>>
>>>I also keep close to heart where the money goes after it
>>>leaves my wallet - and I would like to think the phrase "Buy
>>>American" has some substance to it.
>>
>>I can appreciate where your comming from. However some of
>>the Japanese bikes are made here in the good ole U.S.A. I
>>believe Honda builds their Gold Wing here. So does buying a
>>Gold Wing constitute buying American?
>
>No. It is a ricer. Honda is a Japanese company.
>
>Even Harley Davidson
>>uses some Japanesse parts on their bikes so it's not
>>completely home grown now days.
>
>True -- as is with most ANY product -- but it is an American
>company.


It really comes down to design...Honda = Japanese design, with American parts as well as Japanese parts

Harley...American design, with American parts as well as Japanese parts

super.

 

>The Japanese have produced some unique bikes which were
>pretty cool:
Snip...
>3. Kawasaki H3. Something about a 750cc two stroke
>street bike is cool.

That was the H2, 750CC Triple, talk about grunt, even the
H1 was a better bike than what was available from any
builder at the time (early '70's)
There is a guy here in the Great North Wet who runs an H2
drag bike, one day at the races my nephew said "It sounds
like a dirt bike", (which it did), but it ran a mid 8 second
pass, it just about floored him...

But then again, I might be a "Ricer", because of the Modified
SVT, Which I blew up a couple of weeks ago, so it's getting
a 24V, 3.0L V6 as a replacement, plus a different injection
and ignition system before it sees the road again...

Steve & the Rockette
'63 F100
'68 F100
'72 Capri 2L
'73 Capri 2.6L V6
'73 MG B GT 2.6L V6(Ford)
'98 Contour SVT 2.5L V6 (Mods)
'01 ZX2 (No Mods yet)

 

Any Asian or Japanese method of transportation or consumer goods.

 

>Any Asian or Japanese method of transportation or consumer
>goods.

 

Where did all this front wheel drive junk originate from anyway? I suspect is is rice technology foisted on America as progress. No thanks. I'll keep my rear wheel drive. Most folks don't understand enough or care enought to buy a real (read "rear wheel drive") car.

IMHO

 

Front Wheel Drive started in many parts of the world at the same time - and the Cord L-29 had it (1929), which I think was the first U.S. production FWD car. The French also started using it around that time, the original Mini used it in the '50s, and the Japanese have also been using it for quite a while. It never really got popular here until the fuel shortage in the '70s...the only popular FWD car I can think of before that was the Toronado. Of course, a classic Toronado doesn't have much in common in common with today's FWD cars...not a lot of them out there anymore with a 455ci engine producing 400hp & 500 ft-lbs of torque. They were amazingly hard on front tires, but they sure could get around in the snow! Personally, I've never owned a FWD car either - though I've driven a few.

On the ricer issue, to me it depends on the car's modifications rather than on its country of origin - I've seen ricer Cavaliers, ricer Foci (is that the plural of Focus?), and even a ricer Mustang. Huge exhaust tips, tons of ugly stickers, a wing that looks like it came off a 747, and so on...the more non-functional (and ugly) aftermarket parts a car uses, the more I consider it a ricer.

On another note, what's the word for "riced-out" full-size pickups? I've been seeing more and more of them around, lowered with ugly wheels w/the wrong offset, hoods with huge scoops, bizarre paintjobs with stickers, plastic body cladding all over, and a big wing hooked to the top of the tailgate (bonus points for a additional wing on the top the cab). Is there a name for that yet? They used to be mostly extended-cab Chevy 1/2-tons, but lately I've also been seeing a few Fords with that treatment.

LK

 

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 08-Aug-02 AT 10:09 AM (EST)]Sorry LK, I must have been writing while you were posting....

-----------------------------

Ever hear of the Cord L-29? It was a front wheel drive vehicle produced from 1929 to 1931. Citroen? The 7A arrived on the market in 1934. Cooper minis were FWD in 1959. How about the Oldsmobile Toranado? Late '60s front wheel drive car with BIG engine (up to 454, as I recall). A simple search will probably reveal many more.

