Amateur aerodynamicists will adore a new miniature wind tunnel from Fun-Tech-Lab. The Windisible Wind Tunnel allows you explore the fluid dynamics of your model car collection, or house your favorite vehicles in a supercool display case.
The desktop device comes in three sizes to suit the most common model scales: 1:18, 1:24 and 1:64 – so even Hot Wheels can be put through their paces. Just like a full-size wind tunnel there’s a powerful fan which can be adjusted to produce different wind speeds and a smoke injection system so you can see exactly how the air flows under and over the car you’ve chosen to test. You can also choose from a number of different smoke streams and lighting to visualise the vortices generated by car bodywork.
The idea for the Windisible Wind Tunnel came from Steven Smith when he was studying at Britain’s Cranfield University. Later he met vehicle engineer Axia Rossi from Politecnico di Torino and car designer Jayden Brown and they created the stylish design.
To gauge potential interest the team posted the idea on Reddit and quickly built up a community of model car enthusiasts who helped shape the product. Together they assembled a prototype and launched it on Kickstarter in June 2024, and are currently offering 300 examples of the 1:64 scale edition for £102, the 1:24 version for £157 and the 1:18 tunnel for £229 (plus shipping). At the time of writing the team had raised over £140,000.
Fun-Tech-Lab says production will start in August, with deliveries beginning in September. If we don’t get any work done in the autumn, you’ll know why.
