Weird pedantic thought I had

So I was looking at one of those "supercar stats" sites last night, just killing time. I noticed that the difference between the wheelbase and the quoted overall length on a lot of cars is rather long. Like, "length of a short-ish man" long. Seeing as I was browsing things like Ascaris and Pagani Zondas, which have huge overhangs, and most of which I haven't seen in person, I filed it away under plausible trivia that I may or may not believe.

Well, this morning I was looking at a Proton Satria that somebody parked outside my office window. It looks like this:

I decided to see if that nagging doubt I had last night was on the money or not. I guesstimated the wheelbase at around 95" with maybe 36" of overhang total. Well, Wikipedia claims:

"Wheelbase 2,440 mm (96.1 in)
Length 3,995 mm (157.3 in)"

Are you kidding me? In my eyes there's no way in hell that thing has 61" (more than 5'!) of overhang. Those bumpers are SHORT. From the centre of the rear wheel to the end of the car CAN'T be more than 18", and the front isn't much longer, if any. I guessed the wheelbase pretty much right just by looking at it. Seriously, the measurements claim well over a THIRD of that car is in the overhangs.

So what's going on here? Is this an optical illusion that makes every car ever look longer in the middle, or am I missing something in the way they measure "overall length"? Bizarre.

Wheelbase is measured to center of wheel. It appears to have 5' from wheel center to bumper tip.

Yeah, what he said.

Thanks for posting a picture of a Protron Satria though...no idea what that is, but I will do some googling.

Jay is in the land of the Euro.

Viewed from overhead, modern cars aren't exactly square. You'll see a bulge of several inches in the center of the bumpers as they relate to the corners, but due to perspective we only see the corners when viewing it from the sides. Designers know that and that's why the cars are designed as they are, it makes the overhangs look shorter. That optical illusion probably accounts for 8-12 inches of the length of most cars.

Even the Mini Cooper has a wheelbase of 97.1" and overhangs of 48.5", and that thing looks like the wheels are pushed so far to the ends of the car they're about ready to detach.

BTW I solved the little conundrum here - I went out to the car park with my tape measure (surely looking like a loon, standing out there measuring someone else's car in the wind and drizzle. The things I do for peace of mind.) As far as I can eyeball, those dimensions surprisingly work. The total radius of the wheel/tyre combo is a lot more than it looks considering 14" wheels. And ya, the front bumper extends out farther than it appears in that side-view pic. Just an optical illusion.

gotta love optical delusions... and I think both aerodynamics and safety for making cars LONGER and LONGER with no change in wheelbase