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[bulldogtrekker]

One-off diamond-layout 1960 Pininfarina X heads to auction



Zero point two-zero, or better than the Tatra T77 and almost as good as the GM EV1. That's the coefficient of drag rating for the 1960 Pininfarina X, one of the most aerodynamic cars built and one of the oddest, thanks to its diamond-shaped wheel layout. It also makes it the most aerodynamically efficient vehicle to cross the block at next month's Barrett-Jackson sale.

Other prototypes and even production cars used the unconventional diamond layout over the years. Sunbeam produced a hundred or so around the turn of the century, Wolseley and Voisin had each proposed such a vehicle before World War II, and a California tinkerer named H. Gordon Hansen designed and built his own Gordon Diamond by 1947, but all for different reasons. Hansen, for instance, designed his largely as a safety car and figured that the best way to fit a perimeter bumper to a car was to rearrange the positions of the wheels.

Alberto Morelli had an entirely different purpose in designing the Pininfarina X, as Karl Ludvigsen wrote in Hemmings Sports & Exotic Car #53. A professor at Turin's Polytechnic University, Morelli had a deep interest in aerodynamics as they applied both to aircraft and to automobiles. Coachbuilder Pininfarina (known as Pinin Farina up until 1960) approached Morelli and asked him to apply his research into something practical: an extremely efficient, low-drag family sedan.

The diamond layout that he chose allowed a narrow cross section at the front that widened toward the middle and tapered away toward the rear, an ideal aerodynamic shape, he argued. The front wheel would thus steer, the middles would serve as outriggers and the rear would drive the car. He chose a 43hp 1,089cc four-cylinder engine and four-speed transmission from a Fiat 1100 to power it (installed at an angle behind the right rear quarter panel and driving the rear wheel via a V-drive apparatus) and suspended it with synthetic rubber at each wheel. The fins at the rear, according to Ludvigsen and Morelli, had nothing to do with American automotive fashion; instead, they actually helped to counter the loss of stabilization that came as a result of the highly aerodynamic shape.....

LINK:
See more at: http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2014/12/24/diamond-layout-1960-pininfarina-x-heads-to-auction/?refer=news#sthash.BEQCt1Vr.dpuf

[Pow]

Looks like the kinda auto that Maxwell Smart or Ace Ventura would drive.

[Bud Brewster]

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It sort of reminds me of the 1962 Ghia Selene II — which is not one of the more amazing "future cars" from 1950/1960s, but for some reason it's always appealed to me.



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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[scotpens]

[Bud Brewster]

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Hey, I see what you mean!

I realized that if we took the wheels off the 1962 Ghia Selene II it would make a beautiful little "shuttle craft"!



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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Krel]

[Bud Brewster]

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Damn, I didn't save the Paint.net version with the transparent background! If I had, I could have easily made an underwater version in about five minutes flat!
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)