A look at our favourite clever/crazy rear wings
Alfa Romeo Giulia GTAm
Built to celebrate the Italian company’s 110th birthday with help from the F1 teams wind tunnel, the GTAm is Alfa’s ultimate specimen of the Giulia Saloon, there are many reasons to love this car from the bulging arches, added carbon additions, the sweet sound of the 540BHP 2.9L Twin-turbo V6, the Montreal Verde paint, the…. You get the idea.
Our certain interest right now is that beautifully sculpted carbon rear wing , a 4 drag-position adjustable piece of eye candy that gets the attention it deserves while retaining functionality, and many would admit, a big wing on a car that actually uses it properly, is something we can all love, sadly, you’ll rarely see one, only 500 will be made all costing around £155,000, so if you want one that much you’d have to break the bank, or do what we’ve done and pre-order a BBR 1/18 scale model , we can dream!.
Porsche 911 GT3 (992)
Is the new 992 GT3 the peak of Porsche performance? Fewer cars have more higher prospects than new GT3 and the 992 didn’t disappoint, the 7th gen of the Porsche GT3 was one of the highest anticipated cars of last year and with its incredible looks you can tell why.
An output of 503bhp and 0-60 time of 3.4 seconds gives the 992 GT3 the speed to match the looks, and speaking of looks we turn our attention to the ‘swan-necked’ rear wing, which combined with the rear diffuser helps improve the downforce by 50% at 124mph. The rear wing is fully manually adjustable and in its most aggressive angle will generate 385kg of downforce, not to mention street cred, not many wings are attached from above, which makes it fully attractive to need for speed nerds like us, you can spec the touring package which deletes the rear wing, but where’s the fun in that?.
Mini JCW GP3
Now a hot hatch with a massive rear wing may sound crazy, and it is considering it’s a front wheel drive car, but hang on it’s a Mini, a Mini with 300bhp! and all Mini’s are cool right? All fast Mini’s anyway, and following on from the cool rear wings of the GP1 and GP2 we have the GP3’s big rear charm.
The immense rear wing is thick, and not carbon unfortunately, and also doesn’t create hardly, if any downforce, apart from a small lip to disturb the airflow, but hey, it’s a hot hatch so this shouldn’t matter right, the freedom of a hot hatch is that anything goes, wings, colour, sound etc.
And taking all that into account it’s still one of our favourites, just don’t try to take it onto a rally stage.
Koenigsegg Jesko
Now on from something crazy, to something absolutely bonkers, and bonkers and Koenigsegg go hand in hand, 1st of all, this car produces 1,578bhp, thanks to a 5.0L twin turbo V8 and an electric compressor, which Koenigsegg hopes to utilise to break the 300mph barrier, and it looks absolutely awesome, a pin up hypercar that may go down in history as one of the fastest cars ever made.
So over 1500bhp, a 300mph target, rear wheel drive, you could maybe tell why this car needs a pretty serious rear wing, and this wing is serious, producing 1,000kg at 171mph. And this rear wing is big, its nearly half the length of the whole car, thanks to the bare carbon wing mounts that start from just behind the drivers head, the ludicrousness of it, is enough reason to love it, not to mention its attached to a 300mph Swedish hypercar.
McLaren Senna
This section may get techy, but its McLaren so there is an excuse, the company prides itself in pouring every drop of there expertise into there cars to give you the most thrilling driving experience, and there’s no doubt about it, it works, you just need to walk around one of their cars and the sense of capability surrounds you.
The car we are most interested in for now is the McLaren Senna, a car named after 3-time Formula 1 World Champion, Brazilian Ayrton Senna, one of the best ever racing drivers to grace the sport.
Keeping with race tracks the Senna is the most track-focused car McLaren has ever built, so you can tell this rear wing isn’t just for show, it works, correctly.
The active rear wing is key to unlocking such aerodynamic performance and helps the Senna to produce up to 800kg of downforce, also top mounted like the GT3 earlier the wing works with dual-flap wings on the front fenders and constantly changes around a lap of the track to give you the best lap time.
F1 2022 Cars
Well this may be a little different but bear with it, because this isn’t just 1 car, but 10 of them, but changing 10 boxy ugly ducklings into 10 swans is a great achievement wouldn’t you agree?. Especially when they look at pretty as they do.
The new front wing and new underfloor prepare the airflow in a way in which the new rear wing can complete the process – of throwing the car’s turbulent wake high into the air and away from the front wing of the following car. It also functions as a conventional rear wing in creating downforce. Though not quite as much downforce as previous rear wings.
The new, highly distinguishing shape is created by the elements, and much more pleasing on the eye, endplates and beam wing forming one continuous line with no sharp corners. It’s about more than looking sleek; because the endplates can no longer fence off the wing elements and must be flush, they can no longer prevent leakage of the airflow across the surfaces of those elements and off the edge.
We can’t wait to see these beauty’s tearing around the track!.
Porsche Panamera Turbo
Back to road cars now and pretty basic you’d of thought, but the way the wing rises up, spreads and lowers back down is what we love about this. A kind of 3-in-1 the Panamera Turbo's rear wing comes out of the body and spreads out when deployed, being wider than the actual car, so no speeding down tight streets. The three-piece spoiler comes out at a certain speed and retracts when the car slows.
We don’t have much to say about this wing, other than it being quite cool, and the fact that as some speeds you don’t actually have to have a wing on your car, which is nice also and kind of defeats the objective of this article, so forget we said that.
Zenvo TSR-S
We are back to mental again this time with a Danish hypercar that’s all about aero, now we aren’t saying this wing is good looking, because we aren’t, its quite ugly, but ugly can still be cool and this is a prime example.
You’ve heard about active aero plenty of times but nothing like this, the rear is wing is literally alive , someone better go and check the pulse, ours too because watching this thing is awesome.
Zenvo took their standard TSR track car rear wing and tried it at many different angles in the simulation, and they could see a massive impact, putting more pressure on the back across to the unloaded inside wheel while cornering, so you not only get downforce, but also create an effect like an anti-roll bar.
The wing leans from square to 15 degrees either way, activated once it detects a 0.5g lateral loading, then pulled briskly over by hydraulic rams. Developed in conjunction with Aerotak, a Danish company that also did the aero work on the Koenigsegg One:1, Zenvo limits downforce to a maximum of 270kg by varying the wing’s angle of attack.
Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series
There couldn’t be a series of rear wings we loved without AMG making an appearance , and when AMG applied the ‘Black Series’ treatment to the GT R we new something addictive would appear, and that great big carbon wing is justified.
AMG always liked taking things over the top and this version of the lighter, faster, harder GT Black Series is no different, and has an even more over the top rear wing configuration, with both upper and lower wings, that have three different positions. Maximum downforce is 400kg at 155mph, or 800kg at vmax (202mph). The upper wing also has an electronically controlled flip-up centre section to maximise stability under heavy braking.
As a result the rear wing is almost taller than the car, which probably makes it the most eye-catching part of the car, but its AMG, its mental and so we love it.
Lamborghini Huracan STO
Fear not! There is a lambo on this list, and its Lamborghini’s most track focused Huracan, the STO, derived from the genes of the Super Trofeo racing cars. The STO is rear wheel drive only and might explain why such rear grip is needed.
A key aerodynamic element is the massive three-position rear wing, which is highly adjustable according to the type of road a driver will find themselves on. And also amongst the new integrations, is the revised rear hood which features an air scoop, and wait for it… a shark fin, on the rear bonnet that improves dynamic ability. Now we know this isn’t technically a wing, but a shark fin attached to a Lamborghini with a huge rear wing, tell us you don’t like that, the Italians can cook!.
