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What I meant before with the "fewest performance drawbacks" is that RWD is the best choice for the best balance of performance and driving "fun". FWD has its advantages in certain areas, but it produces nose-heavy cars leading to understeer and plow, reduces steering feel, and runs into a power and torque wall after which the car becomes uncontrollable.
AWD offers enormous grip, which may produce faster cornering speeds than RWD, but at a loss of the ability to oversteer (or at least oversteer nearly as easily as RWD) It also adds weight, and makes high rpm launches impossible, leading to slower acceleration than RWD.
Top Gear's five fastest ever cars around their test track are:
1. Koenigsegg CCX (RWD)
2. Pagani Zonda F (RWD)
3. Maserati MC12 (RWD)
4. Ferrari Enzo (RWD)
5. Ariel Atom (RWD)
The next eight cars on the list are also all RWD. The fastest AWD car, the Murcielago, only managed 14th.
Hit-Driven Auto Companies-- Nissan, Chrysler, GM
For further details read the article below:
Lemon Sale
By JOHN SCHNAPP, former head of The Mercer Management Consulting Group
May 16, 2007; Page A21
Early in the explorations by Daimler AG about detaching its Chrysler tar baby, it discussed the possibility of a deal with General Motors. GM apparently expressed a willingness to consider this, but only if Daimler would pay it for taking over Chrysler, rather than vice versa.
With due respect to the sagacity of Stephan Feinberg and his colleagues at Cerberus Capital Management, GM may have done its sums better than they. Paying $7.4 billion for approximately 80% of Chrysler, plus assuming $18 billion in employee benefit liabilities, reflects not merely turnaround optimism; it may cross the frontier into foolhardiness.
From the standpoint of financial outcomes, there are two kinds of auto makers: momentum companies and hit-driven companies. A momentum auto maker enjoys strong consumer confidence, produces sound but usually unflashy vehicles, and is very good at the blocking-and-tackling aspects of the business, both technical and managerial. Toyota and Honda are momentum auto makers; so are BMW and PSA, Volvo and Subaru too, on a smaller scale. GM used to be one and so was Nissan, but both committed a cascade of managerial and product gaffes that erased their momentum and dropped them into auto-maker purgatory.
Hit-driven auto makers are like toymakers whose backlog of older product is too weak to smooth their road from year to year. If a toymaker has lots of perennial strong sellers like a Barbie or a Monopoly it can weather a year without a new Tickle Me Elmo. If it doesn't, though, every season must include at least one home run or financial performance will be a roller coaster.
Chrysler has been the epitome of a hit-driven company for more than 50 years. At its ultimate perigee in the late 1970s, buffeted by an extensive new-product losing streak and the unusual expenses of meeting new fuel economy and safety standards, it was headed for bankruptcy. A modest federal loan guarantee and some artificial respiration from the UAW gave newly arrived CEO Lee Iacocca time for some inspired improvisational first aid -- and ultimately the introduction of a real home run product, the first front-wheel-drive, garageable, car-based minivan.
Then the new product pipeline dried up, the numbers headed south and Chrysler seemed perigee-bound again. Somehow Mr. Iacocca's team not only managed a reprise of its earlier rabbit-from-the-hat trick but did it with a trifecta of hit products: the muscular Ram pick-up, the civilized Jeep Grand Cherokee SUV and the so-called "cab-forward" sleek Dodge Intrepid midsize sedan. Chrysler became suddenly the most profitable auto maker on the planet. Unfortunately the gush of profits began to flow only after the Chrysler board, mistakenly convinced that Mr. Iacocca had lost his fastball, handed him the proverbial gold watch and replaced him with Robert Eaton, freshly imported from General Motors.
Mr. Eaton encountered a paradox: Buyers were flooding the dealerships for the spiffy new vehicles developed under Mr. Iacocca's leadership, yet by any objective evaluation -- fit and finish, product durability and reliability, or plant productivity -- Chrysler was a basket case. He assumed that fixing these problems was of higher priority than new hits. This was a big mistake but Mr. Eaton turned out to be the luckiest man in Motown. At the 1998 Detroit Motor Show Daimler-Benz chairman Jürgen Schrempp button-holed him, apparently out of the blue, to propose the great transnational auto maker that would be created by exchanging Daimler shares for Chrysler shares.
