Here’s an excerpt from Insideline @ Edmunds.com
STUTTGART, Germany — When Mercedes-Benz unwraps its tasty new 2011 E-Class Cabriolet at the 2010 Detroit Auto Show next month, the big news will be its place in the automotive firmament as perhaps the first soft top that can be driven comfortably with the lid down all year long.
This Sir Thomas More of a four-seat convertible owes its versatility to a remarkable invention called the AirCap, a feature that took a team of Daimler engineers four full years to develop.
They garnered 20 patents along the way, but perhaps more rewarding once the car hits the streets late next summer will be the thanks of men and women around the globe who can finally ride in an open car without worry about frazzled hairdos and frozen faces.
The AirCap, an aluminum, mesh and plastic air diverter blade that rises from the top of the windshield frame with the press of a center-console-mounted button, is an engineer’s way of fooling the laws of aerodynamics into thinking that the E’s smooth, low-profile ragtop is still in place and that all those heads of hair aren’t there for turbulence to tussle.
The device, which forms a broad and glossy black frame at the top of the E-Class Cabriolet’s curved windshield when stowed, rises up to 2.4 inches above the top of the glass and flips into a horizontal position when deployed.
It works in conjunction with a height-adjustable three-position mesh draft-stop mounted between the rear seat head restraints to alter the flow of air over and around the cabin when the top is down.
The effect, best experienced at speeds of 30-150 mph, with the side windows up and top down (it wouldn’t make sense to deploy if the top was up, and it won’t operate in that circumstance anyhow), is wondrous and threefold:
It deflects the wind that would otherwise flow over the top of the windshield and pour down into the cabin, especially affecting those in the backseats.
The deflected air, which takes on the approximate curvature of the convertible top (a curve that’s visible in computer simulations and in a plume of smoke that defines the flow in wind tunnel tests) helps keep warm air inside the cabin rather than forcing it out with an in-rush of chilled outside air.
The relative absence of turbulence and wind rush inside the open cabin results in a much quieter top-down ride, making conversation — even cell-phone calls — possible at speeds of up to 75 mph.
These, by the way, aren’t just claims made by Mercedes but actual observations made while sitting in the open cabin of a pre-production E-Class Cabriolet at Daimler’s 70-year-old wind tunnel facility at the mother plant in Stuttgart’s Unterturkheim district.
With wind tunnel and aerodynamics manager Teddy Woll at the controls, the E-Class Cabriolet’s top stowed under the rear deck and the side windows up, the air flow from the giant fan gradually rose to a speed of 140 km/h, equivalent to driving along a U.S. highway at about 85 mph.
Read the rest of the article here
Another great innovation from Mercedes-Benz…
The 2011 Mercedes-Benz E-Class Cabriolet will be something to look forward, and I think this feature will be a hit with customers. Mercedes-Benz is bringing out the new AirCap technology, paired with the Airscarf technology (previously only available on the SLK and SL models … which adds heater vents placed in the headrests), which will in theory allow drivers to enjoy the top down all year around. With the 5.5L V8 (making 382 horsepower) .. this should be one hell of a car to look forward too. It will be interesting to see how it goes up against the BMW 3-Series, 6-Series, and Audi A4.
No comments:
Post a Comment