Gullwing drag coefficient.

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The past twenty, thirty years it's quite common to test new cars in a wind tunnel to measure its drag coefficient. But what about older cars? How do they compare? That's just what Daimler wanted to find out, so they brought two of their 1950's sports cars, a 1954 300 SL (W 198 I series) and a 1952 300 S (W 188 series) to the wind tunnel. And for comparison reasons they also took a 1951 Mercedes-Benz 300 Sc Coupé (W 188 series), as some of its technology was used for the other two. That both sports cars did well in the test comes as no surprise. The 1952 Panamericana 300SL had a drag coefficient of 0.376 and the 1954 Gullwing had a value of cD = 0.389. But a real surprise was the 300S touring car that returned a drag coefficient of 0.462, which is lots better than the 1963 230 SL "Pagoda", that had a drag coefficient cD of 0.515! It all goes to show that we have here the old motto: if a car looks good, it must be good!

For those of you who are interested in the whole story and the results of the tests, please click 'Read More'

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