Kammback


A Kammback — also known as "Kamm tail" or "K-tail" — is an :Category:Automotive styling features|automotive styling feature. The rear of the car slopes downwards before abruptly cutting off with a vertical surface. A Kammback minimizes aero-dynamic drag while maintaining a practical shape for a vehicle. The Kammback is named after German aero-dynamicist Wunibald Kamm for his work developing the design in the 1930s.
A Kammback reduces fuel consumption and improves performance at higher speeds.

Origins

As the speed of cars increased during the 1920s and 1930s, designers noticed automotive aerodynamics. In 1922, Paul Jaray patented a car based on a tear-drop profile to minimize aerodynamic drag created at higher speeds. The streamliner vehicles of the mid 1930s — such as the Tatra 77, Chrysler Airflow and Lincoln-Zephyr — were designed according to these discoveries.
However, the long tail was not a practical shape for a car, so automotive designers sought other solutions. In 1935, German aircraft designer Georg Hans Madelung showed alternatives to minimize drag without a long tail. In 1936, a similar theory was applied to cars after Baron Reinhard Koenig-Fachsenfeld developed a smooth roofline but with an abrupt end at a vertical surface, effective in achieving low amounts of drag similar to a streamlined body. He worked on an aerodynamic design for a bus, and Koenig-Fachsenfeld patented the idea. Koenig-Fachsenfeld worked with Wunibald Kamm at Stuttgart University, investigating vehicle shapes "provide a good compromise between everyday utility and an attractive drag coefficient". In addition to aerodynamic efficiency, Wunibald Kamm emphasized vehicle stability in his design. He proved mathematically and empirically the effectiveness of the design.
In 1938, Kamm produced a prototype using a Kammback, based on a BMW 328. The Kammback, along with other aerodynamic modifications, gave the prototype a drag coefficient of 0.25.
The earliest mass-produced cars using Kammback principles were the 1949–1951 Nash Airflyte in the U.S.A. and the 1952–1955 Borgward Hansa 2400 in Europe.

Aerodynamic theory

The ideal shape to minimize drag is a teardrop. However researchers including Kamm found that abruptly cutting off the tail resulted in minimal increase in drag. The reason for this is that a turbulent wake region forms behind the vertical surface at the rear of the car. This wake region mimics the effect of the tapered tail in that air in the free stream does not enter this region, therefore smooth airflow is maintained which minimises drag.
Kamm's design is based on the tail being truncated at the point where the cross section area is 50% of the car's maximum cross section, which Kamm found represented a good compromise—by that point the turbulence typical of flat-back vehicles had been mostly eliminated at typical speeds.
The Kamm tail presented a partial solution to the problem of aerodynamic lift, which was becoming severe as sport car racing speeds increased during the 1950s. The design paradigm of sloping the tail to reduce drag, carried to an extreme on cars such as the , resulted in an airfoil effect lifting the rear of the car at speed, that could result in instability or loss of control. The Kamm tail decreased the area of the lifting surface while creating a low pressure zone underneath the tail.

Usage

In 1959, the Kamm tail came into use on full-body racing cars as an anti-lift measure, and within a few years would be used on virtually all such vehicles. The design had a resurgence in the early 2000s as a method to reduce fuel consumption in hybrid electric vehicles.
Several cars have been marketed as Kammbacks, despite the profile not adhering to aerodynamic philosophy of a Kammback. These models include the 1971–1977 Chevrolet Vega Kammback wagon, the 1981–1982 AMC Eagle Kammback, the AMC AMX-GT and the Pontiac Firebird–based "Type K" concept cars.
Cars that have had a Kammback include: