The Aero was a range of

concept car A concept car (also known as a concept vehicle or show vehicle) is a car made to showcase new styling or new technology. Concept cars are often exhibited at motor shows to gauge customer reaction to new and radical designs which may or may not ...

studies created by

General Motors General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. The company is most known for owning and manufacturing f ...

as a testbed for future aerodynamic improvements to car bodies. The first model was the 1981 Aero X, a five-door

hatchback A hatchback is a car body style, car body configuration with a rear door that swings upward to provide access to the main interior of the car as a cargo area rather than just to a separated trunk. Hatchbacks may feature fold-down second-row sea ...

. In 1982 the Aero 2000 was shown, a smaller two-door car, it had several unique features, such as front and rear

fender skirts Fender skirts, known in Australia and the United Kingdom as spats or covers, are pieces of bodywork attached to or part of the fender that cover the upper portions of the wheels of a vehicle. They are usually used only on rear wheels, but s ...

, a

kammback A Kammback—also known as a Kamm tail or K-tail—is an automotive styling feature wherein the rear of the car slopes downwards before being abruptly cut off with a vertical or near-vertical surface. A Kammback reduces aerodynamic drag, thus ...

design, and a smoothed underbelly. Almost all of these features have been incorporated into modern hybrid car designs at some point, with the exception of front fender skirts. The Aero 2000 had a drag coefficient of 0.23, but had no engine so could not be driven. The Aero 2002 was shown a year later at the 1983 with its much improved of 0.14. Designed by

Irv Rybicki Irvin Walter Rybicki (September 16, 1921 – July 24, 2001) was an American automotive designer widely known for his career as a designer with General Motors and his tenure as the corporation's Vice President of Design from 1977–1986, succ ...

, it was to influence the 1984 Chevrolet Citation IV concept.

References

* Aerodynamics of Road Vehicles. Edited by Wolf-Heinrich Hucho. (c) Butterworth & Co. (Publishers) Ltd, 1987. Boston (c)1987. * Five GM Concept models. Car Styling 44, Autumn 1983, pp 6–23. * Aero 2000 {{modern-auto-stub