Retractable Door Handles
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X214
Thus by reducing the frontal area and making it sleeker/slippery, and then shaping the rest of the car to allow the air to flow through with less impedance, should in theory result in a better Cd number, but I have not studied this in too much detail.
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'26 E53 | '08 E90M
Right - You can make a perfect teardrop that has a Cd of 0.10 but if you make it the size of the Hindenburg you’re still going to need a lot of power to push it through the air - increasing length of the body does help with Cd, generally. And a wider front vs rear end, if you employ it correctly, can help shape the way the air flows over the rest of the car - but generally frontal area is still going to subtract more than it adds to your efficiency.
Last edited by Richbot; Feb 25, 2026 at 08:07 AM.
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From: Atlanta
06 E55 Black
That’s interesting. I would have thought that a larger frontal area (as opposed to a sleeker/aerodynamic frontal area), would increase drag. The air resistance that the car has to push through, would have more frontal area to manage, thus increasing drag, the way I am thinking.
Thus by reducing the frontal area and making it sleeker/slippery, and then shaping the rest of the car to allow the air to flow through with less impedance, should in theory result in a better Cd number, but I have not studied this in too much detail.
Thus by reducing the frontal area and making it sleeker/slippery, and then shaping the rest of the car to allow the air to flow through with less impedance, should in theory result in a better Cd number, but I have not studied this in too much detail.
So for example you could have a vehicle with a larger frontal area than another vehicle but with a superior drag coefficient yielding a lower drag area number and therefore a lower energy loss to drag
