What FWD car would you make RWD?

[RobM77]

FA57REN said:

RobM77 said:

I bet they’d enjoy the Sierra more though. Nobody’s timing you on the road and timing’s not allowed on track days. Road cars, therefore, are about enjoyment, not speed. Sensation of speed, yes, but not some guy with a stopwatch telling you you’re 2 seconds faster.

Oddly enough when the South Africans were dropping a big lump into the Sierra they had to redesign the rear suspension to... reduce understeer. Yet again, RWD isn't a panacea.

Oh crikey, yes, I never meant to suggest it was, or that the Sierra was any good. It was being compared to an early Mondeo, and having driven both I know what I'd choose on the loose.

[Evercross]

njw1 said:

Ford Focus and Mondeo, with the Mondeo there's actually plenty of room underneath for a propshaft and diff due to them being based on a 4wd floorplan

Is that not called a Jaguar X-Type?

My goodness - someone in PH has said that the Jaguar X-Type layout was desirable!!!

PS. I am a fan of the X-Type.

[GTiWILL]

MC Bodge said:

GTiWILL said:

I’m still not convinced. If everything else stayed the same, you’d have a transverse engined small hatchback with a lot of weight up front and power going to barely weighted rear tyres. Yes, it would be drifting nirvana, however in the real world it would be downright dangerous. One of the fundamental advantages of RWD is that the weight can be spread evenly across the car, 50/50. Take that away and RWD makes less of a case for itself!

The Sunbeam Lotus was an example of this arrangement. I've never driven one, although a former colleague had one in the oast and said it was great fun.

Good call! I never realised they were transverse engined.

[Don Roque]

Phunk said:

MitchT said:

CanAm said:

Lotus Elan



Photo added to avoid confusion!

Edited by CanAm on Monday 8th June 19:35

First thing I thought before I even opened the thread. It looks like a mid-engined, rear-wheel-drive car.

I used to own one and read a bit into the development of it and why they made it FWD. They did tests comparing FWD vs RWD and found that FWD was faster in the majority of situations. It was a great steer and handled really well with quite an unusual front setup for that vastly reduced torque steer.

Yes, a fantastic car and hugely misunderstood. I once had a fascinating chat with a former lead vehicle engineer from Lotus about this model, it was much more popular in house than with buyers. Lotus evidently wanted the most competitive performance cars, buyers and journalists did not.

[aeropilot]

njw1 said:

FA57REN said:

Oddly enough when the South Africans were dropping a big lump into the Sierra they had to redesign the rear suspension to... reduce understeer. Yet again, RWD isn't a panacea.

I doubt that sticking a V8 in that weighed probably twice as much as a Pinto was ever going to do much for the handling....

Except they weren't replacing the Pinto....

The 5.0HO V8 they put in the XR8 was only 40 pounds heavier than the engine in the South African Sierra 3.0iS which was their top of the range performance model out there.
South Africa never got the use of the Cologne 2.9 V6, so when the Sierra came out they continued to make use of the good old Essex 3.0 V6 for another decade after UK stopped using it, even adding fuel injection in later years, getting nearly 170hp out of the old Essex in their Sierra models.

[braddo]

GTiWILL said:

MC Bodge said:

The Sunbeam Lotus was an example of this arrangement. I've never driven one, although a former colleague had one in the oast and said it was great fun.

Good call! I never realised they were transverse engined.

They're not!!

[Fleckers]

I wonder was a MG Zt-t would be like with RWD and a nice V8 engine ??

😀

Oh yes they are fantastic and I do so miss my MG Zt-t SE260

[StanleyT]

Reliant Robin.

Actually I'd make it AWD.

Edit.

Just remembered my Grandad used to say it was front wheel drive but it was just front wheel steer.

In which case I nominate that bugger of a car I had the Maestro to be RWD as when I handbraked it and went backwards down a Derbyshire lane on ice the wheels powering it were effeminately not the front ones but it went faster backwards than forwards.

Edited by StanleyT on Tuesday 9th June 23:14

[GTiWILL]

braddo said:

GTiWILL said:

MC Bodge said:

The Sunbeam Lotus was an example of this arrangement. I've never driven one, although a former colleague had one in the oast and said it was great fun.

Good call! I never realised they were transverse engined.

They're not!!

Ahh, I was replying the following post and took their word for it.

MC Bodge said:

GTiWILL said:

I’m still not convinced. If everything else stayed the same, you’d have a transverse engined small hatchback with a lot of weight up front and power going to barely weighted rear tyres. Yes, it would be drifting nirvana, however in the real world it would be downright dangerous. One of the fundamental advantages of RWD is that the weight can be spread evenly across the car, 50/50. Take that away and RWD makes less of a case for itself!

The Sunbeam Lotus was an example of this arrangement. I've never driven one, although a former colleague had one in the oast and said it was great fun.

[FA57REN]

Fleckers said:

I wonder was a MG Zt-t would be like with RWD and a nice V8 engine ??

Lardier and less balanced than the FWD V6... and no spare wheel.

The RWD 260 was about 200kg heavier, mostly from the mechanicals needed to send the drive aft and the changes to bodyshell and rear suspension to accommodate that.