Herr Schrempp's penance for undertaking the least diligent due diligence in recent corporate history was spending $36 billion on an acquisition which almost instantly plummeted deeply into the red. It was making better quality vehicles more efficiently, thanks to Bob Eaton's efforts, but hardly anyone wanted them. The magic had vanished and despite heroic efforts by Dieter Zetsche, parachuted in from Stuttgart in 2000 to turn things around, it has not returned.
Even mini-hits like the Chrysler 300, the big gangsta-car with the narrow windows and powerful hemi engine, is proving to have no legs in the market. Worst of all, Chrysler's most recent new offerings have been panned by Consumer Reports, the great auto market influencer, as both mechanically and cosmetically deficient.
Mr. Zetsche, rewarded in January 2006 with the top job at then DaimlerChrysler, had already cleaned things up at Chrysler the way a financially oriented new owner like Cerberus might do it. Perhaps Mr. Feinberg and his colleagues can push even further, persuading the union to accept give-ups, but it will have to overcome a natural suspicion at Solidarity House, UAW headquarters, of financial hotshots with a Park Avenue business address. To the UAW, Cerberus has deep pockets, a situation much different from 1979-80, when Chrysler was a stand-alone entity and could not survive without union help.
Cerberus may find some imaginative way of slashing Chrysler's inflated dealer body, along with the market ineffectiveness and internal cost burden it imposes on the company. But this is likely to be both expensive and time-consuming. GM says it paid out $2 billion to close down its Oldsmobile network. That may have been its out-of-pocket cost, but if staff time for negotiating dealer payoffs were factored in the real cost was undoubtedly much higher. And Chrysler dealers are legitimately wary, no matter who owns the company. Late last year they had considerable numbers of unordered and unwanted vehicles thrust down their throats to get them off Chrysler's own books.
Yet cutting costs doesn't make an auto maker successful or profitable. Chrysler demonstrated in its two recoveries under Mr. Iacocca that costs can be high and quality modest, but attractive products can make these into virtual non-issues.
There's the rub: What even Dieter Zetsche could not accomplish was the mysterious feat of generating hit products. And hitmakers are hard to find. Cerberus has brought aboard a well-known auto industry ronin, Wolfgang Bernhard, as an advisor, but Mr. Bernhard, Chrysler COO from 2000 to 2004, was on the bridge with Mr. Zetsche not when the company was generating hits, but rather when it wasn't.
Cerberus, too, is taking on serious downside risk. Chrysler's physical assets are essentially worthless because no one else will want them, and its marketplace equity is modest at best. The Dodge and Chrysler brands have only slight cachet although Jeep remains relatively iconic. How long it will remain iconic is questionable. The company has been endeavoring to exploit the brand, flooding its product line with dubious and slow-selling new varian
Saabs with two stroke engines
link title
The reason why RWD cars top that list is quite obvious: those so-called production cars are mostly spin-off's from the company's racing effort. Since AWD cars have been banned from most racing events, it's only natural to see these spin-off's come in RWD form
High-rev clutch dropping in a Murcielago or 911 Turbo will destroy the clutch. This is precisely the reason why the Turbo automatic is faster than the stick, it can brake-torque to spool up the turbos before launch while the stick can't take it.
In any case, the reality on the ground is this: the sportiest, most fun to drive cars in most segments are RWD, though the RS5 will most likely be a very serious challenger to the M3's long standing dominance.
"The Saab back then had only one model, a bug like a VW, a two-door sedan, but with the engine in front. It had suicide doors opening into the slipstream. Unlike all other cars, but like your lawnmower and your outboard, it had a two-stroke rather than a four-stroke engine. So every time you filled your tank with gas you had to pour in a can of oil as well. For whatever reason, straight women did not want to do this."
Too bad he passed away last month.
"Sportiest, most fun to drive" are subjective measures. Some may consider rear-engined cars (not just RWD) that are prone to swapping ends are a pre-requisite for "sporty and most fun to drive." The reality on the ground is that, for cars that are not spin-off's of racecars where AWD is banned, whenever the car gets so much power that ground traction becomes a limiting factor, AWD versions are introduced.
