Transverse mid engined cars
Discussion
AW111, I'm a life long Lotus fan, Colin Chapman was my boyhood hero, which led me to study engineering, and go on to designing, developing and marketing my own products globally, I have owned an Elan for twenty years, did a road drive in it yesterday ! I have most of the books published on Lotus, many more than I have on Porsche ( and a lot more than on Lancia, still feeling deeply embarrassed by that howler ).
So, I'd say a "Car fan old man " if thats OK with you ?
...and if the engine is closer ( on top of ) to the rear axle than it is to the traditional Chapman meaning of a mid engined car, I'd call it rear axle engined !
So, I'd say a "Car fan old man " if thats OK with you ?
...and if the engine is closer ( on top of ) to the rear axle than it is to the traditional Chapman meaning of a mid engined car, I'd call it rear axle engined !
Edited by ravon on Friday 29th August 12:19
Captain Muppet said:
Toyota make a longitudinal mounted version of that V6 engine. It isn't any lower. Which way round the engine is doesn't change it's centre of gravity.
But longitudinal mount should mean that you dont have to sit the negine on top of the gearbox etc and can therefore keep it lower>
ravon said:
AW111, I'm a life long Lotus fan, Colin Chapman was my boyhood hero, which led me to study engineering, and go on to designing, developing and marketing my own products globally, I have owned an Elan for twenty years, did a road drive in it yesterday ! I have most of the books published on Lotus, many more than I have on Porsche ( and a lot more than on Lancia, still feeling deeply embarrassed by that howler ).
So, I'd say a "Car fan old man " if thats OK with you ?
...and if the engine is closer ( on top of ) to the rear axle than it is to the traditional Chapman meaning of a mid engined car, I'd call it rear axle engined !
Fair enough. The fanboy comment was a bit tongue in cheek, but it does seem to be Porsche owners who make the most fuss about transverse not being proper mid engined.So, I'd say a "Car fan old man " if thats OK with you ?
...and if the engine is closer ( on top of ) to the rear axle than it is to the traditional Chapman meaning of a mid engined car, I'd call it rear axle engined !
Edited by ravon on Friday 29th August 12:19
I don't know enough about the Evora to argue, but say that about my (mk1) MR2 and it's a fight to the death!
The real issue for COG height is sump clearance anyway : without dry sumping the engine, everything I look at, whether front, mid or rear has the sump as the lowest point on the car.
Had Lotus not wanted to make the Evora a 2+2, they could have rotated the engine forward by 30-50 degrees, which a lot of front engined cars have done to lower the bonnet line. In fact the original Esprit has the engine laid well over.
Would that be an improvement? I think so, but then they lose the 2+2 tag.
ps Just to be inconsistent, I hate the term "front mid engined" for front engined cars that push the engine back into the transmission tunnel and sit the driver on the rear axle.
otolith said:
blueg33 said:
But longitudinal mount should mean that you dont have to sit the negine on top of the gearbox etc and can therefore keep it lower>
At the expense of spreading some mass out longitudinally.
Ultimately, I am not sure it matters whether the engine is high, low, longitudinal or transverse, it should be all about the feel and driveability of the car, if a less than ideal engine position can be made up for by suspension tuning etc then great.
Personally I know what I like in terms of feel. For me the Evora is better than a Cayman, if the Cayman has a lower CoG then it seems that Lotus were very good at correcting the effect.
blueg33 said:
Of course. and I would assume that this impacts the polar moment of inertia or summat
Ultimately, I am not sure it matters whether the engine is high, low, longitudinal or transverse, it should be all about the feel and driveability of the car, if a less than ideal engine position can be made up for by suspension tuning etc then great.
Personally I know what I like in terms of feel. For me the Evora is better than a Cayman, if the Cayman has a lower CoG then it seems that Lotus were very good at correcting the effect.
wrong termUltimately, I am not sure it matters whether the engine is high, low, longitudinal or transverse, it should be all about the feel and driveability of the car, if a less than ideal engine position can be made up for by suspension tuning etc then great.
