Great Wings of Car History

Wingin’ It

From purely functional to patently ridiculous, airfoils are the ultimate automotive ornamentation.

Plymouth Superbird

When engineer John Pointer was reassigned from Chrysler’s Missile Division (yes, really), his first act was to sketch a nose cone and a two-foot-high rear wing over the body of the 1969 Dodge Charger 500. The Plymouth version, the 1970 Superbird, applied the same aero formula to the Road Runner coupe and added the ­Looney Tunes character to the tail.

Winged Porsche 550 Spyder

Built as an experiment by a 22-year-old Swiss engineering student, the chunky wing on this Porsche 550 Spyder marked a mid-Fifties attempt at generating downforce. In his first outing, Michel May outqualified Juan Manuel Fangio at the Nürburgring. Porsche’s factory racing team threw a fit and got the car banned.

Chaparral 2E

Jim Hall’s mid-Sixties Can-Am racer was the quintessential and most conspicuous winged car. Its massive rear wing was mounted high to clear turbulent air stirred up by the body and could be feathered to reduce drag by a driver-actuated pedal.

—Brendan McAleer