Jet-Jock

Anyone have any idea why the coupe's have that indentation in the roof and B-pillar?

Just a question I was wondering to myself today. A couple of us at work have Vettes and we usually park next to each other. So while looking at them today together I just wondered why that indentation is there?

Funn One

AERO-Dynamics

beefaronie

So the driver and passenger can wear helmets.

Jet-Jock

Good answer

JH

Just a little extra head room for tall drivers. There was much discussion about that feature when the C5 was introduced. It was proclaimed "very cool" at the time.

jrose7004

For your head!

NEED FOR SPEED

The rear glass has the indention too.

JC in XTC5

The details of how they came up with that design element is in the book "All Corvettes Are Red". A great stocking stuffer!

AbsolutHank

While I don't doubt its a great stocking stuffer, how about you just tell us now

Benpup

True True True. Read an article about it. Something to do with the C6. The C6's is a bit deeper because the butt end is shorter. If I can find it I'll post the link.
Laminar Flow to concentrate the flow away from the center of the roof (as that would cause some lift).
If we could get away with putting Laminar flow tabs ( 1-2 inch tabs) on the underbelly of the car in a staggered manner | \ / | \ / etc. it would glue the sucker to the road.
Laminar tabs on the top of an aircraft wing causes lift. on the bottom it's the opposite. They tried it a number of years ago on Formula 1, but they drag anyway and the scraping took them off.

mph1972

It does have something to do with the aero-dynamics of it all.

Benpup

One ting you have to admit this forum makes you THINK and FIND OUT!!!

Friend of mine sent this in from his lab in CA.
The Laminar flow theory deals with the breaking down or air over a smooth surface such as an aircraft wing, the body of an automobile, or the hull of a racing yacht. The development of a smooth surface on the top of an airfoil, body or an automobile, or the hull of a racing yacht causes turbulence of the air that causes increased drag on the wing, body, or hull if both had the same curvature on both the upper and lower surface. On an Aircraft wing the design was relatively thin at the leading edge and progressively widened to a point of greatest thickness as far aft as possible. The theory in using an airfoil of this design was to maintain the adhesion of the boundary layers of airflow which are present in flight as far aft of the leading edge as possible. On an automobile the underside of the vehicle is porous (wheel wells, vent intakes, radiator intakes etc.) so if the top were perfectly wedged and smooth the vehicle would virtually lift off the highway at great speed. By raising areas on a vehicle body at all axis (wind never blow straight across an object in motion) dimples, vanes, tabs, smooth flowing longitudinal humps breaks down the air to give the vehicle in motion less drag through less turbulence. The usual definition of a laminar flow airfoil is that the favorable pressure gradient ends somewhere between 30 and 75% of chord. The P-51 Mustang was the first aircraft to use laminar flow. The first vehicle to use the same principle was the gull wing Mercedes. The first ship to use it was the Flying Cloud, a merchant Clipper ship that set records on trips from the US to China.
If you drive with dew on your car, the dew will not so quickly be blown dry where the air flow has this thin laminar layer. Downstream, where the laminar flow has become turbulent, the air flow quickly dries the dew.
My friend said on his coupe tends to dry off quicker than his buddy with an FRC.

Grumpy

RockyL32

Just a simple styling cue.

Vetteman Jack

Going to join the bandwagon - it has something to do with the air flow over the top of the car.

2 GRUMPY