Everything else being equal, front wheel drive is more likely to spin out than rear wheel drive? Really?
"It was a sports car, itās expect to be a little less stable "
I am going to pretend I never saw that statement.
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@āVOLVO V70ā writes ā¦
It was a sports car, it's expect to be a little less stable " I am going to pretend I never saw that statement.
Theeās a compromise between stability and performance. Expert snow skiers , ski racers for example, use skis that turn very fast, but the normal person would find them too unstable for recreational skiing. Windsurfing, same thing, the style of windsurfers the proās use turn very quickly, but a beginner wouldnāt be able to use one, theyād just keep falling off.
My truck is rear wheel drive, and my Corolla is front wheel drive. The truck is a little easier to turn at speed, b/c I can apply the gas as it comes out of a turn, which makes the truck turn easier. But the other side of the coin, it is a little easier to spin out.
I dunno, Iām no race or aggressive driver, but the Corvair was a RWD but also rear engine. With all that weight in the back, it was actually pretty hard to get the rear end to break away. Iāll have to say the RWD front engine cars Iāve had were pretty much the only ones Iāve had the rear wheels break away on. A FWD will pull the car and the only way the rear tires will break away will be if there is a lot of āwhippingā force on a turn (or very slippery), but pretty easy to pull the car out of a slide with FWD. Just the way I remember anyway, but Iām not sure a Corvair, or at least mine, was a sports car. More like a sleek VW with a little stronger engine.
@GeorgeSanJose - no question on a fwd vehicle will not handle as well as a rwd vehicle on dry pavement. If fwd was better - then companies like Ferrari and Lamborghini sports cars would be fwd. As I said show me the sports car thatās fwd.
My truck is rear wheel drive, and my Corolla is front wheel drive. The truck is a little easier to turn at speed, b/c I can apply the gas as it comes out of a turn, which makes the truck turn easier. But the other side of the coin, it is a little easier to spin out.
Youāre making your assumptions on the ability of a sports car based on the stability of your RWD truck??? The handling character of a sports car and a truck are completely opposite.
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Maybe the problem is we donāt agree on the defān of āsports carā and āstabilityā. Back in the 1960ās Bill Cosby did a comedy routine based on a true story, where he was given a Ford Mustang Shelby, 66 vintage I think. Would anybody call that a āsports carā? Cosby in his comedy routine tells what it was like to drive, and āstableā wouldnāt be the word Iād use for how he described the experience ā¦ lol ā¦
On the other hand one of my friends has a Porsche 912, 1969 vintage I think, and whenever he goes on an extended vacation he drives it over to my place and parks it there on the road, asking me to drive it as much as I like. It has dual Solex carbs, and apparently those are unforgiving of sitting unused for any period of time. So the more I drive his 912, the less trouble he has getting it running well again upon his return. Now that car ā would you call that one a āsports carā? Whatever it is, I find it very stable and fast in turns. But it does tend to spin out in sharp turns a little unless Iām careful to not apply too much power coming out of the turn.
@Bing ā¦ interesting comment about whether the Corvair was a āsports carā . thereās an article I read in a magazine, Hot Rod, canāt recall exactly when, but last year, and they said the model years 1960-1964 had a stability problem that could have been easily addressed by the manufacturer, but for some reason wasnāt. The article seemed to imply that later model years didnāt have that problem. What year was your Corvair?
It was a 61. Iāve never understood the rear end issue but think it had something to do with the wheels tucking under. I never had any problem but I remember back in 1960 a classmate had rolled his dadās new 1960 Corvair. Other people in the car and he said he didnāt know what happened, he just lost control. No one hurt. So over ten years later when I bought one, I understood there was an issue but never pushed it. So short answer I donāt know, but the other folks here have explained it before.
@GeorgeSanJose - you might be confusing sports car with muscle car. My 73 Vega had better handling/control then over half the muscle cars on the road.