1. Waltham Speedometer 2. straight eight
3. 6Volt Electric System 4. push button transmission
5. Reo
1. Waltham Speedometer 2. straight eight
3. 6Volt Electric System 4. push button transmission
5. Reo 6. rumble seat
7. wrap around windsheild 8. light six
9. $10.00 tires 10. car you didn't know if it was
coming or going
The Koenigsegg CCXR is the most powerful production car on earth. It makes 1018hp, and puts it to the ground via two drive wheels. (Enormous 335/30-20" tires help) It is not a street-legal version of some race car, Koenigsegg doesn't have a racing program.
Also, for what it's worth, the first time CCX tried the Top Gear track, it slipped off the road due to inadequate traction. The problem was resolved later by adding a whale tail to creat down force at high speed. How often does real life driving on public roads create several hundred pounds of down force from the rear spoiler? On the other hand, road surface traction limit can be reached quite often either due to precipitation or taking a turn really tight and fast, or a combination of both. That's where AWD (and sometimes even FWD) have significant advantage over RWD.
Let's just look at the winners of the world's most famous and significant races and determine whether those winners are AWD, FWD, or RWD... THAT will give us an adequate answer, and THAT's the one I would select as the best performer.
TagMan
Regarding Vonnegut's mortality here's a quote from him:
I've been smoking Pall Mall unfiltered cigarettes since I was 12 or 14," he told Rolling Stone last year. "So I'm going to sue the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Company, who manufactured them. And do you know why? Because I'm 83 years old. The lying bastards! On the package Brown & Williamson promised to kill me."
What do performance cars have in common? One thing and only one thing (except Audi) and that is RWD.
How many FWD TL fans love the torque steer of their vehicles? So far I have not met such a fan.
Why is Infiniti the Japanese luxury marque that is taken most seriously its performance cars? The reason is because all their cars have RWD platforms.
Have you ever heard of anyone who finds the fwd Lexus ES funner to drive than Lexus RWD models (fun is relative even in the case of Lexuses)
Weight distribution. How many FWD cars has the almost perfect 50/50 weight distribution of many RWD BMWs? Can you think of any, I cant?
How many performance FWD cars has the lateral grip of performance RWD cars when driving out of corners? Not many as far as I know.
Mazda3speed, Mini Cooper S and VW GTIs are fun FWD cars. But it's their relatively lighter weight (FWD cars tend to be lighter than RWD cars) and smaller size that gives them good driving dynamics.
The evidence is not subject to debate. It is indisputible.
The only advantage a FWD'er has over a RWD'er is on snow and ice. Even then, if I lived up north, I would rather have a BMW with snow tires on for 4 months than be stuck driving a boring FWD'er during the warmer months.
Being light is an inherent advantage of FWD, that and less parasitic power loss in the drive train. It's funny how RWD enthusiasts keep harping about RWD's weight advantage over AWD, yet deny the same thing FWD has over RWD at the same time.
50/50 weight distribution with RWD also happens to deliver one of the lowest traction -- maximum driving traction is only half the car's weight, much lower than AWD or typical FWD cars.
The BMW 3 feels like it has grappling hooks at each corner, so the sensation of control is great.
However when driven aggressively, you can throw a FWD car into a corner, cut hard into the corner and hit the gas. The back end may swing but as long as the driver stays confident in the torque steer, the cornering is fast. Not comfortable, but fast.
I believe, and this just opinion, that the RWD car will feel more manageable at speed while maneuvering but the FWD can be pushed just as hard if not harder. You sacrifice confident, easy handling though.
;-)
Drive both. Believe me, any 5'er will beat the TL.
Or research any review on the TL. Always comes down to annoying torque steer and handling not equal to the Germans.
Some day Acura will wake up and finally convert the TL to RWD.
I can't imagine what is taking so long.
Show me a 400hp FWD performance car and I will show you a torque steer dud.
FWD advantageous during wet weather? Yes and no!
Obviously FWD traction is improved during wet or slippery weather since the weight of the transaxle and engine are over the drive wheels. BUT this differece is quite irrelevant nowadays with the modern traction and stability control systems that are available in RWD cars. These systems make RWD cars drive just as well or if not better than FWD cars on slippery surfaces.
Now assuming you dont live in London then RWD will be the choice car since they have better traction during dry weather. In addition the rear weight in RWD cars during acceleration improves traction.