The point is, that the Japanese are better than most at taking concepts (developed elsewhere) and making them marketable. Who took the transistor (invented in Bell Labs) and made millions of small FM radios? Who took the cassette player and made it pocketable, and profitable?

FWD drive cars are real in every sense of the word. The drivetrain is shorter leading to better efficiency, and it can be packaged into a tighter package combining the transmission and differential into one case. For most people out there, the FWD car is easier to drive in both the best and worst conditions. This keeps those who "don't understand," or who are given a drivers license just because they can parallel park, from smashing into those people who "do understand."

The japanese car makers have very little to do with the whole "ricer" thing, other than producing the most often modified vehicles. If you really want to "blame" someone for the ricer craze then go after the aftermarket companies. They saw a market (people REALLY want this stuff) and have blown it wide open with all sorts of mods (both appearence and performance).

I have a Ford ZX2 as well as a 1974 F-100, and I would never consider lowering (raising), nitrous, wings, body kits, neon, stickers, etc for either vehicle. I believe that if you want to modify your vehicle go nuts, but you better not endanger me or my family by compromising the safety of that vehicle.

Mark

>Where did all this front wheel drive junk originate from
>anyway? I suspect is is rice technology foisted on America
>as progress. No thanks. I'll keep my rear wheel drive.
>Most folks don't understand enough or care enought to buy a
>real (read "rear wheel drive") car.
>
>IMHO

 

Good comments Mark and LK. I was aware of the Cord and Toranado, but since front drive didn't catch on, suspected that it was the mass marketing of foreign cars that brought front drive enmass into this country. I really think we only have all these American-brand front wheel drive cars because the government regulations for fleet fuel mileage forced the companies into it. And that most folks don't care which wheels drive them as long as they like the car.

Perhaps you can help me understand better the advantages of front drive. I saw a front drive Chrysler mini-van that couldn't get up a modestly sloped driveway because of snow. Just kept spinning the tires (perhaps more the drivers fault). I have heard front wheel drive is better for traction in the snow, but that advantage would only be for take off--and if you spin them you lose steering. How is it front drive helps people stop? I thought the brakes were the main stopping force and that would not differ from a rear drive.

The only ones to blame for the ricer craze is the ricers themselves. Oh well, they think they are having fun anyway.

Of course the smiley face in the IMHO of my message is a signal that I am totally biased and half in jest--but maybe I will learn something too.

 

Ok, I did miss the smiley... Sometimes I am sarcasm impaired.

I don't really think that FWD helps with stopping a car (I think I unwittingly implied that), but having owned both FWD and RWD vehicles of varying vintages, I think there are definite advantages to FWD for everyday driving (by everyday people). They seem to me to be much more forgiving in terms of handling in that they handle very predictably up to their limits. Beyond that you're pretty much screwed (more so than in a RWD, IMO).

I do agree that CAFE and a few other govt. regulations probably had a lot to do with the switch to FWD, in that it does tend to weigh less and can be better on the gas mileage.

People seem to be less inclined to care about HOW or WHY something works and just that it DOES work with as little input as possible. The general population could care less about FWD vs/RWD. For the most part, they don't have much of a choice anymore (depending on what type of vehicle you want).

Mark

 

A few things I'd like to add to Mark's comments:

In my opinion, the main advantage of front wheel drive is that it's cheap to make, easy to package into a vehicle, and lightweight - of course, those are benefits for the manufacturer rather than the consumer. From a driving point of view, front wheel drive vehicles tend to protect the bad driver from their own incompetence - they can get by without knowing how to correct a skid, or that they have to be careful with the throttle on slick roads, or really anything for that matter except for where to put the key in. This is why I hate FWD vehicles - they allow stupid people to keep being stupid, whereas in RWD vehicles these people would either become better drivers or eventually eliminate themselves from the gene pool. Okay, perhaps that's a little harsh. They are probably better for the average driver, but the average driver only appears to devote about 8 brain cells to the actual act of driving - the rest are occupied with talking on the cell phone, reading a map, eating lunch, adjusting the radio, talking to other passengers, and basically all sorts of activities that have nothing whatsoever to do with driving.

