Give me the "kick me in the butt" torque of a rear wheel drive all the time. My wife has a front wheel drive but ALL of MINE are rear wheel and they will always be that.

Mike

 

Just my opinion...

The big answer is $, moolah, dinero, ie it is cheap to build.

FWD drivetrains are pretty much a drop in type deal, ie you have an engine and transaxle that is all one assembly which can be dropped in as one piece. A "regular" drivetrain, good old RWD, requires engine and tranny to be installed as one, maybe two units and then you have the rearend plus driveshaft. One piece assembly costs less to install and usually to make.

FWD usually is also more compact, thus allowing "better" utilization of the space inside the chassis for other things like passenger space, trunks, cup holders, console tv... Also there usually is no Transmission hump and drive shaft hump, also allowing flatter floors and better space utilization. IMHO, what this really allows is a simple cookie cutter connected boxes type design so it can be cheap.

I have driven FWD, RWD and 4x4. All have good and bad things about them.

I am not convinced that FWD allows a driver better control in snow and rain etc. I have driven FWD cars that at best felt only as good as a RW in bad conditions. I think where the mistaken(IMHO) idea that FWD is better in bad conditions is that usually the FWD cars are gutless and won't be as easy to get out of control or lose traction. A RWD usually has more power and can get squirrely if you don't know how to drive it in mud and snow. I have driven my 96 SS RW in snow and ice and as long as I use my common sense I do just fine. Other people on the same days with RWD Mustangs and FWD econoboxs go slipping and sliding, because they believe the gas pedal is an on/off switch. They don't seem to understand about easing into motion or stopping sloooowly when roads are slippery.

I do Like my Ford 4x4 and it does work quite nicely when conditions are bad. But even with 4x4 you have to remember that stopping is the great equalizer, ie 4x4 makes no difference when you hit the brakes. I do like driving kind of sideways like a crab on icy crowned roads though ;^). Can't do that with my SS. I drive the truck in 4x4 maybe 3 or 4 days when I think I might need it, very rarely does it turn out that I really do need it and when that happens I shouldn't have been on the road. But thank heavens for those times when I get stuck in RWD, just pop it into 4x4 and away.

You don't see any "best of class" racers with FWD. What I mean is for maximum road racing/dragging, all the cars that people pay big bucks to watch are RWD or maybe 4x4. Yeah there are FWD rabbits etc running around the road courses but you never see an Indy 500 FWD race, or at least I never was interested enough to pay to watch one. How many 5 second FWD drag racers are there? Unless I have missed something the answer is NONE. Most race cars where big money is spent for maximum performance are RWD at least from what I have read.

I had an SHO and now have an SS and comparing the cars, I definitely lean to the SS, even though it is a chebby. The SHO had almost the same power to weight ratio, but you couldn't get the power to the ground. My biggest example of that was my SHO was a real white knuckler when leaving a driveway and turning right with oncoming traffic. If the road was dry and you gassed it a little too much, you got spin. If the road was wet, forget it, the wheels would spin no matter what, so much for FWD pulling you through the turns on slick roads.

OH well I ramble on. I like RWD so I guess I am a dinosaur. But There is room for FWD cars, they are great if you want an inexpensive vehicle. The problems start to pop up when you stick a FWD into a nice big car or something sporty, then it takes a lot of engineering and or driver skill to get the most out of it. With RWD, most times, just mashing the throttle will do ;^)

They are all good, it just depends on what you want to do with it.

Jim Henderson

 

What color ss ? Those are some awesome cars

 

I've read some inside info from the "Big Three" and rear drive will soon be more commonplace. ie.,, Intrepid/LHS/300M are to be rear drive very soon, and the new T-Bird is rear drive.

 

Hmmmm, I see nobody has mentioned the Ford FWD micro-ute, Escape. Unfortunately for me the Mrs. is in love with those silly little things, so I will end up owning one. She just dosen't get the fact that it's a contour with a mini truck body bolted on. Sick. But at least it comes in 4x4, or is that AWD, sheesh!!

BFM

 

An Escape is essentialy a FWD and applies power to the rear when needed. An Escape is actually a training vehicle for my wife so that I can move her up to bigger and better Trucks.

 

Back in the 80's Volkswagon made a rabbit pick-up that was front wheel drive. That thing was a pretty cool little truck until You put any weight in the back then it was impossible to drive across grass, no traction. lol.

Brad Godkin
1986 F350 CC/SRW
6.9liter/C6

 

Brad, wanna hear something funny? Here in Minnesota there is a guy rolling around with one of them volkswagen pickups with an olds toronado V8 in the back of it. It has two sets of wheels in back but I don't know if they are both powered by the olds' transaxle. I know at least one set is. The front engine still works too! He's got two seperate gas pedals and everything. I guess its pretty fast. It sure is a funny little creation. It will probably show up at the car craft summer cruise, I think it was there last year.

People who say it can't be done should not interrupt the person doing it.

 

 

Remember when Dodge had a little foreign front wheel drive pickup car? Wasn't it a Dodge nameplated Subaru Brat?


Front wheel cars don't drive, they pull!

 

I really hate yuppies. It's because of them that we have front wheel drive.

 

I read somewhere that if GM didn't cancel the Firebird, they would make it into a front wheel drive. That will hurt GM worse than cancelling the brid. But SUV salse went up, and the Firebird is kinda a part of American automotive history which I think should not be changed.

Logan

 

I recall reading that when the front wheel drive (pull) Ford Probe was being planned, it was to be the next Mustang, but that the enthusiasts screemed loud enough to Ford that they kept the Mustang on the Fox rear wheel drive platform.

 

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 06-Jul-01 AT 05:10 PM (EST)[/font][p]TallPaul they both look close but I think the Dodge "Rampage" was based on the omni/horizon platform, and by the looks and era of that Volkswagen truck I think shares parts with the Rabbit

 

earlier you said FWD's suck in snow. VERY untrue. For a car, they do exceptional. All the weight is under the power wheels basically with the engine in the front. Lasst winter we had a really bad snow storm. There was about 2 feet of snow in our drive way. Dad was in northern Alberta hunting moose at the time so he wasn't home. This was before I got my 1/2 ton 4x4. Mom has a 2001 Dodge Intrepid. We did get stuck in the drive way but at the very end of it. And it wasn't so hard to get out either. Kinda funny, on the roads most of the vehicles that were stuck were either RWD cars or trucks. A few FWD's but that was most likely because of poor driving ability.