Slab siders, what are wheel arches for anyway?

[MrDuke]

I don't mean covered wheels, just a body that is wide enough to cover the wheels without an arch tacked on as well.

 

why didn't they just make body wider instead of the roof extension things over the rear wheels?

 

 

I doubt that today's designers start with a totally rigid track width, then make a body to fit. Obviously there are constraints, but a minor suspension tweak would probably be enough if that was their only concern, I can't imagine anyone at Mercedes exclaiming "Oh sh*t I've designed the body too narrow - I'll have to bung some arch extensions on there otherwise the tyres will stick out!"

 

Like Des said, it's purely aesthetic - accented arch profiles can usually (I said 'can usually', not 'always do') make a body design look a bit less stodgy, which is a far greater concern on grossly-oversized modernz. There's also the historic fact that serious competition cars from the 60s onwards nearly always had arch extensions to cover the bigger rims, so there's probably a psychological-association thing going on there too.

[flat4alfa]

 

They then added some:

 

 

They looked similar, but no panel was common between the two

 

Check bonnet and door lines

[purplebargeken]

Oh, what about fender skirts?

[John F]

purplebargeken, on 23 Nov 2015 - 2:27 PM, said:

Oh, what about fender skirts?

 

I thought they only made guitars.