svagusta

Rear end is super ugly. Rest of the car is not much better. Maybe Alfa's just don't do anything for me...

mmarshall

The guy who designed the 1Gen Tribeca's grille, BTW, was hired from Alfa. It just didn't work as well, though, on the Tribeca......perhaps because the Subaru stylists also insisted on using those side-wings next to the grille that was supposed to remind one (like with Saab) of the company's aero/aviation heritage. They tried the same thing, for a while, on the Impreza as well....and it didn't work there either.

GS wanted

iTrader: (9)

That TZ3 Stradale is butt ugly. Pun intended because that rear is hideous.

Lil4X

It wasn't designed for looks - it's aerodynamics. Based on the work of German professor Wunibald Kamm in the 1930's, the Kamm tail, or in the US, "Kammback", was a feature of several racing cars of the mid to late sixties. One of the earliest featured outings was in 1963 - the Alfa TZ Giulia, penned by Zagato.



It worked like this: a full teardrop shape was known to produce minimal drag, but it was impractical to taper the body down to a point, due to other complications of excessive length that long lever arm would produce. In research it was found that airflow, once started around a smooth teardrop shape would largely continue in that direction without turbulence, even if the teardrop was squared off or even recessed once the flow pattern had been established.

It worked so well that cars racing on high-speed courses found considerable advantage in the Kamm tail. The result can be seen on Le Mans Cobra coupes, Ferraris, even the Ford GT40 of the era. Alfa used it not only on its factory racers, but on its public offerings as well. The Kamm tail became emblematic of high-speed performance of the late '60's and found its way onto representative cars of almost every make - whether they had any actual performance capability or not.


Cobra Daytona Coupe


Aston Martin


TVR


Honda Insight

Motor

I thought it lived on as this...

mmarshall

As I understand it, the Viper could not be made into a M-B product, for a number of reasons.....chassis-stiffness being one of them. Also, Mercedes would probably never build a car that unrefined.

<VENOM>

The Viper was not made into a MB, a new Viper was in the works with an aluminum chassis and new suspension, MB started working with the Dodge team making 2 cars side by side that should have shared platforms, but Chrysler ran out of money and MB went forward, end of story.

The SLS and Viper ACR are close in specs, the new Viper will probably be the finished product that Dodge was working on with MB