Tail fins (cars)

[Stearmen]

Turns out, there are lots of songs about Volvo's!

 

[Stearmen]

Oh the P1800, how we Yanks love stuffing V8s into your tiny body!

 

[Stanley Doble]

If tail fins don't add stability why do they put feathers on arrows, or tail fins on airplanes? They definitely do aid stability and reduce wind wander. It is a matter of moving the center of pressure behind the center of gravity.

Get a load of this Lotus race car from the fifties. Colin Chapman was the king of functional design but also an engineer with roots in the aircraft industry. If he put fins on a car, it was for a reason and it wasn't to look pretty in a showroom.

 

[HudsonHawk]

If tail fins don't add stability why do they put feathers on arrows, or tail fins on airplanes? They definitely do aid stability and reduce wind wander. It is a matter of moving the center of pressure behind the center of gravity.

Tail fins do add stability to moving objects, particularly those objects not moving along a planar surface such as arrows, planes, fish, etc. It's just the effect on passenger cars from relatively small fins is minimal.

Get a load of this Lotus race car from the fifties. Colin Chapman was the king of functional design but also an engineer with roots in the aircraft industry. If he put fins on a car, it was for a reason and it wasn't to look pretty in a showroom.

Yes, many race cars have vertical fins, specifically to help keep the car from wanting to roll forward during high speed turns. Race cars also have horizontal real spoilers that keep the back end from wanting to lift. Those are especially useful for very light, powerful cars that are going at very high speeds, even when turning. That doesn't mean they're particularly necessary on passenger cars.

 

[Stanley Doble]

Tailfins aren't necessary in the sense that you can get along without them. But they do aid in straight line stability especially in cross winds. This has been proven many times. Some tailfins were too small or badly shaped to do much but the ones on Chrysler products from 1957 to 1961 definitely worked.

 

[Talbot]

Say what you will about the Boys From Marketing, but "They don't write songs about Volvos" is a damn good line, especially hovering over that viciously aggressive Vette's back.

 

[Fading Fast]

Very good. That said, advertising isn't about being literally correct (that one went to the Supreme Court, I think), but creating a feeling, image, vibe. While I have a low opinions of the moral integrity and philosophical underpinnings or advertising and have much sympathy for Lizzie's "Boys From Marketing" derogation, I will give credit where due and they can turn a good phrase now and then - and they did with the Vette one, accurate or not.

 

[Talbot]

The added irony being that the song is a novelty version of their hit 'Buick 59'. A car with fins almost starting at the front headlights.

 

[LizzieMaine]

That particular car was the zenith of the postwar male overcompensation styling craze.

DIE MILK FACE!! Yes dear, I'll drive right over to the A&P and get the Velveeta. DIE MILK FACE!

 

[plain old dave]

THIS.

The mighty Chrysler 300 is the epitome of the Golden Age. Gold star to anybody that can ID the actor and TV show.

 

[BobHufford]

"Crime Story" with Dennis Farina.

 

[Stearmen]

That particular car was the zenith of the postwar male overcompensation styling craze.

DIE MILK FACE!! Yes dear, I'll drive right over to the A&P and get the Velveeta. DIE MILK FACE!

Sorry Lizzie, not even close. For male overcompensation, nothing and I mean nothing, beats the Jaguar E Type! Freud could have written several volumes on that car and a certain P word symbol!

 

[plain old dave]

"Crime Story" with Dennis Farina.

Outstanding. A TV show about MY Golden Age that was made in Gen Y's "golden age." I keep hearing late teens and twentysomethings go on about how great the 80s were. They were pretty good in some ways, but not so much in others.

 

[Zombie_61]

...For male overcompensation, nothing and I mean nothing, beats the Jaguar E Type! Freud could have written several volumes on that car and a certain P word symbol!

I don't know about that...

 

[LizzieMaine]

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

'57 Studebaker Goldenhawk
Screengrab from an episode of Crime Story. Of interest to the Lounge, the gas station in this scene (long since demolished) was located across the street from the Horween Leather Company.

 

[Stearmen]

I don't know about that...

Just look at the nose of the E Type, nothing has ever beat it, (pun intended)!

 

[Stearmen]

Turns out, there are lots of songs about Volvo's!

Every on I send this dumb song to gets a kick out of it! I only understand a few words, Porsche, BMW (BMV) and Volvo 142. I like how he says Volvo Un ferty two!

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Sorry Lizzie, not even close. For male overcompensation, nothing and I mean nothing, beats the Jaguar E Type! Freud could have written several volumes on that car and a certain P word symbol!

Russian ZIS-112 "Cyclops" (1951)

 

[2jakes]

Tucker !