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Styling, fins, aerodynamics, and the Dart concept car

The tests demonstrated that the design of our 1957 model cars exerts a stabilizing effect much as do the tail fins on airplanes and "unlimited class" power boats. With the high upswept fins of our 1957 models, tests showed that road-holding stability was improved, reducing steering correction by as much as 20 percent in strong cross winds at normal highway driving speeds.

Original is at Styling, fins, aerodynamics, and the Dart concept car Styling, fins, aerodynamics, and the Dart concept car
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"Historical SLs in the wind tunnel" - Mercedes-Benz Social Publish

The most important results: the 300 SL (W 194 series) racing car has a drag coefficient cD = 0.376. It is thus around 20 per cent better – that is, considerably better – than its contemporary comparison vehicle, the 300 S (W 188 series), for which a value of cD = 0.462 was obtained. This result underscores the efforts of the engineers and designers back then to attain a low drag coefficient as an important prerequisite for the SL’s racing success – which the car then went on to achieve in the course of the 1952 racing season at different international motorsport events, for example at Le Mans or in the Carrera Panamericana in Mexico. The 300 SL (W 198 I) series-production sports car returned a drag coefficient value of cD = 0.389.

.............................At the same time the results of the measurements showed how far from reality was the drag coefficient cD = 0.25 value determined in the 1950s with a 1-in-5 clay scale model of the W 194 – and how great an influence, for example, the air flow through the engine compartment (which of course the clay model did not have) has on the overall air resistance of the car.