[s-cars] Hardwired V1

[Charlie Smith]

Earlier, chris chambers wrote:
> 
> Many years ago I knew a wealthy pharmaceutical rep, his main car
> was a turbo charged Porsche 911.
> 
> Except this car was all repainted flat black and had every possible
> speed measuring countermeasure.
> 
> Until I met him I thought the car was a POS....NOT! That thing could
> move and STOP! I wonder what goodies he has added to that car since
> then?

Back in the days when I worried more about radar ... when I drove a Porsche
and before I became a volunteer police officer   :-)

I came up with the bright idea of building radar absorbing bra's 
for the front of cars.  Before you laugh too hard, this IS very
possible.  I found a supplier of radar absorbant material which was
almost 1/2" thick, it was flexible like stiff foam, and it was about
$10 / Sq.ft.  This was back in the mid '70s.  

Now figure, you can't block off radiator air for front engined cars,
and the people interested in this will be the ones with real expensive,
fast, luxo-cars with a perfect finish.   I was aiming at about a $300
price point at the retail level - this was when the best radar detector
was around $150.

The good news and the bad ...

Good news is that it would about halve the distance at which a cop
could get a reading on your car.  This was determined with a made
up test bra on a VW Rabbit and using a sports time-your-baseballs
X band radar handgun.  This probably could have been improved by
use of covers over the headlights and over other protrusions.

The bad news was that I couldn't find anyone that could/would make
bra's with the absorbant material - that looked half way decent and
that wouldn't scratch the paint of the luxo-cars whose owners might
buy such an item.  Plus the few places that could have (maybe) done
the manufacturing wanted a price that would bave dictated a $500+ 
retail price tag.

So consequently, the whole thing sank beneath the waves but at least
I had a lower radar profile with my Porsche for a few years  :-)

    - Charlie