There are two main reasons they are better in snow and on bad roads...at least, better for novice drivers. Number one is that there is more weight over the driven wheels, which provides more traction and makes it tougher to break the tires loose. However, with FWD the more weight you put in the passenger compartment, the less traction you've got - as opposed to RWD vehicles, which get better as the load increases. This is why a loaded FWD minivan wouldn't be much good climbing a hill - too much weight is on the back wheels and not enough is on the front.

The second reason they are "better" is that when you break the tires loose the front end doesn't tend to slide sideways - and to fix it all you need to do is let off on the gas. Unless you're going around a corner and then you plow off the road into the trees...but it goes off front-first, which is generally considered to be safer than sideways or rear-first. This is why factory vehicles in the U.S. are generally built to understeer rather than oversteer, even though a vehicle with neutral handling that can be put into a power oversteer provides better overall handling IMHO. With a FWD vehicle the understeer is part of the design, and that's why it can be really difficult to make one that handles as well as a RWD or AWD vehicle. For a good driver FWD doesn't handle as well, but for a poor driver it tends to be a bit safer.

I agree with Mark, and don't think FWD is any better for braking.

I will give them credit for one thing - our company cars are mostly FWD, and I've found that on long trips on bad roads they tend to be a little less stressful to drive...but not enough to be worth the drawbacks in my opinion. I've always loved driving fast on bad roads - ice, snow, gravel, dirt, whatever - and for that FWD isn't even an option. Not only does it take all the fun out of it, but it's slower, not as strong, and not as durable as RWD or AWD.

Oh, and I did (still do) my high-speed bad-road driving in a safe manner...well, safe to everyone but me at least. The high probability of death was always a big part of the thrill of racing for me...nowdays they'd call me an adrenaline junkie, but back then everyone just called me crazy.

GM was probably the first of the "Big 3" to really push into front-wheel-drive vehicles...because they were one of the first to have a marketable V6, which lends itself to that kind of application. AMC actually bought the rights for that engine from GM and had them for years...but they never used them because they though their straight-6 engine design was better. I agree - I've never been a fan of the V6, and that old Rambler/AMC I6 was built like a tank (I owned a few). Anyway, GM eventually got the rights back to the engine and started making them, and then started trying to convince the public that front wheel drive was better so that they could put the engine to good use and have an advantage over Ford and Chrysler.

On a different note, front-wheel-drive is partly responsible for the design of the AMC Pacer. It was originally designed to be FWD with a rotary engine, but when GM cancelled their rotary engine program then AMC was forced to use one of their own engines and had to convert the chassis to RWD. There wasn't enough room for a driveshaft tunnel, so they made the entire car over 6" wider so that it would fit - which is why the Pacer was so wide compared to it's length, and is partially responsible for it's rather...errr...."unique" styling. If the rotary engine program hadn't been cancelled, the Pacer might have ended up being a revolutionary design.

LK

 

Thanks LK! A much better explanation than I could give.

I absolutely loved driving my '73 puke green ford maverick with the 250 I6. The rear would break loose easily so I learned very early how to control a skid. I would trade my ZX2 for another Maverick almost any day.

Mark

 

>I absolutely loved driving my '73 puke green ford maverick
>with the 250 I6. The rear would break loose easily so I
>learned very early how to control a skid. I would trade my
>ZX2 for another Maverick almost any day.

Lovely color description. I once had a puke yellow 71 full sized Ford. Your Maverick sounds great. Maybe traction bars and slightly better tires (wider? radial?) would help.

 

Aaah, if I only still had that Maverick. It was my first car and is now long gone. If I found another I would probably put in a 302 and have some real fun.

Actually not only was it puke green (metallic) but when I was done with it the right front fender was red. I replaced it after hitting a GMC Jimmy. Thank goodness the Jimmy was rusted out pretty thoroughly.

Mark