Prior to the 1978 season, Jerry Bunke and one of his sleds were tapped to do some wind tunnel testing. The results came back too late to make any changes for the 1978 season, but they were dramatic. The results showed the 77/78 hood design, combined with the driver, was causing significant drag from the wind rotating on the drivers back, and many points on the machine were fighting the wind.
The results were put to use in the design of the 1979 hood, which among other changes, would come with a windshield. The problem was that the 79 hood was very oddly shaped.. so what do you do with the decals?
As you can see from these recently discovered top-secret photos of the design development, there were quite a few tries made before the final design was chosen.
Fascinating to see how the design process played out.
