Are We There Yet?

Ever since Brian O’ Conner and Dominic Toretto raced the quarter mile past the railroad tracks to end the first of six The Fast and The Furious movies, I’ve seen all sorts of motor vehicles being altered to look like their favourite counterparts in the movie. From having their vehicles painted the same way, to purchasing body kits to make the ordinary Mitsubishi Lancer look like its on-steroids counterpart Mitsubishi Evolution “Evo” VII. Once I even overheard a conversation where two people were talking about the rear spoilers on the Toyota Supra O’ Conner used in the scene I just described above.

Wait a minute, the Supra did not have a rear spoiler. Now, before you go and call a lynch mob to hang this pretender, please allow me a moment to explain. You see, the Supra had a rear wing installed and not a spoiler. What’s the difference?

I’ll try to explain the difference without going too technical. A spoiler redirects the air flowing across the vehicle and uses the redirected air to increase the vehicle’s front end grip allowing it to turn into corners at a faster speed.

So if a spoiler is meant to do what is defined above, isn’t that what the rear wing does to the rear end of the vehicle as well? In a sense, a rear wing also increases the grip of the vehicle. But the job of the rear wing is to create additional drag (wind resistance) to generate enough push (downforce) on the rear end of the vehicle to increase mechanical grip.

One may ask, doesn’t the rear wing then compromise all the hard work that is being done by the spoiler? Not totally because a properly setup rear wing gives the vehicle the full mechanical tire grip it needs to round the corners faster without having the rear end lose traction and slip. That is why racing cars, notably Formula-class cars are able to turn into 90-degree corners three to four times faster than a regular production car.

This delicate front and rear grip balance that can allow cars to speed around corners is the reason why aerodynamicists in most Formula-class series are much sought after and are paid in the millions. A well balanced Formula-class car that can turn into a corner even one-tenth of a second faster than the other car can spell the difference between a world championship and a perennial runner-up.

So why do owners of production cars install wings on their vehicles? Some install wings because they use these cars to participate in production-class racing events. Some are car enthusiasts who use these wings to supplement their car’s aerodynamics as they race up the mountains with their fellow enthusiasts in what is referred to as a Togue (which I will talk about in the future).

For others, it is more of an aesthetic rather than an actual function. As I mentioned above, some people do their best to replicate the cars in the movie. And there are others who, upon seeing their neighbour’s car fitted with a rear wing, also fit a rear wing onto their vehicle.

A nice rear wing would look great on most production sedans, even if it’s purely aesthetic. But I have yet to fathom, even aesthetically and even if your neighbour installed rear wings on his good ol’ reliable Kia Pride, would you have rear wings installed on your multicab pick-up.