NUNEATON, England — Outside at the top-secret MIRA automotive research facility here, the cars of the future lap a banked test track, slathered in camouflage paint. It’s a multimillion-dollar development program, carried out under strict security to stop spying.
The car we’re here for is leading edge, but no longer a secret: The new Mercedes-Benz B-Class. It isn’t the type of car that gets a lot of headlines, but Mercedes claims the baby Benz is the most aerodynamically efficient production car in the world.
This is no small thing, because, for all the talk of hybrid drivetrains, electric vehicles and other advanced tech, aerodynamics remains a vital tool for boosting efficiency. Independent testing by TÜV found the super-slippery shape of the B-Class can save £3,200 ($5,000) in fuel bills during a 100,000-mile lifetime when compared to its predecessor.
The trouble is, aerodynamics aren’t sexy. Horsepower is sexy. Top speed is sexy. Even the cool gadgets automakers are stuffing into new cars are (sorta) sexy. But aerodynamics? No matter how impressive, how useful, that is just that little bit too, well, nerdy.
That’s why we are at MIRA — to make aerodynamics sexy. Or at least pretty damn cool.
MIRA has a full-sized wind tunnel quite capable of generating 80 mph winds. The four massive propellers were pulled from an Avro Lincoln bomber (successor to the fabled Lancaster). At the flick of a switch, gale-force (or stronger) winds stream over a car, allowing engineers to determine how efficient it is.
Of course, seeing wind is impossible, so boffins waft smoke or spray fluorescent paint onto the car to judge where the wind is buffeting the body. Imagine driving through smoke billowing across a motorway or driving in spray and you get some sense of the experience.
To show off the slippery properties of their car, Mercedes are taking those boffins of fluorescent paint and turning them to 11. Pollyanna Woodward of British TV Channel 5’s Gadget Show was invited to spray intense flouro paint at the car under a bank of intense UV lights and allow the wind to do the rest.
Think of it as Andy Warhol meets Top Gear.
Filming it required a small army of cameramen, riggers, stunt safety experts and other assorted crew. Every single one of them had to be covered from head to toe. For good reason, too: The UV lights run at 750 degrees and are quite capable of blistering skin in minutes. And then there’s the paint. It’s parrafin-based, flammable and not the sort of thing you want to be huffing.
“When we were first called about this job it didn’t seem too serious,” says safety director Andy Harriss. “But when we looked closer we realized it involved covering a car in flammable liquid next to a very powerful heat source. In a 60 mph hurricane. In the dark.
“To get the ideal mixture for a fire would be unlikely, but it wouldn’t be impossible either and we couldn’t afford even this slim chance because if it did all go up we’d be creating the biggest backdraft in Britain.”
Six tons of concrete hold the lighting rig in place. Cameras and crew are tethered in place. After all, this is the very same wind tunnel where Richard Hammond flew. Woodward’s here to paint, not fly.
“I’m not sure what to expect,” she said moments before stepping into the wind tunnel. “But I’m in good hands.”
The lights go down. The tunnel must be pitch black so engineers see only the fluorescent paint and how it shows off the lines of the car. That, of course, makes filming a bit tricky.
“This has never been done before,” director Geoff Harrison explains. “We’re shooting a black car which we can’t see until it’s painted. The only thing the camera sees will be fluorescent.”
Harrison is using two state-of-the art £150,000 ($237,000) cameras of the type currently being used to film the new James Bond movie Skyfall. They’re in hermetically sealed plastic covers.
Harrisson makes the final safety checks. Woodward gets her cue. Showtime.
You can’t really tell it’s her stepping into the wind tunnel. She is unrecognizable behind her goggles and respirator. She wields a spray gun in each hand like a paint-toting gunslinger. The lights go out.
“Action,” Harrison calls. The wind tunnel rumbles to life. The wind picks up. The temperature falls.
“Cue paint….”
Woodward opens up with both barrels. The darkness is broken by explosions of fluorescence. Bright yellow paint blasts from the guns like rocket plumes, covering the iconic Mercedes three-pointed star on the nose of the B-Class. The shape of the car slowly emerges from the darkness, fluorescent paint streaming, trickling and rolling over the body as high-powered UV lights catch the unfolding spectacle.
It is impressive and bizarre, part art, part science. If nothing else, it turns dull facts, figures, equations and lab-speak into a living, breathing reality.
It makes aerodynamics, if not sexy, pretty damn cool.
Photos, video: incworld.com
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