Oldest Example of Aerodynamic Design in a Vehicle?

Well, the Cugnot steam tractor from the 1700's might be considered so, since it had

a round, ball shaped boiler out in the front of it, to split the wind at 3 miles per hour.

Aristotle and Archimedes (2nd and 3rd centuries, BCE)

Newton (1726)

Bernoulli (1738)

Cayley (1799)

Euler (1757)

and Da Vinci might disagree. 

You are describing "streamlining" not "aerodynamics" to be precise. The fellows mentioned above were involved in the evolution of aerodynamics.

(Just sayin'.)

From: The Truth About Cras

Same source:

The evolution of aerodynamics for LSR cars was remarkably rapid, as this Stanley Steamer Rocket of 1906 evidently shows. And the increase in speed was even more dramatic: the Rocket broke the 200km barrier, with a run of 205.44 kmh (127.66  mph). That would not be bettered until 1924, and not until 2009 for steam powered vehicles.

Same source, again, and later, but a bit more McKeen-like:

The first known attempt at streamlining a passenger car is this Alfa Romeo from 1914, built by the coach builder Castagna for the Italian Count Ricotti. Due to the very heavy bodywork, it turned out to not improve on the top speed of the open Alfa it was based on.

One way or another, the McKeene car is/was a very cool looking piece of equipment. it certainly was "one of the first attempts" at streamlining on a commercial scale.

Streamlining as a concept is quite old, initially used, I think, for marine transportation - boat hulls and in the late Victorian era some submarines, etc.  Many early "Zeppilin" type powered balloons (photo below is from 1900).  I know of no locomotive that was streamlined ealrier than the McKeen Motor coach, but it would not surprise me is some wacko-inventer tried his hand at it in the late 1900s.  Regardless, I think the McKeen motor coach is certainly among the first and perhaps the oldest existing streamlined trains. 

The Petaluma and Santa Rosa Railroad, an electric railroad in Northern California, had several cars known as "wind splitters". i believe these cars were built by St Louis Car Company in 1904 and were exhibited at the 1904 St Louis World Fair.  The cars ran in to the 1930s when P and SR discontinued passenger operation. The McKeen Car is clearly a copy of the St Louis design.  There is still at last one Wind Splitter body around being used as a home.  There are a number of books on the P and SR with photos of these cars. If you would like more information I would suggest you contact the FM Smith Library at the Western Railway Musuem. Suisun, CA. 

The Stanley brothers (twins) and their driver, who survived the experience, also managed to get that 1906 car up to what they thought was 200 MPH (please note that the body is streamlined, but appears flat on the bottom, and there are no spoilers to keep it earthbound) when it went airborne, end for end, disentegrated, and the famous

explosion proof wire wound boiler rolled a mile down the Florida beach.  The brothers

decided that further experiments were too dangerous and let the 127 stand.

After taking a look taking a look at one of those 1904 St. Louis car, I the front is slightly rounded, but since it wasnt as pronounced 13' long nose of the McKeen Car.

Which points out that the design of the McKeen car isn't really a very good aerodynamic shape.  A McKeen car would have lower aerodynamic drag if it traveled backwards, at least at subsonic speeds. 

Froude and Reynolds worked in the 19th century.  The Wright brothers built their first wind tunnel in 1901.  The NACA developed their famous cowling and many airfoils in the 1920s.  While there were certainly great advancements in aerodynamics that came after the McKeen car I do not believe that it represents an attempt to apply the best aerodynamic knowledge of the day.  The tapered "bow" on the McKeen car is just a styling and marketing hook.

This is a photo of a Mckean Motor car that I took yesterday while visiting the Railroad Museum in Carson City NV.

One beautiful piece.

Mark Strittmatter

TCA # 14-69917

Indiana PA.

he showed that a car of the same size with a flat front was the equivalent to 87.5 HP at 60 MPH, while the Parabolic nose McKeen used only 21.9 HP at the same speed. 

He showed it or claimed it?

Read the sentence after the wind resistance to horsepower claim.  McKeen was "marketing" his cars, and selling snake oil. 

Just how McKeen arrived at these figures is not known, but in light of later streamlining experiments, their validity is questionable.

The restored McKeen car I seen had a CAT3208 for power running two hydraulic pumps which powered this particular car.

The individual that gave the tour pretty much said this is one of those things that was ahead of their time and was not very dependable.

Mark Strittmatter

TCA #14-69917

Indiana PA

You need to read your source better. It says he "boasted" and "claimed" of increased efficiency. It also says that how he came to his numbers is "not known."

While the McKeen car body styling was ahead of its time, the mechanics were mired in internal combustion technology barely out of its stone age.  The concept was not.

"Distillate"? burning engines started with shotgun shells fired into the cylinder, and

that were reversed by reversing the rotation of the crankshaft and not by gearing?

Huh!?  Try that on your Camry!  They were notoriously hard to start in cold weather.

So the Nevada restoration has a modern diesel engine.  No surprise.  I do not know if

all of them kept running for some time, and some were, but I doubt if any of

those still had the original powertrain. Keilty in his books on gas electrics said the

mechanical drive of the Mckeen was prone to shake itself apart on the rough track of

the era.  A few other early internal combustion railcars were introduced with rounded, streamlined noses, but not quite the point of the McKeen. General Electric had such a car, and they were testing it at the same time McKeen was (1904), but they opted for electric traction motors.    GE and McKeen built their last  cars in 1917, as GE also had transmission problems.  However those were overcome by 1927, when GE was in partnership with EMC, building gas electrics, but with flat fronts.  Apparently streamlining was not found useful at those speeds. Before 1904, according to Keilty, there were direct drive internal combustion railcars running, somewhat successfully, in England, which may be where McKeen got the idea.

The reduction in HP required from the claimed 87.5 to 21.9 is remarkable: a feat of aerodynamic engineering equal to about the best ever attained.  I tend not to believe it -(Let me make it clear I am "not believing" his original claims, not the forum members who posted and have discussed this).  A lot of people marketing their ideas or products make claims, some completely legit, some puffed up, some outright lies).  Frankly I think this is close to the latter end of that spectrum but  . . . this is interesting regardless.

Anybody have a picture of the Adams Windsplitter?????

Here's more!:

flying saucer

Ralph

I'll take the Nickel Plate Flying Saucer over any of those George Jetson types !  Anyway, the Windsplitter predates the McKean by at least a generation.

Are any of these windsplitters that are older than the Cuyamaca still around?

The exact scientific documentation, behind the findings may not be quotable, but I think the working knowledge of aerodynamics by then, was common enough to not have the design be seen as being obviously effective to some degree. To what degree was still being figured out. Not "snake oil", more like a semi-educated, good hunch at least.

 I came across some early examples of Euro. streamlining "experiments", late 1800s 

 Also, this is a Heilmann 1893. I guess it a steam electric, and wind cutting was thought of here too.

  Well thought out arguments to the engines design "flaws" have some merit for high speed, and maintenance of locos, and track. Its opposed steam/electric generator design, was well balanced, and had less & lighter reciprocating steam parts to maintain. Heavier than normal steamers overall, but no hammering, and things are spread out well on the axles, its increased weight for high tractive efforts is an advantage at times. I'll be poking for more info on their fates, & reviews, but I only read English, and mostly guess at the others but German, and French do seem easiest

Not still around that I know of. But all Heilmanns I've seen so far are cab fwd, each with some kind of point, normally a low "V-plow-pilot" integrated into the body.