The car has 81,000 miles and has been serviced regularly. It will come with documentation of those services. The car does need to have the dash replaced, but the current owner thinks he has the part and if he can find it, he will include it in the sale. The radio display is also missing pixels (another common problem with the Viggen). The front bumper could use a respray. It could use new tires. The front emblem needs to be replaced. The title is clean and it has been in no accidents. Mechanically the car runs great and pulls hard. The clutch is responsive and transmission engages all gears without a fuss. This car is perfect for someone who wants a car that is great to drive and also extremely limited. You run a long shot of even seeing another one of these cars in the States.

3/9/10 Edit: The car is now sold!

On Saturday, Chris was on a drive and had the misfortune of writing off his Ferrari to an engine fire. Here is his transcript of the events:

So I am out for a Police Charity drive with a group of Exotic Cars. Great day, great weather, enjoying the car, all is good. Heading home and get a smell of fuel inside the car. I look at the cars in front of me to see if there is an old clunker running rich and making that smell, but no they all look pretty new. That smell is coming from me! I look in the rear view mirror where I can see half of the engine and compartment and it looks normal but I start trying to change lanes so I can pull off to the side of the freeway and check it out. Nobody wants to let me over so by the time I am one lane away from the side I look back again and now there are flames in the engine compartment. I  crank the car over to the shoulder and know in my head that the car is bad and I probably have 3 seconds to grab whatever I can from the car and jump out.

I decide to grab my briefcase from the trunk and hit the button to release it on my way out of the car. I get to the trunk and it is still locked. The car is starting really flame up but I go back inside and hit the button once again and I hear it release. I open the trunk and grab my briefcase and start running away from the car.

As you can see in the picture it took about 3 minutes to fully engulf in flames.

Of course it is insured but it is sad to watch your favorite car that you pamper and enjoy just burn to the ground. It is like watching your dog get hit by a car.

So like the old saying. “Other than that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln”. It was a beautiful day in So Cal but ended on a sad note.

Chris Hundley

Even worse news than that, however, is the news of Payman Engheta’s death. He was driving his Lamborghini on Bouquet and lost control. A news clip regarding the crash can be found here. We are already trying to put together a memorial drive to commemorate his life and establish a way to donate to his family. Dr. Engheta will be missed greatly. Rest in peace, friend.

Update: You can donate to us directly through Paypal and Brian and I will deliver the funds personally.

In the mean time, I’d like to announce the first club contest. As the Formula 1 season is almost upon us, I have purchased and scrounged up some giveaway items to the most predictive person amongst our ranks. That is to say, the person who can tell me the first, second, and third place drivers in the opening Grand Prix at Bahrain will win a wonderful Waterblade from California Car Cover (you know, the same one I said would be an excellent gift in our Christmas time Gift Guide). If you feel up to the challenge of telling me the first, second, and third place drivers at the conclusion of the World Championship, you will take home Meguiar’s Clay Bar kit! Just the thing you need to finally de-grime your car. The fine print: to be eligible for these awe inspiring prizes you must follow some simple rules:

• First, you must be registered with our club through this site. You can do that here.
• Second, you must post your prediction as a comment to this article and only this article. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to the big white text box. That’s for comments. Put your prediction in the text box in a legible way. If I can’t understand your prediction you are disqualified. Hit “Leave Comment”. Good work!
• Third, all of your predictions must be in the right finishing order. Something your predictions don’t need to be is: correctly spelled. You may spell Jarno Trulli as Yarno Truely and we will accept that. Seriously, though, Jarno isn’t going to win anything this year so don’t pick him for either or we will consider you pretty daft.
• Fourth, submissions will be closed on Thursday, March 11th at Noon exactly. If your prediction is submitted later than that it is disqualified.
• Fifth, one prediction per person. If you choose to submit more than one, I will only consider your first prediction.
• Lastly, if no one guesses Bahrain’s finishers correctly, the prize will be given to the winner of the Championship prediction. If those aren’t predicted correctly the prizes will be put up for grabs in another, less difficult contest.

Good luck to everyone!

In other news, Brian and I are still trying to come up with a better location for our meet ups. Paul has an unhampered fervor to be seen at the Valencia Town Center right on Town Center drive. Brian and I love that idea but it has been proving to be a nightmare to organize. We would appreciate any suggestions for alternate locations to get together. Ideally, somewhere with good food or snacks nearby in addition to nice exposure.

