Underbody aero spoilers/tabs?
 

The other day I noted something I thought odd on a co-worker's car. What I at first thought to be a torn or loose piece of bodywork or belly pan on a Saab 900SE turned out to be a deliberately designed and placed curved piece of plastic. There are two, one on each side, almost exactly "amidships" - equidistant between front and rear tires.

Examining another coworker's vehicle - a brand new Mini - revealed similar tabs though these were not symmetrically placed on each side. They are also not so elegant and are just bent right angle plastic tabs. Still, in both cases these are separate parts riveted in place, so they must have some intended design function. Any ideas as to what they're trying to accomplish here?

Please excuse the horrid cellphone photos - hopefully they're sufficient to see what's going on.

You mean like this? Mine directs air away from the wheels.

The ones that you show seem to be under the side body of the vehicles. Probably the same purpose. Direct air away from wheel wells or tires or some such.

Seems like a hap-hazard attempt to me so you can't see them from by standing by the vehicle. But that's me as a F1 fan. I'd prefer to see aero mods by manufacturers proudly standing out.

SAAB and the rest should make cars that look like F1 with a roof and 2 seats. Shouldn't be left up to guys with pickup trucks to do it. Oh well.

someone likes to rhyme.
saab tabs lol that cracks me up, good stuff!



sorry, i had nothing useful to add.

hard to tell for the pictures what there might do exactly but i suppose they're indeed to deflect the air away from something... although the ones on the saab look as though they could be some sort of vortex generators.

saab has a long standing reputation of good aerodynamics due to their aircraft industry.

the mini is another story. as far as i know it has terrible aerodynamics, and early versions had a rather low FE. i've noticed newer versions of the mini had tabs in front if the wheels but they might have added more "cures" underneath

I've been thinking about this while watching F1. The tabs may have something to do with (judging by their placement on the underside) of re-directing air from around the rear wheel openings or possibly to help prevent road spray in wet conditions.

I also thought of an idea. What if one were to place a V shaped air dam behind the engine on the underside of the car (thick rubber like a truck mud flap) that would plow the air out from under the vehicle. Hmmm. You'd still get good air flow into the engine bay and have the advantage of less wake.

Are you sure the ones on the Saab aren't foot-operated jacks? ;)

They look like they could be foot pumps on a barber's chair.

Here is a different spin on aero tabs. This is similar to what some have tried. It is something interesting. These may be old news but a simple search did not turn these up. These look like they might replace a boat tail, sort of.

https://airtab.com/

https://airtab.com/video.htm

Has anybody tried these?

They are little spoilers, seems like they'd work pretty good.

You could put black ones under the car at the trailing edge and probably not even notice, aesthetically.