Automotive Design Terms

The following are various design elements of cars of today, and cars of the past you need to know the meaning of:

A Hood ornament. Most older cars had the hood ornament feature as a decorative radiator-cap, but the element quickly became associated with luxury and opulence

Wrap-around headlights/taillights are designed to wrap around the distinctive 4 corners of the car in order to make them more visible at different angles

Flared wheel arches are wheel arches that are designed to make the car appear wider and sportier.

Kammback (also called Kamm tail or K-tail) is where the car has an extended roof-line that integrates a spoiler and rear tailgate. The Kammback is named after German aerodynamicist Wunibald Kamm for his work developing the design in the 1930s.

Whale-tail, popularized by Porsche, as the name implies, is a spoiler designed to resemble a whale’s tail fin. a similar effect is used for the Duck-tail.

Side-skirts is the section of body directly underneath the doors, designed for aerodynamic purposes.

Hump is a section of one large body panel that is slightly raised above the rest. For cars that have humps on the bonnet, they allow more space under the bonnet for a supercharger or air-filter, etc, and for the humps behind the head-rests, they allow for more space for a convertible top and structural support

the Hip is the section of body over the rear wheel arches. Some cars have curved Hips that draw comparison to Marilyn Monroe’s curves, they are similarly named to the shoulders/wings (which is the section of body that’s above the front wheel arches).

Pop-up headlights are a version of concealed headlights that literally pop-up when switched on, but due to their aerodynamic drag, they have been largely replaced with wrap-around headlights. Though they have fallen out of favor with car manufacturers, they gained massive a cult following among motoring enthusiasts.

Gills are side-vents mounted behind the front wheels, and sometimes on the bonnet, the designs vary, but they where initially named for their strategic placement compared to fish gills. They allow hot air to be vented from the engine and acts as an aerodynamic aid.

Bat-wings are motorized top-mounted air-vents in a mid-engined supercar. They first appeared on the Lamborghini Murcielago (murcielago is Spanish for ‘’bat’’).

Tail-fins are originally designed for aerodynamic purposes in aircraft. The large tail-fins of an airplane help keep it stable in the air, but because a car does not have to fly 800kph in the air, they are largely useless on cars, popularized by the Cadillacs of the ‘50s. They eventually went out of style in the 1980s and has remained since.

Boat-tails are cars with a rear-end designed to resemble the bow of a boat’s hull turned upsidedown. The look was popular in the ‘30s and ‘40s.

A Dicky Seat is an extra row of fold-away seats in cars from the ‘20s to ‘30s. They have been largely replaced by a functional boot/trunk and 4-seat cars.

Flying Buttresses are originally from Gothic Architecture. They were designed for their sheer beauty over function on Gothic buildings like the Notre Dame De Paris. They found their way onto cars as an elongated C-Pillar and serve as a usable aerodynamic feature originally intended by the large tail-fins.

Spoiler is an aeronautic flap that is raised on an aircraft’s wings when slowing down, they spoil the airflow in order to cause down-force in a car. They are typically located on top of the boot-lid and/or rear-windshield. An active spoiler is also known as an Air-brake. Their front counterpart is known as a Splitter, which is fitted below the front bumper.

Aero-look is a car-body that is designed to have aerodynamic properties. It utilizes a combination of smooth flat/curved surfaces in order for the car to have as little aerodynamic drag as possible. Although cars with aerodynamic bodies have been around for decades, the earlier cars were primarily designed with style as a main focus, while the practical effort was officially first used on the Ford Sierra. Ever since then, every modern car uses this design trait.

Angel-eyes are a style of headlight trademarked by BMW, where a ring-shaped LCD light illuminates as a replacement for older ‘’park lights’. The ring-shaped lights are often placed on the outer rim of 4 single round headlights. They are available in the after-market as modifications. A popular function that recently surfaced is to use them as day-time running lights

Double-Bubble is a distinctive roof-shape where 2 sections of the roof are slightly raised in a hump-style and they form a channel in between them down the middle of the car’s roof. They were originally designed to accommodate racing-drivers’ helmets

Concealed rear-wheels have been around since the ‘40s and they serve a purely aesthetic purpose. But their lack of practicality have resulted in a massive decline over the years.

Tail-pipes are the exhaust out-lets of a car. Most cars have at least one tail pipe, and most performance cars have up to 4 (2 on each side known as Quad-tail-pipes).

Boot-lip is a boot-spoiler like the Duck-tail, but far less prominent. It get’s it’s name from the shape of a person’s upper lip while pouting.

Air-Scoop is featured on some performance cars as yet another way to quickly get cold air directly to the engine. They are commonly found on the bonnet, or in a mid-engined supercar’s case, on the roof.

The Wedge is the shape of the entire body where the front-end is much lower than the rear-end. Popularized by Lamborghini, it has become the staple of most supercars’ identities.

A diffuser is a specially designed piece of black plastic/carbon-fiber that keeps the air, moving out from under the car, stable at the rear-end below the rear-bumper and allows reverse down-force (or suction) to take place.

The Audi R8’s side Blades are purely aesthetic body panels, though they do conceal the side air-vents

A side-vent is used in a car that has an engine behind the driver and they are usually located behind the doors.

Engine cover. As most cars have a bonnet/hood as the front-engine cover, rear (or mid) engined cars have the engine in the place where a normal car’s boot/trunk is located. Although the luggage compartment is at the front now, the front-cover is still called the bonnet, though the area is informally called the boot/trunk, while the boot-lid is replaced by an engine-cover.