Aerodynamics

Aerodynamics analyzes and documents the behavior of air interacting with a solid body, traditionally through empirical research conducted in wind tunnels. It was first applied at the beginning of the twentieth century to study ways of increasing aircraft lift force and establishing the most streamlined forms.

In 1925, Paul Jaray (1889–1974) achieved a milestone in the automobile industry with close-to-the-ground designs inspired by the shape of a water drop, at that time considered the ideal natural streamlined form. These early developments in automobile aerodynamics were later refined by designers such as Wunibald Kamm (1893–1966), who demonstrated that the water drop form was actually relatively ineffective in reducing wind resistance (Automobile Design).

American (→) streamline design proved to be more about pseudo-aerodynamic stylistic (→) trends than about actually reducing drag, and its significance receded following the whimsical “rocket” designs of the 1950s. In the postwar...