They say driving a completely dirty car actually saves gas because the dirt acts just like the dimples on a golf ball! ππ¨ To test this crazy automotive myth, the team buys a standard Ford Taurus and takes it to a test track. After finding out that a thick layer of mud actually drops the fuel economy to 24 miles per gallon compared to 26 for a clean car, they decide to take the science to the extreme. They cover the entire car in over 1,000 pounds of heavy sculpting clay to literally build a giant, driving golf ball! π± First, the smooth clay car gets exactly 26 miles per gallon. Then, they manually carve thousands of dimples all over the body. The car looks absolutely ridiculous, but the science actually works! The dimples create tiny pockets of turbulence that drastically reduce the massive air wake behind the car. The giant golf ball car gets an incredible 29.6 miles per gallon, giving it a massive 11 percent fuel boost! Drop a comment and let us know what extreme automotive myth we should test next! π #mythbusters #science #experiments #tests #carmyth #golfballcar #fueleconomy #aerodynamics #physics #sciencefacts #scientifictest #confirmed
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f1 engineers aggressively taking notes
2026 fuel crisis, I think we might actually see someone modding their cars like this.
Honestly? I think the car didnt look ridiculous lol. I think it looked kinda tough
people with trypophobia : "I must overcome my fear TO SAVE FUEL"
It's important to note that they added all the weight taken off with the dimples in a basket in the back seat, so the weight was still the same.
6% efficiency??? Dude I might need to do this.
The fact that even with the addition of 1000lbs it did better definitely says something (Btw i mean while accelerating it loses mpg)
Fun fact several car manufacturers tested this themselves after the episodes aired and they could not replicate the results. They even reached out to the mythbusters to tell them this
fun fact: although not economically effective but rather for racing performance, we can observe dimple-like appendages on the air scoop of the Bugatti Bolide. Although minimal, it drastically reduces drag by 10% and lift by 17% when activated by reaching 74-75mph.
with todays gas prices? i mean i might aswell drive a dimple car...
if you dimple the actual steel of the car instead of adding a ton of modelling clay i would assume you could get an even better result
So a little dirt uses more fuel than a 1k pound layer of clay ππ
Why didn't they test the clean version first when they bought it
Los Santos customs ahh car
Golf ball car also looks tuff
Why are they adding weight.. that causes less fuel economy lol
Myth busters was awesome
People with trypophobia seeing this on the road: π³
to explain this turblent airflow behind an object is bad golfball dimples reduce turblent airflow but you can achieve better results through just designing a car good
1000? My man that's lower than a hundred