Understeering in initial cornering is the biggest drawback for cars with 50/50 weight distribution. Cars with 45/55 or 40/60 weight distributions do not have this problem. Despite this a balanced weight distribution produces the best compromise in terms of handling. And yes I said compromise because the advantages of weight distributions depends on the driving situations.
But what cannot be denied is that every automaker that is worth its salt in terms of performance will have RWD platforms. The one evident exception to this rule is Audi.
Highly doubtful IMHO even with the weight/size disadvantage of the 5 series.!
But then again it is very hard to prove or disprove the above assertion since as far as I know there was never a comparison test done between these two models.
I know the Acura FWD TSX was compared to the BMW RWD 3 series in older mag reviews (I think we all know who won).
-you have stated that the upcoming new generation of clean diesels are never going to happen.
-you suggested that BMW will ultimately have difficulties selling the 335i convertible.
-you have stated that FWD performs and handles better than RWD.
-you have stated that you're not entirely sure that a 5 series can beat an Acura TL in handling.
Do you REALLY believe this stuff?... or are you just trolling?
TagMan
I'm not sure what this has to do with anything...
The boost is cranked up so high that it can't even burn any grade of gasoline sold at normal gas stations, but have to use ethanol fuel just like Formula One race cars.
The CCXR runs on the same E85 that you can put in your Suburban.
Also, for what it's worth, the first time CCX tried the Top Gear track, it slipped off the road due to inadequate traction. The problem was resolved later by adding a whale tail to create down force at high speed.
I'm not sure you want to open up a debate about what constitutes a "production" car, not that it really matters for the sake of this discussion anyway. According to Koenigsegg, the suspension on the original TG test wasn't set up properly, and the second time it was an adjusted suspension and not the wing that made the difference. According to them, the wing wasn't providing real downforce until the car hit 180+mph. The stig is good, but he wasn't cornering at 180. Also, the next in line Zonda, Maserati, and Enzo were not flying off the track for lack of traction.
The cars are light because the cars are small and the engines are small. How many V8 powered FWD cars are there?
You can throw a FWD car into a corner because severe understeer is "handling for dummies". You don't have to worry about the car spinning backwards, it just plows across the road regardless of steering input.
I can't imagine what is taking so long.
Acura has to spend some money on platforms first. As long as the Accord is FWD, Acuras will also be FWD. (Or converted to AWD)
That's always the retreat for AWD. "But in the wet...!" Yes, in bad weather AWD will crush RWD. I'm not going to try and argue that. However, in the dry, the opposite is true. Is the 911 Turbo the best handling 911? Not even close. It plows into corners. The GT2 will blow it away.
While I'm quite fond of electronic stability control myself, I'm rather surprised by the sudden praise of it among supposed enthusiasts. If we are counting stability control in, then torque steer is also easy to correct using the same electronic stability control system . . . they both throttle the car back and use brakes . . . actually there is no "they" as both are the same thing: typical electronic stability control.
RWD will be the choice car since they have better traction during dry weather.
That's just not true. a 50/50 balanced RWD car almost always has lower traction than a typical FWD car simply because of the lower per centage of weight over the driving wheels.
But what cannot be denied is that every automaker that is worth its salt in terms of performance will have RWD platforms. The one evident exception to this rule is Audi.
Count Acura in too . . . as we probably don't want to talk about BMW 3 series routinely losing road races to a saltless automaker :-)
Don't leave the "powerful" part out of the equation. It's not hard to make clean engines that do not deliver much power. Without power, consumers don't want it unless they are forced into it due to effective poverty. Poverty is not worth celebrating.
-you suggested that BMW will ultimately have difficulties selling the 335i convertible.
I said it would not surprise me if the new BMW hard top convertible becomes a marketting flop. From what I can see, it may just shaping up to be one.
-you have stated that FWD performs and handles better than RWD.
No. I said, it's not a cut and dried case between FWD vs. RWD. Categorical statements don't make sense. Specific vehicles within each camp are more differentiated from each other than the difference between the top performers from each camp. RWD is certainly no performance king when AWD is an option.
-you have stated that you're not entirely sure that a 5 series can beat an Acura TL in handling.
That would be correct. TL is really no slouch in handling. Try it for yourself.