I’ve also had autocross on the brain. I personally would love to hold an autocross competition here in Santa Clarita. I’m still gauging interest as well as seeing if it would actually be possible to organize. If you are interested in helping out with getting this going as a monthly or bi-monthly (the once every 2 months variety) please let me know and we can work out some details.

One of the helpful elements used is called a bumper canard or dive plane. As seen on the DTM Touring Car above, the bumper canards are just above the front splitter and below the Dunlop sticker. These canards serve to add more downforce at the front increasing overall car balance in cars that have excessive rear downforce. This allows the car to be setup to maximum downforce without having to compromise the cars handling .

Also in prevalent use is the vortex generator. These devices create a venturi effect that keeps the air flowing closely together. This compressed flow allows the air to be directed much more accurately and in higher volume. You can see these devices on both the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution MR (pictured) and the Subaru Impreza WRX STi. In these cars, the vortex generator sends more air over the rear wing, thereby increasing its efficiency.

In the past, other unusual designs were used to increase overall downforce. The most famous of these odd designs was the Brabham BT46B Formula 1 car, otherwise known as “the fan car”. This car had been designed by Gordan Murray to use a fan attached to the engine to suck air from underneath the car. This lead to a vacuum effect being created underneath the car which allowed it to stick to the road like glue. Niki Lauda and John Watson went on to pilot the fan car for only one race: the 1978 Swedish Grand Prix at Anderstorp. Watson DNF’d and Lauda went on to win comfortably. The fan car ended up being banned shortly thereafter.

This concludes our look at modern car aerodynamics. Please leave a comment to discuss your thoughts or opinions on this piece. Let us know what you’d like to hear about next time.

The diffuser works in two ways. First, it reduces the turbulent airflow.  Second, it slows down and pressurizes the air as it comes off the car.

Turbulent airflow is always problematic to aerodynamic efficiency. The diffuser reduces this turbulence. When the air hits the front splitter and is forced underneath the car it speeds up and decreases in pressure. When it enters the diffuser the air is allowed to expand and slow down increasing pressure to equate to the normal atmospheric pressure of the surrounding air. This is where the airflow is smoothed to decrease turbulence. If the air were to blast into the normal airstream at its high velocity, low pressure state, parasitic drag is created. This is air needing to fill the void left by the moving object it follows. The diffuser serves to eliminate the creation of parasitic drag and the air is replaced in the same state as the surrounding air.

The second function of a diffuser is a suction effect created by the pressure difference between the fast moving air under the car and the slow moving air in the diffuser. As the air slows, it decreases in pressure. This low pressure area will create a vacuum effect. This vacuum sucks the rear of the car closer to the ground (seeing as the it cannot really move the ground up to meet the car, all relativistic physics aside). It should be noted that most of the effectiveness of the diffuser is lost if there is too much clearance between the road and the underbody.

Come back next week for a look at the rest of the miscellaneous canards and fins that are also common in aerodynamics today.

Although not the first to dabble in aerodynamics in racing, Chaparral Cars is widely considered the first to do it successfully.  Jim Hall would race through the 60’s and 70’s radical new cars that he designed using his engineering background and an impressive hand behind the wheel of  a race car. His cars featured movable wings and, in one of his last cars, fans to suck air out from underneath the car. Hall’s cars were extremely successful in the Can-Am series and lived on in legend to this day.

Today, rear wings are a huge part of the aerodynamic success of vehicles simply because they can create huge amounts of downforce. Put together with the downforce created by the front splitter, at speed the car can have thousands of pounds of artificial weight added to it. This balance is very important because just like adjusting the suspension to account for handling, the aerodynamic elements will play a large role in the overall stability at speed. Having too much front downforce will cause the car to be very loose and vice versa. Also there is the element of drag to consider. The rear wing will cause massive amounts of downforce but also cause lots of drag, slowing the car down and making higher speeds much harder to attain. This balance between top speed and handling must also be considered when setting the car.

Next week: the venerable diffuser.

The leading edge of a car is generally called a splitter. This is due to the fact that at this point the air is split, with some of it having to go over the car and some under. This is important because of the differential in pressure that is created in this process. The air flowing underneath the car speeds up creating low pressure. The air flowing over the car encouters a surface with a high angle of attack and forces the car into the ground. The low pressure area under the car sucks it down and the high pressure area above pushes the car into the ground.