So basically a great example of why FWD is worth the additional up-front complexity it requires...

Edited by FA57REN on Wednesday 10th June 08:56

[anonymous-user]

Darryl247W said:

Darkslider said:

Agreed. Why Mitsubishi thought that body deserved V6 FWD mainly auto warrants some explaining. I had one briefly, but very briefly.

There was a car whose looks wrote cheques the performance could never match. Four speed slusher too wasn't it? Most of them were in that drab wet road colour that makes every car look tired from 6 months old too.

[TameRacingDriver]

stickleback123 said:

There was a car whose looks wrote cheques the performance could never match. Four speed slusher too wasn't it? Most of them were in that drab wet road colour that makes every car look tired from 6 months old too.

There was a manual version that was just as fast as a Type R so not that slow in that guise at least.

[cerb4.5lee]

TameRacingDriver said:

stickleback123 said:

There was a car whose looks wrote cheques the performance could never match. Four speed slusher too wasn't it? Most of them were in that drab wet road colour that makes every car look tired from 6 months old too.

There was a manual version that was just as fast as a Type R so not that slow in that guise at least.

I had some fun with one once in my 200SX(running 250bhp) and I was very surprised how quick it was to be fair. I was expecting the 200 to be much quicker than it.

[TameRacingDriver]

cerb4.5lee said:

TameRacingDriver said:

stickleback123 said:

There was a car whose looks wrote cheques the performance could never match. Four speed slusher too wasn't it? Most of them were in that drab wet road colour that makes every car look tired from 6 months old too.

There was a manual version that was just as fast as a Type R so not that slow in that guise at least.

I had some fun with one once in my 200SX(running 250bhp) and I was very surprised how quick it was to be fair. I was expecting the 200 to be much quicker than it.

It could ironically be one of those bizarre cars that's faster than some people expect because people have said for years how slow they are so in effect it comes full circle

[cerb4.5lee]

TameRacingDriver said:

cerb4.5lee said:

TameRacingDriver said:

stickleback123 said:

There was a car whose looks wrote cheques the performance could never match. Four speed slusher too wasn't it? Most of them were in that drab wet road colour that makes every car look tired from 6 months old too.

There was a manual version that was just as fast as a Type R so not that slow in that guise at least.

I had some fun with one once in my 200SX(running 250bhp) and I was very surprised how quick it was to be fair. I was expecting the 200 to be much quicker than it.

It could ironically be one of those bizarre cars that's faster than some people expect because people have said for years how slow they are so in effect it comes full circle

True!

[anonymous-user]

I take back my criticism of the FTOs performance in that case. My experience was a V6 model and I was told it had 200bhp, however it felt like 200 seahorse power after the 4 speed slusher had done it's worse.

[TheJimi]

fieldmau5 said:

TameRacingDriver said:

fieldmau5 said:

So an S15 Silvia then?

Which is heavier, turbocharged and RWD, yeah just like a 'teg.

I'll say it again, just no. The ITR is best as a FWD car, and I say that having owned plenty of RWD stuff too.

I actually agree that the ITR is best as a FWD car.

I'm saying if they wanted an RWD DC5 it practically already exists.
There's only 50kg in the difference and they made them in both N/A and Turbo.

The question is which FWD car would you make RWD. A dead simple question, easy to understand. Well, so I thought.

Someone answers with DC5. Perfectly acceptable answer.

What's difficult to comprehend about that? and moreover, in relation to the question wtf has an S15 got to do with anything?

Baffling.

Anyway, to answer the OP, I'd go with a 4th Gen Honda Prelude.

Edited by TheJimi on Wednesday 10th June 15:13

[njw1]

cerb4.5lee said:

TameRacingDriver said:

cerb4.5lee said:

TameRacingDriver said:

stickleback123 said:

There was a car whose looks wrote cheques the performance could never match. Four speed slusher too wasn't it? Most of them were in that drab wet road colour that makes every car look tired from 6 months old too.

There was a manual version that was just as fast as a Type R so not that slow in that guise at least.

I had some fun with one once in my 200SX(running 250bhp) and I was very surprised how quick it was to be fair. I was expecting the 200 to be much quicker than it.

It could ironically be one of those bizarre cars that's faster than some people expect because people have said for years how slow they are so in effect it comes full circle

True!

My mate had an import (I think they all were?) manual mivec and it was far from slow, stuck to the road like a very sticky thing too.

[JamesRR]

NDNDNDND said:

I remember being at a track day at Brands a few years ago and giving way to a Lotus Sunbeam going into Graham Hill bend. It came past off-line, sideways with both rear tyres lit up and the front inside wheel pawing at the air! It looked terrific!

It's a great pity the RWD hatchback has gone again. I'd be tempted to replace my wife's Fiesta with an E82 1-series, but the electric steering puts me off and I always seem to find BMWs a bit disappointing.

That generation of 1 series are a brilliant drive. Lovely old school feel compared to contemporary rivals.

[Burnzyb]

Another vote for the fords to have continued to be RWD

I’d of loved the Mondeo mk4 RWD with the 5 pot 2.5t engine, best engine they had after the cosworth and both not their own