Popular Science " Buy pt get spoiler free "

[10spdrive]

This little article was in the April issue of Popular Science
page # 18
" BUY PT , GET SPOILER FREE
Car designers accidentally make themselves useful.

When Chrysler stylists put a basket handle " sports bar" atop the new PT Cruiser four-seat convertible, they intended no more serious duty for the hydroformed steel hoop than to add some stiffening and keep the car from looking like a rolling claw-foot tub. It was a cute but basically nonfunctional styling item - never intended to be a roll bar and not part of the convertible-top mechanism.
But when they put the Pete into Chrysler's wind tunnel, a synergistic benefit became apparent: The airfoil-like sport bar rebounds the airflow that comes over the windshield before it tumbles into backseat turbulence. You'll still have a bad-hair day at highway speeds in the rear seat of a PT droptop, but far less so than in its VW New Beetle and Ford Mustang counterparts . STEPHAN WILKINSON "

Pictue in the article shows the air flow via "smoke stream " staying above the spoiler.
JIM