Testing On Hallowed Ground...

That's funny that the CX is that of a small truck. By looking at it, one would never guess such things. Great post.

 

Must have been quite an experience.
I'm curious how the rear wing is mounted. The drilled brackets are beautiful but is there some sort of structural support behind the bodywork to take the loads?

 

You'd probably have to do a pronounced airfoil shape on the front one, to get downforce there......like the World of Outlaws ones,...

Nice pics...thanks!

 

Napolis,

Thank you for the update and the comment on the side to side variation. Did the side to side variation show itself and the aero data?

Other than the front wing any other surprises on what did or did not work as expected? Since it was a show car it would have been more important to achieve a look that appeared to be proper aero instead of the actual results.

Curious if Pf has data on other of their cars from that vintage to compare the .400 to. At that point in time when the car was done there were very few wind tunnels for the automakers to use. In the mid 70s, don't know for how long before or after, GM sometimes used Cal Tech in Pasadena.

Jeff

 

Napolis,

I for one would be very interested to see the data across multiple period cars.

You must have it already but there were a series of articles in Car Styling, later made into a book, that detailed the Ford GT40 and subsequent development to your Mark IV. As I remember, not home to check my issues, they did publish the aero data. It was interesting to following how this then lead to further work on the body shapes. There may have even been photos of them doing aero testing at various degrees of angle to see what happened when the car would be sideways. Back then it was pretty much intuitive and they all were getting to understand how important downforce was versus low drag.

Jeff