Tire physics REVEALED with glass floor under Porsche 🤯

Added: 2026-05-22

[00:00:00]Now, to show you exactly what's going on, we would need a plexiglass racetrack, which we don't have.

[00:00:10]So, I've come down to Porsche Santa Clarita, where they've got the next best thing. I'm standing in the Wonderground, a semi-secret museum they've built out below the dealership to showcase some truly special Porsches. Do yourself a favor and check it out sometime. It beats the hell out of my basement.

[00:00:25]Anyway, before we get too distracted by all these cars, let me direct your attention to the reason we're here.

[00:00:31]These massive glass panes in the ceiling from above. They're like a teaser, letting you peer down into the museum from the showroom. From below, they're one of the few places you can park a car and actually see what's going on where the rubber meets the road. Not going to lie, did not expect them to say yes when we asked about filming this here. Nor did I expect them to provide this beautiful Spider RS for the demonstration. If you look at the tire, you can see the contact patch clearly.

[00:00:59]The tire is round everywhere else, but flat where it meets the road. It's also kind of a triangular shape because of the wheels camber, but that would square out in a turn under load. Since we're looking at the front tires, though, we can give the steering a little turn, and you can see that even though the direction the tire is pointing has changed, the contact patch hasn't turned as much. And the difference between the direction the tire is pointing and the direction of the tread in the contact patch is your slip angle. Man, that's so cool. I wonder how much weight that holds.