It has to do with everything: anyone with some dough can buy a Ford modular V8 engine, strap on a couple couple superchargers and crank out 1000+ horsepower burning E85. The task is not hard when there is no stringent emission standard or safety/warrenty issue on thousands of cars to worry about. That's the realm of hand-built cars.
The CCXR runs on the same E85 that you can put in your Suburban.
Suburban wouldn't ping its engine to death if fed regular gasoline . . . whereas CCXR would because of the high turbo pressure. The difference between "option" and "requirement" is quit crucial.
Ok, but thats not what we're talking about. You said that too much power requires AWD. I'm saying thats not true. The CCXR produces more power than any other car you can drive on the street. I don't care if it uses jet fuel, it's a street legal car, its got more muscle than the Veyron, and its RWD.
Dewey, I was only carrying over Brightness' quote.
For me there is no doubt that any 5'er can outhandle a TL.
When the media test the 5, it is the Infiniti M45 Sport that is found to be its closest Japanese rival.
The only test I could see happening would be a 525i vs a TL and the only categories I see the TL winning is in styling and controls.
The 2010 TL should at least get SH-AWD. The current Type-S with the stick and LSD already has more power than the chassis can handle. There's no way they can add even more power to keep up with the IS, G, and 3 series without doing something to mitigate what would become torque steer far worse than any 9-3 Viggen or T5 Volvo. If they can do something about the awful 60\40 weight distribution, they might have a real shot. That, and they need to fix the boat like 40ft. turning circle.
That's why I said the bulky MDX could probably outhandle the TL. The MDX has the SH-AWD. The MDX has a tighter turning circle too! 37.6 feet (according to C&D) is outstanding for any truck! At the very least, the SH-AWD should make the TL closer to what it should and could be.
I guess that's one reason one doesn't see too many V6 Accord sedans on the road.
That and the fact that not too many folks want to pay close to $30,000 for a mainstream, non-luxury name. Although, realistically, one can pick one up for under invoice at this time with the new model coming out soon. I sure hope they fixed the boring taillights!
FWD drive train is much lighter than RWD for the same amount of power put to the ground, all else being equal. That's just simple physics. FWD performance cars tend to further accetuate that inherent advantage by building light cars. 911 doesn't have any V8 variant either . . . because once again it's designed with light and nimble in mind. Guess what? It also has the engine and driving wheels at the same end of the car to save weight, albeit at the other end of the car.
The top 911 model is the RWD GT2. The Veyron wasn't really designed as a sports car, its too big and heavy for that. It's designed as a sort of grand touring missile. The fastest sports cars of all time have always been RWD. (McLaren, Enzo, Zonda, etc.)
Porsche has spent the last 30 years fixing its very unbalanced car. If the Cayman had 911 power and a limited slip diff, it would easily crush a 911CS, thats exactly why it doesn't have those things. Lamborghini figured out a very long time ago that mid-engine + RWD = super car. It's also quite possible to make a very light RWD car, just ask Lotus.
I have previously had a 3-series and it handled great.
The difference I would say again is in comfort level, not necessarily performance. When I push the Accord around a corner, it feels harder to handle- not slower, but harder to handle.
In terms of handling 400+hp in a FWD car, I agree with whoever said that would not be effective. At <300hp I am unconvinced that a FWD cannot match speed with a RWD.
Opinion, not fact.
That's it in a nutshell, the bottom line. FWD is contentious. Period.
Yes but saving weight is only part of the reason. It also has the traction benefit caused by rotation around the center of gravity during acceleration, more commonly know as "weight shift", as do all RWD cars, and traction increases as weight balance approaches the rear. Although FWD has traction benefits due to forward weight bias, "weight shift" works against it as compared with RWD cars.
BTW, I put quotes around "weight shift" because I don't like the term. It's a misnomer. The added downward force on the rear wheels during acceleration is not weight per se, rather, it is an added downward force due to rotation, a result of the moment about the CG caused by the thrust vector which is below the CG.
Let's not kid ourselves, mid-to-rear weight balance with RWD is an optimal sport setup. If someone wants to argue AWD that's OK because it comes with certain benefits, but it starts get complex and elusive what with torque split and electronic traction control. FWD? Thumbs down for sport driving and you know it. You're just playing devil's advocate and want to hit the ball of contention back and forth over the net. That's OK, it's a good workout.
;-)