not surprised. After all, the Buick's "portholes" were inspired by the exhaust pipes of the fighter planes (an idea to have orange light bulbs in each hole which would light when that spark plug fired was dropped). Also, the guy who named the Ford Mustang was thinking about the P-51 at the time.
Hi All, Why this may be the US styling reasons for fins on car, cars had fins long before the post-WWII styling boats. When cars were initially made stream-lined, the center of pressure (Cp) of the car moved in front of the center of gravity (Cg). At high speeds, with cross-winds, this was dangerous. If the car yawed off-line, the Cp would push the car further off-line. To overcome this problem the high speed 1930's test cars had a fin on the back of the car, to move the Cp back behind the Cg. So, now as the car yawed off-line, the it would be pulled back on-line by the fin.
Donee, If it's anything like a sail boat, it's the center of effort (pressure) moving it in front of the center of lateral resistance, not the center of gravity.
Here's my thoughts about "why the Prius needs fins": I've been driving in the snow a lot in past 2 weeks and realizing Priuses don't get no respect on the road, e.g. while driving safely in the left lane the hot-shot 4X4s want to drive faster; they pass and cut back in so close that they generate a spray of snow and slush onto me! My reaction is that I want to install really big, pointy, tail fins on my Prius rear quarters, fins that make a statement--"I'm bad nice person!" Additonally the fins should articulate and tilt, pointing towards and tracking the movement of the 4X4 when they try to pass--as if the fins are "watching" them!
campchris, Welcome to PriusChat. I see that you're coming in with a healthy devil-take- the-hindmost attitude. Yeah, tail fins wouls offer multiple opportunities for improvements: Properly coordinated with an additionlal CPU/ECU, tail fins set at 45 deg could at speed provide handling improvements: down/up force, body roll control, and lane changing assistance. If say, 3 feet long, they might even be a place to house a truly effective hidden radio antenna. And with aerodynamically clean, yet aggressively gnarly looking protuburances and excrescences -- might have to use color enhancements to achieve the desired degree of bad-assedness -- I'm sure that you could get a certain degree of respect... more probably distain... most certainly create a moving traffic hazard as other drivers pass from wonder, to disbelief, and finally collapse over their steering wheel in paroxysms of uncontrollable laughter. Sixty's style wings... ya' gotta love 'em especially the ones on the Caddy that had two bullet-shaped tail lights -- we didn't know it at the time but they accurately foreshadowed Madonna's iconic bullet-bra. Whoof! What a ride...
But it is not like a sailboat, which travels in a dense fluid (water), enabling it to control pressure forces from the sails via the rudder, and modulate them as necessary to achieve the direction of travel required. The best example of a car with the CP ahead of the CG is the original rear-engined Volkswagen, which was (and still is) notorious for lack of directional stability at speed in strong side-winds.
Why not have tail fins which controlled by CPUs could harness the power of the wind to propel the car down the road. Here is an example of fins being used to propel a land yacht up to a world record of 116.7mph on Lake Ivanpah in 1999.
This is the Gawd-honest truth: the first time I saw our 2013 Prius (after never having really gazed at Prii before), I thought the taillights resembled tail fins (the way they go up at the corners and blend with the spoiler thingy across the back, and sort of stick out when the hatch is open).
