Spot on. Exhaust exiting into the 'dead' air immediately behind the car helps re-energise it a little. Like having a little ephemeral camm tail on the back. Meanwhile having it exit into the smooth fast air (that's hopefully not turbulent at all) rushing along the side of the car just messes that up. @JohnD I was thinking about aero for the Vitesse a while back. I've made quite a natty set of graphs that show acceleration throughout the gears (accounting for gearing, weight, drag, and the tiny little bit of rolling resistance). They're not the easiest to interpret, but you effectively run along the topmost line (1st) until you reach the end, then drop down to the next line of the same colour as you change gear into 2nd (and so on and so forth). Here's one that compares a Vitesse to a GT6 with the same engine: You can see a bit of a gap in acceleration in 1st, which is mostly caused by the additional weight of a Vitesse. However, you can see that as you get faster the lines start diverging further and further. That's the effect of the brick-like aerodynamics. Because the Vitesse is so bad (though admittedly the Cd is an estimation), it seems like any improvement in aero would have quite a decent effect. The challenge is knowing what to do! And what's permissible within your racing class, of course. I suppose if you wanted to get technical about it you could make a DIY water tunnel  and buy a 1:43 model vitesse so you can do some flow visualisation of different aero modifications. I wonder if the estate has better aero...

IMHO, the flow along the valance is grossly turbulent, from underflow and the front wheel vortex.  Adding exhaust outflow won't make a ha'porth of difference. But I'd love to be shown I'm wrong!  Has anyone modelled a Vitesse into a CFD model?

I'd agree with that...but I'd quite happily settle for our deterrent being shared with a country of equal power rather than with one that has such an obvious power imbalance.

I have always felt that the UK deterrant should be able to point anywhere in the world.

Ah interesting. I was speaking to someone who (quite convincingly) claimed to work in the MOD who mentioned otherwise, but you never can tell what's true on the internet can you. I do wonder whether this situation might make talks with France a little more serious...

I think the issue is that in essence you are trying to shove exhaust gasses into a fast moving airstream down the side of the car which disrupts the airflow and increases drag. Whereas shoving out the back into 'dead air' avoids this and helps in a small way to fill the hole the brick is making. How much difference this makes to a Vitesse I don't know. 

That's the wrong way round. All UK ICBM warheads and re-entry vehicles since Polaris have been UK produced. The Trident missiles are from a shared UK/US pool maintained in the US. The US has no control over launch/targetting of UK missiles regardless of what conspiracy theories you might have heard. Similarly UK air-carried nuclear weapons and anti-submarine warheads were all UK design and manufacture. Particularly as the UK used much safer high expolosive initiators. However the UK withdrew and dismantled all non-ICBM launched nuclear weapons in the 1990s. The reason there has been discussion about the UK purchasing US free fall bombs for the F-35 is twofold. Firstly we would need to make our own and design, manufacture and qualification of a new UK weapon for the F-35 would take time and secondly because like so many other areas of UK defence and engineering we don't have enough qualified people to design a second new warhead, in addition to the work being done for upgrading Trident warheads. There are always talks with the French about co-operation. But it's hard and always has been, even without Brexit. 

Why? How?   I'm fascinated by aero.    Which is a bit pointless for a Vitesse, like wings on a brick.   Andy, You are, of course, correct, but I was thinking less of Harfleur and more of Abbey Grange.

@PaulAA I think you might be right. Time will tell if the cult of personality (or his health) carries them through to the point where they have completed their authoritarian takeover. Because none of the rest of them have the cult of personality to pull it off. @Escadrille Ecosse True I suppose. Best hope our leaders have been rapidly reassembling some strength then (he says, knowing full-well that I'm in the age that can still be drafted for military service). Personally I think we should be surreptitiously purchasing French nukes (our launching systems are UK-designed, but we buy our warheads from the USA, which is another potential reason our leaders have been so prostrate before Trump).

Criticising from the sidelines whilst being unable or unwilling to back it up just makes you look weak and foolish to the other side. And it is how you look to the 'other side' that is the important thing. Not how you see yourself. So unless or until you are in a position to actually do something meaningful it is at the very best irrellevant.