Personally I know what I like in terms of feel. For me the Evora is better than a Cayman, if the Cayman has a lower CoG then it seems that Lotus were very good at correcting the effect.
you cannot correct for it, only mask it's effects.
having a high COG is really hard to deal with as it knocks onto all kinds of things, yes, Lotus have done a superb job of making the evora handle like it does, but consider just how much better it could have been without the handicap of where the engine is?
as somebody said earlier, if they had forgot the back seat and brought the engine forward, tipped forward, and lowered, it difference would be dramatic.
Somebody mentioned the Elise being the same, but actually that's not right, the original S1 Elise has a remarkably low COG, helped a lot by the engine being very low in the chassis and having a engine with a very light head assembly (infact a very light engine package by todays standards)
remember, the original Elise weighs in at ~700Kg's, the Evora is double that.
Scuffers said:
blueg33 said:
Of course. and I would assume that this impacts the polar moment of inertia or summat
Ultimately, I am not sure it matters whether the engine is high, low, longitudinal or transverse, it should be all about the feel and driveability of the car, if a less than ideal engine position can be made up for by suspension tuning etc then great.
Personally I know what I like in terms of feel. For me the Evora is better than a Cayman, if the Cayman has a lower CoG then it seems that Lotus were very good at correcting the effect.
wrong termUltimately, I am not sure it matters whether the engine is high, low, longitudinal or transverse, it should be all about the feel and driveability of the car, if a less than ideal engine position can be made up for by suspension tuning etc then great.
Personally I know what I like in terms of feel. For me the Evora is better than a Cayman, if the Cayman has a lower CoG then it seems that Lotus were very good at correcting the effect.
you cannot correct for it, only mask it's effects.
having a high COG is really hard to deal with as it knocks onto all kinds of things, yes, Lotus have done a superb job of making the evora handle like it does, but consider just how much better it could have been without the handicap of where the engine is?
as somebody said earlier, if they had forgot the back seat and brought the engine forward, tipped forward, and lowered, it difference would be dramatic.
Somebody mentioned the Elise being the same, but actually that's not right, the original S1 Elise has a remarkably low COG, helped a lot by the engine being very low in the chassis and having a engine with a very light head assembly (infact a very light engine package by todays standards)
remember, the original Elise weighs in at ~700Kg's, the Evora is double that.
blueg33 said:
Quite possibly - but it still handles best against it immediate competitors and it has a back seat. If it hadn't had a back seat I would have had to buy a 911, a Jag XK or a DB9 and dynamically they are not close
dissagree.911 has a back seat and dynamically is a better car by far, it may have the engine in the back, but they work like that, and it's very hard to argue against timesheets.
XK and DB9 are not even in the same ballpark as either.
Scuffers said:
blueg33 said:
Quite possibly - but it still handles best against it immediate competitors and it has a back seat. If it hadn't had a back seat I would have had to buy a 911, a Jag XK or a DB9 and dynamically they are not close
dissagree.911 has a back seat and dynamically is a better car by far, it may have the engine in the back, but they work like that, and it's very hard to argue against timesheets.
XK and DB9 are not even in the same ballpark as either.
Pretty much every review I have read says that a Cayman handles better than a 911. The Evora is frequently considered to handle batter than the Cayman. In my terms this make the Evora markedly better handling than a 911 and that is my experience too.
The difference is noticeable. Before I bough the evora I had a 911 and then a Cayman each on test for 3 days back to back with the Evora on the 7-10th day. I had decided on the Evora with a couple of miles and the feedback and handling advantage made itself clear within the first mile.
As a drivers car it was a "no brainer"
Scuffers said:
dissagree.
911 has a back seat and dynamically is a better car by far, it may have the engine in the back, but they work like that, and it's very hard to argue against timesheets.
XK and DB9 are not even in the same ballpark as either.
You can't have it both ways. In the post above, you say the 911 is great despite having the engine hanging out the back, yet earlier you said (regarding the Lotus)911 has a back seat and dynamically is a better car by far, it may have the engine in the back, but they work like that, and it's very hard to argue against timesheets.
XK and DB9 are not even in the same ballpark as either.
Scuffers said:
wrong termyou cannot correct for it, only mask it's effects.having a high COG is really hard to deal with as it knocks onto all kinds of things, yes, Lotus have done a superb job of making the evora handle like it does, but consider just how much better it could have been without the handicap of where the engine is?
That quote is equally applicable to the 911, just replace "high COG" with "rear mounted engine".I am not bashing Porsche, just pointing out the inconsistency.
