Blowfish-inspired Mercedes

[abcdefz]

From CNN: (http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/03/08/cars.fish.popsci/index.html)

http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2007/TECH/03/08/cars.fish.popsci/story.bionic.jpg


I really think that looks pretty cool.


Wind-tunnel testing of a clay model revealed a drag coefficient (Cd) of just 0.06, startlingly close to the ideal 0.04 of a water droplet.

Like the droplet, the boxfish's face is small in proportion to its overall length, and its streamlined surfaces encourage air to move over it without creating the turbulence that robs aerodynamic efficiency.

Mercedes' Bionic concept vehicle mimics this functional form.

With a Cd of just 0.19, the four-seat Bionic is significantly more slippery than today's most aerodynamic production vehicle, Honda's two-seat Insight (Cd 0.25).

The design team eschewed expensive, complicated and heavy fuel-cell or hybrid powertrains, opting instead for a 1.9-liter four-cylinder direct-injection turbodiesel that pushes the fishmobile to 62 mph in 8.2 seconds with a combined city/highway fuel economy of 70 mpg.

At a constant 56 mph, the concept car will return an amazing 84 mpg.

[Dorothy Wood]

:( looks like a green pile of poop.

[abcdefz]

http://community.iexplore.com/photos/journal_photos/serpent83g.gif

[Dorothy Wood]

:( that looks like a brown pile of poop.

[abcdefz]

Yup.

The story goes: San José commissioned a sculpture to do something (can't remember what it was) and then nixed his design for quasi-religious reasons, so he proposed a design of this mythical snake, which they approved. But once it was actually done, there's almost no angle from which it doesn't just look like a big old bronze dung.

That picture above is about as snake-looking as it gets. It's pretty funny.

[Dorothy Wood]

I wonder if it was on purpose, or if it was just one of those things he didn't think about. like the time in architectural history when my group and I designed a roman bath that accidentally turned out looking like a penis and balls in the floorplan. :(

[abcdefz]

I doubt that he ever admitted to anything publicly. But I assume that, when you're making a sculpture, wouldn't you cast a scale version first?

I dunno. I don't know how you could not see it.

[abcdefz]

Okay, yeah: they cast an eight inch version first, which, if the turd theory were true, would make it close enough to life size... I just can't see how you could miss it.

[na§tee]

like the time in architectural history when my group and I designed a roman bath that accidentally turned out looking like a penis and balls in the floorplan. :(
i LOLed at this. bravo! (y) classy. that's some ancient history sophistication right thurr.

that car is u g l y :(

[abcdefz]

Wow. I really like that car. That sort of thing makes me rethink buying a car.

[na§tee]

it just looks sorta.. fat. bloated. and that the windshield sort of continues down the back in some strange transparent.. lick.

[Lyman Zerga]

in other words..disabled!