[chris rock rolling head around in circle]
but. . .dey spinnin’!! dey spinnin’!!
[/cr]
Actually, I think they look kind of cool. Not cool, like I’d even spend $20 on them. Cool, like a neat little engineering/marketing trick. Cool like “dey spinnin’”. When a guy is doing 70 and his shit is spinning slower, it just looks kind of nice.
At the beginning of Destiny Turns on the Radio Quentin Taratino is driving in a Roadrunner, and it has things over the wheels that don’t spin while the tires are spinning. I don’t know if they were available at the time the roadrunners were made or just something they made for the movie.
I knew a guy who used to work at a place that did custom work like installing spoilers. He told me that unless your car is designed for it (airflow over car), has a spoiler that is designed for more than show, and unless you’re going 150+, all you’ve got is a hunk of metal on your trunk. I don’t know how true that is, but he seemed to know his stuff.
The idea of a spoiler is to create downforce on the rear wheels so they grip better when turning (that’s why da pope said they’re stupid on a FWD car – you don’t need grip on the back wheels).
Further, it needs to be designed right, and you need to be going fast and need to turn fast to get the benefits of it.
The only guys who really benefit from them are autocrossers. probably about 95% of them on the road are useless 100% of the time (a 120 hp dodge neon, e.g).
at least the spinners don’t imagine they’re useful.
One thing I want to do with my car is go down to Cala Foods and nab one of their shopping carts, take the handle off, and affix it to the top of my trunk. Hey, it’s just as usefull, and pretty much everyone will find it funny (some for different reasons than others…).
Well this is interesting. Latrell Sprewell (baskball player) is widely recognized for introducing them to the mainstream. I was wondering why they are commonly called “Spreewells”. (I thought it was gearhead guy with the same name).
