Patent ID: 7695050

Claim:
A vehicle comprising: a vehicle body being generally symmetrical about a central plane, the body having a front portion, a mid portion and a rear portion, a passenger compartment being defined inside at least the mid portion of the body; the vehicle having a longitudinal axis extending from the front portion to the rear portion, the vehicle having an outer surface including a roof surface facing upwardly and a pair of opposed side surfaces extending downwardly from the roof surface, a vehicle cross section being defined in a plane perpendicular to the longitudinal axis, the area of the cross section in the rear portion being less than the area of the cross section in the mid portion; an airflow path being defined along at least a portion of the roof surface and each side surface of the body such that when the vehicle moves along the longitudinal axis in a forward direction, air flows along the airflow paths, at least a portion of each airflow path being generally parallel to the longitudinal axis; a fan housing having an inlet and an outlet, the fan housing inlet disposed so as to intersect the of airflow path along one of the surfaces of the body, a portion of the air flow flowing into the inlet, through the housing and out of the outlet; at least one passive, unpowered fan supported in the fan housing between the inlet and outlet such that as the portion of airflow flows through the housing, the fan is caused to spin about a fan axis, thereby creating a flow of spinning air that generally rotates about an outlet axis as the air flows out of the outlet, the outlet axis being directed inwardly towards the central plane of the vehicle body such that the flow of spinning air from the outlet converges inwardly.