FOX News link about Miradas

The fact that they mentioned it is good enough. They did say it was a well proportioned car' I take it to mean decent looking. The parts about the aerodynamics are probably a little exaggerated, but not far from the truth. The part a that they didn't mention is that most of the cars of that era had the aerodynamics of a brick for the street or for NASCAR. That really only started to change when the Taurus/Thunderird cars showed up later, and in comparison, the GM G bodies (Monte Carlo, Regal, LeMans.Grand Prix, and the Cutlass) were all left behind. They only started to catch up when GM came out with the Monte Carlo SS and the Grand Prix equivalent. That was in 1985, and the Mirada/Cordoba/Imperial were out of production by then.
 
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Back, in '81 when I was reading reviews of the J cars, I remember that the coefficient of drag, for the Imperial was .29. That is exceptionally good. Also, I remember Popular Science did a comparison of the Thunderbird, Cutlass and Cordoba. There was no comparison. The Cordoba was far superior. Remember, I've had my car since January '82.
 
Aerodynamics of a brick is not just about drag coefficients. In the cases of the Mirada, and the G Bodies that I mentioned above, it is probably more to do with the amount of aerodynamic lift at the back end of the car (instability at high speed). The J body Mirada/Cordoba and GM G bodies have roof lines with a fairly severe drop off angle. The Thunderbird of 1983 had a much gentler slope to the back window (more like the older "fastback roof lines" of some late 1960s muscle cars). The way that GM fixed the instability was to modify the roof lines of the G bodies to put in a rear window that bulged outward. Bill Elliot's success in Nascar in the mid 1980s was due to the Thunderbird's aerodynamic efficiency, combined with a competitive engine. Smooth rounded shapes will almost always be more aerodynamically efficient than sharp edges right angled corners.

Years before, the same thing happened with the 1968 Charger, Yhe problem in that case being the rear window being inset into the roof sail panels causing instability at high speeds. Both the Charger 500 and the Charger Daytona/Superbird had flush mounted rear windows.
 
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