The math: D = 1/2 (WS x H x AoA) x F x ρ x V^2

Expressed as a sentence, it reads downforce is equal to one half of the width of the wing times the height of the wing times the angle of attack, the sum of which is multiplied by the coefficient of drag of the wing, times the air density, times the velocity of the airflow squared.

Unfortunately, there is more to a car than just airflow. Radiators, oil coolers, brake ducts, and ram air intakes are a few of a cars components that require airflow to provide cooling. In the picture above, cooling ducts account for a majority of the leading edge of that 911. So in many cases, figuring out a way to cool a car sufficiently and keep aerodynamic efficiency is of prime concern for a designer.

Next week: the rear wing.

First, every car guy needs to be able to drive, and common wisdom says that if the DMV has revoked your license you can’t do just that. So the car gods blessed us with the greatest tool to avoid speeding tickets: the Valentine 1 radar detector. This baby is awesome. It will detect radar emissions long before the competition as well as the police are able to see that you are speeding. On top of the normal band and strength indicators that you get with any other detector you get directional arrows to tell you where the signal is coming from as well as a signal counter to detect if you are seeing more than one radar beam. Its ability to detect laser is hotly debated but I will say this: it is, without a doubt, the best product of its kind on the market. Period.

Grab it for $399 at the Valentine 1 store.

For the wash and wax crowd there are a handful of wonderful car washing accessories for the car guy’s garage. The one most often overlooked, though, is an orbital buffer/polisher. It is a work of wonder that helps eliminate pesky paint swirls that will accumulate over time with regular hand washes. The orbital polisher is great to ensure a beautifully polished wax job and an amazing looking clear coat for years. The importance of having a quality orbital sander is due to the volatile nature of machine buffing. If you have a circular buffer that rotates too fast, you run the risk of burning the paint. Orbital polishers work in such a manner that you can buff your car with virtually no risk of damage. The name we turn to for the best in these machines is the Porter Cable 7424. It is the orbital polisher of choice for both professional detailers as well as us hobbyists.

Pick one up from Tools Plus for $109 plus shipping.

Another wonderful gift is a car cover. Simple and effective the car cover really helps keep a car clean while it sits waiting for the weekend. On top of that, it is helpful in reducing nicks from accidents in the garage. They really are very useful and many car guys will love them. I recommend California Car Cover as they have been producing quality car covers for years and have many other great implements on their site, like the water blade which Brian and I swear by.

Sort through a bunch of options for your car cover or just get a gift certificate at California Car Cover’s website.

Back to washing and waxing, if your car guy is running at all low on cleaning products or doesn’t have all of the fun specialty products, its time to give him or her the car care kit of all car care kits. Brian and I have always been Meguiar’s guys because they have the best products known to cars. Barry has given us a great kit with everything you need to cover your bases, from clay bar to tire care. The Meguiar’s Complete Car Kit is the one to have.

Get if from Amazon for $45 and get free shipping.

Another great gift is a couple of tickets to your local car museum. Good ones are located in many cities all over the world and we in Los Angeles just so happen to have one of the best: the Peterson Automotive Museum. This is a great opportunity to let your car guy delve into the history and lore that surround the car and it’s culture. On top of that, you will probably have a good time too, if you go with him.

Pick up a $60 annual membership to the Peterson for yourself and your car guy at their website.

A stocking stuffer that every car guy appreciates is a subscription or renewal to a car magazine of his or her choice. Obviously, you are going to want to find out what that magazine is by snooping around the coffee table (or, God forbid, the bathroom). If your car guy doesn’t have a subscription to any magazines you can get him a subscription to a generic one like Car and Driver, Road and Track, or Automobile Magazine (the best of the three in my opinion). If you are looking for a magazine about a specific car, you might be better off just signing your car guy up for the car club associated with it. Many car clubs happen to put out the best publications specific to their marks. Take, for instance, BMWCCA and Roundel, Porsche Club of America and Panorama, and Ferrari Owners Club and Pilota. On top of the magazine subscription for a club you also get many services and amenities that can be quite helpful.

Prices vary but you are only a short search away.

So there you have my list of good ideas for gifts for your car guy or gal. Let us know if you have something cool as well! Merry Christmas!