Speed is Beauty, Beauty Is Speed

Hello all, Wallio back with a lesson on aesthetics. People buy cars for alot of reasons. Looks are one of them.  But what makes a car look good? Clean, smooth lines, nice paint, curves in all the right place. A lot like a woman actually (just kidding ladies). However, if a car is fast it is automatically beautiful.

This especially true of race cars. If they go fast, they look good. If they look good, they usually go fast. If something looks wrong, it probably is. This years F1 cars with their bump noses and this years Indycars with their "bumpers" look hideous. Or do they? If they fly all will be forgotten. Of course, even by comparison they aren't that bad. Check them out compared to past designs......

First in case you live under a rock here's this year's Ferrari, the F2012:

And this year's Lotus Indycar, The DW12:

I think we can all agree something about them just doesn't look right. However, check out these design trends....

Tea-Tray Front Wings 1970s

March made customer chassis in F1 for decades and caused a stir with their mid-70s monstrosity. People laughed it off as a "Tea-tray" and shook their heads. Until it started winning. Then several teams adopted their own. While the tea-tray revolution was over before the 1970s were, it sparked a trend of ugly cars that soon won't be forgotten.

The Eifelland

The car above you is a tea-tray March underneath believe it or not. Trouble was they had on staff a Swiss designer of pens who thought this one piece body was the way to go. It wasn't. By mid-season the car reverted to a normal March and ditched all that heavy bodywork. Except for that periscope, I mean rearview mirror. That stayed all year, and never caught on. Gee I wonder why.....

X-Wings (mid-90s)

Tyrell (white car above) was a poor team on its last legs. They needed a cheap way to go fast. They had lots of scrap pieces of carbon fiber laying around, and crafted these wings to create mid-chassis downforce. People were horrified, but they worked,  so much so. that by the end of the year, every team was using their own version.  TV stations begged F1 to ban them, but they couldn't find a reason, until they started catching on airlines in pitlane. Safety was cited, and the X-wings (named after the Star Wars fighter) were banned. But not before Arrows tried this at Monaco....

The car wasn't allowed to race like that sadly (driver vision was cited as the reason) but it was the next logical extension of the concept. Reminds me of the car Rebel and I saw at Giants Despair last year....

I snapped a picture of this in the pits and yeah......what can we say?

So There you go. By comparsion the F1 and Indycars this years rules have given us are supermodels. The Indycar especially, has lost some of its ugliness by being several seconds a lap faster than its predecessor already in testing. But if you ever think a car is ugly, compare it to the Delta wing. If its prettier (and it will be) its ok. If its not, well god have mercy on our souls. See below, if you don't have a weak stomach. Wallio out.

Yup, gonna go vomit now......