Qwert1e said:
Strange isn't it that Evora is apparently the best sportscar on the planet, yet almost nobody buys them.
Or perhaps it's not the best after all...
No-one has said that the Evora is the best sports car. People might have said that it's the best handling sports car (no idea whether this is true) but it's hardly a revelation that 90% of sports car buyers couldn't give a damn about handling. Or perhaps it's not the best after all...
The Evora is massively flawed as a sales proposition - the interior plastics aren't cuddly enough and it has the wrong badge. You cannot sell a sports car primarily on how it drives; Porsche understand this, Lotus do not. I haven't driven the latest version of either but I've spent quite a lot of time in 987/997 and they are astonishingly capable and, quite frankly, rather dull.
Edited by kambites on Friday 29th August 14:46
blueg33 said:
We are going to have to disagree. The 911 does not handle anything like as well as an Evora and the other two are lardy GT's that again dont handle in th esame way.
Pretty much every review I have read says that a Cayman handles better than a 911. The Evora is frequently considered to handle batter than the Cayman. In my terms this make the Evora markedly better handling than a 911 and that is my experience too.
The difference is noticeable. Before I bough the evora I had a 911 and then a Cayman each on test for 3 days back to back with the Evora on the 7-10th day. I had decided on the Evora with a couple of miles and the feedback and handling advantage made itself clear within the first mile.
As a drivers car it was a "no brainer"
total second-hand horlicks though.Pretty much every review I have read says that a Cayman handles better than a 911. The Evora is frequently considered to handle batter than the Cayman. In my terms this make the Evora markedly better handling than a 911 and that is my experience too.
The difference is noticeable. Before I bough the evora I had a 911 and then a Cayman each on test for 3 days back to back with the Evora on the 7-10th day. I had decided on the Evora with a couple of miles and the feedback and handling advantage made itself clear within the first mile.
As a drivers car it was a "no brainer"
I have driven all of them, and whilst the Cayman is impressively good and arguably more impressive than the 911 (although still slower round a track) by comparison the evora is nowhere.
yes, it feels great, and it's certainly no dog, however, compared to the 911, it's nowhere for outright grip, braking & traction.
don't get me wrong, I am not hankering after a 911, however, given the choice of a 991 or an Evora, it's a no brainer
kambites said:
Qwert1e said:
Strange isn't it that Evora is apparently the best sportscar on the planet, yet almost nobody buys them.
Or perhaps it's not the best after all...
No-one has said that the Evora is the best sports car. People might have said that it's the best handling sports car (no idea whether this is true) but it's hardly a revelation that 90% of sports car buyers couldn't give a damn about handling. Or perhaps it's not the best after all...
The Evora is massively flawed as a sales proposition - the interior plastics aren't cuddly enough and it has the wrong badge. You cannot sell a sports car primarily on how it drives; Porsche understand this, Lotus do not.
Edited by kambites on Friday 29th August 14:44
I dont think that the badge is an issue, its the marketing thats the issue.
Even me, and Evora owner and hence biased didnt say it was the best handling road car, but in its class at its price point, in my opinion and that of many others, it is.
blueg33 said:
I dont think that the badge is an issue, its the marketing thats the issue.
Poor old Evora - everyone's always making excuses for it.At the end of the day it's the car that's wrong. Dani Bahar was supposed to be a marketing guru but he was one of the first to recognise the scale of the problems.
I'm sure the KTM X-bow handles nicely but nobody buys those either.
Qwert1e said:
Poor old Evora - everyone's always making excuses for it.
sad but trueEvora was the car designed by a committee..
yes, it's currently the only mid-engined 2+2, however, does that not kind of tell you something?
Qwert1e said:
I'm sure the KTM X-bow handles nicely but nobody buys those either.
again, sadly, the KTM does not even manage that, they are almost as bad as the Atom in the handling department.
Qwert1e said:
blueg33 said:
I dont think that the badge is an issue, its the marketing thats the issue.
Poor old Evora - everyone's always making excuses for it.At the end of the day it's the car that's wrong. Dani Bahar was supposed to be a marketing guru but he was one of the first to recognise the scale of the problems.
I'm sure the KTM X-bow handles nicely but nobody buys those either.
People don;t consider them because they don't really know they exist. That is marketing
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