What Examples Of Bewildering Automotive Engineering Have Melted Your Brain Most? Autopian Asks

Cars can sometimes seem to work almost through black magic. Sure, most of us know that engines largely work through the principles of “suck, squeeze, bang, blow” and missing one of those can cause a no start condition. Still, you can run into some weird engineering that just makes you go “huh.” What’s a piece of car engineering that makes you scratch your head?

Most of my cars are of the German variety, so I get to sit there and think about odd engineering decisions all of the time. Sadly, I rarely get an answer to what I’m confused about, but maybe I can expose you to the same things rattling around my head.

Let’s take a look at a 2008-2015 Smart Fortwo as an example.

Smart Fortwos with the standard transparent roof get a giant roof panel made out of polycarbonate from Webasto and Bayer Material Science. When the second-generation Fortwo made its European release in 2007, this roof was a huge deal. The previous Fortwo had a glass roof that was prone to shattering, but this new panel, spanning 1.2 square meters, was then the largest polycarbonate panel put into production.

The Makrolon AG2677-branded panel was pitched as better than glass. It didn’t shatter from rocks, weighed a fraction of glass, and maintained amazing clarity. The problem was that somehow, these panels began cracking from the inside out (a process known as crazing) often as early as just 6 months in. In theory, the panel should have been able to stand up to the abuse. They had UV coatings and data sheets suggested the panel wouldn’t start to break down until around 291 degrees.

Yet, these roofs began cracking and delaminating left and right only months in. Webasto tried reformulating the polycarbonate, which made the roofs last from a handful of months to a few years, but they still failed, anyway. It’s been so many years since I last saw a Smart 451 without a damaged roof that I’m sure the only undamaged 451 roofs out there are attached to low-mile garage queens. It’s such a common problem that I had no issue finding a Smart for sale with a failing roof:

That’s just one example of strange engineering. I could prattle on all day about how my Volkswagen Phaeton’s HVAC blower motor is dead and for some reason only Volkswagen can explain, I have to remove the windshield wipers to replace it.

Stephen Walter Gossin has his own example. Remember that expensive, yet somewhat rusty Toyota Camry that Thomas wrote about? Gossin noticed how the exhaust is pretty goofy:

Yep, there’s a U-turn in there to connect to a catalytic converter. Gossin says:

Is it just me, or would placing the exhaust flex pipe further aft negate the need for that U-turn off the cat-converter? So weird!

His other thoughts:

Possible logic #1: The only logic I can think of is having an equal length of exhaust tubing from the ends of each exhaust manifold to the flex pipe, but even that seems like a straaatch to add that extra metal/material/cost and weight.

Possible logic #2 (yes, I’m still a-head-scratchin’): Maybe moving the flex pipe aft creates too much fore exhaust system weight and thus, too much pressure on the flex pipe. Still unclear and confusing either way.

I don’t have the answer to that question, but maybe you do. Also, what other examples of weird engineering have you found out there? And to make this a little harder, the existence of the Tesla Cybertruck is too easy.