Issue resolved. The 1960 Corvair is on its way to England.
As you recall, Sam Glover, a car restoration journalist from England, wanted to fly to the USA, buy a 1960 Corvair, drive it across the USA from east to west coast, then ship it from California by boat back to his home in England. His difficulty was obtaining license plates and registration for the one week trip.
The final chapter ā definitely worth a read ā is all documented in the December issue of the magazine Practical Classics . During telephone conversations with the North Carolina DVM, he apparently was promised he could get plates for his Corvair by proving ownership and current insurance. He arrived with the proper paperwork at the NC DMV office, and after waiting 4 hours in line, was told the DMV wasnāt going to live up to their promise; i.e. he couldnāt get license plates for his Corvair, b/c he didnāt hold a North Carolina drivers license.
So his solution, he just used the old plates ā¦ lol ā¦ heās only going to be driving it for a week in the USA, so he took a chance. It seems he may have indulged in some creative registration sticker applications to make the plate look to be current. His theory: Nobody outside of NC knows what a current NC license plate looks like anyway ā¦ lol ā¦
Anyway, it all turned out ok. No traffic tickets or impounded car for no registraton, and the 1960ās Corvair made the 5,000 mile cross-country with sight-seeing detours trip w/no problem, and is now on the boat back to England.
My only question is how is he going to mount those huge UK plates on that car?
I guess if theyāll fit on an MG Midget ā¦ theyāll fit on a Corvair.
Reminds me of a Car Talk puzzler. Goes something like this: What dimension has always been the same on all cars from the very first ones until now? Answer: The distance between the license plate mounting holes.
Not to go off, but that reminded me of the old days back in the 50ās. We always got new plates every year the first of the year, in January, in Minnesota. Remember those old stove bolts that used to be used to hold the plates on. Slotted screws, rusted bolts, and the rusted square nuts. Of course it was my job to go out and change the plates in the freezing cold trying to get those dang things off.
Fast forward to today. Nylon inserts, and new plates every 5 years. Stickers instead, and scattered throughout the year. Not to mention a nice warm garage but who needs it in August? Then after living through the old days, I get a little irritated when people canāt even put the stickers on straight, or pile them on instead of removing the old ones first.
So thatās where they get the square nut in the CarTalk logo!
;-]
Pickups with empty beds are nose heavy which makes them easier to spin out. Comparing RWD sports cars to RWD pickup trucks is like comparing grapes to watermelons.
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Bill Cosbyās 200 miles per hour routine is hilarious. The car he describes is a 1966 427 cubic inch/900 horsepower Shelby Cobra. I would call that a fire breathing monster of a sports car!!! Inexperienced drivers need not apply.
The early Corvairs used a swing axle rear end, jointed only in the middle. Under certain conditions, the axles would tuck under and cause loss of controlā¦ flipping. What nobody seems interested in is that Porsche, VW, and other rear engine cars used that same setup in that era. By the '65 model the rear end had been changed to four control arms, eliminating the problemā¦ But by that time worldās foremost tort lawyer, Ralph Nader, had already made himself famous and rich. The other thing nobody was interested in hearing was that for the rear axle to tuck under you had to push the car beyond what it was designed for. Ralph Nader killed a good design IMHO.
I learned to drive on a '61 Corvair. My dad then got a '65 and I drove that in HS until I bought my VW Beetle my senior year.
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There was also a required tire pressure of 18psi front/32psi rear due to the rear weight bias. In the 1960s most service stations checked oil and tire pressure. If the station attendant discovered the unusually low front tires they would match pressure to the rears causing erratic steering and very possibly loss of control.
If he would have bought a Corvair in Oregon and drove it to North Carolina he could have avoided the aggravation and no doubt a substantial amount of money when shipping the car to England. Oregon provides temporary 9 day ātripā registration stickers that are displayed in the rear window that were $4 the last time I got one in the 1980s. Driver license was not asked for.