One major advantage of a front-engine car is crash safety. Since many vehicle crashes are on the front end, there’s north of 1,000 pounds worth of engine and transmission to help protect the passengers.
Some would argue that a disadvantage of front engine cars is crash safety. An energy absorbing front end that does not include that 1000 lbs of motor/transmission might be easier to manage in a crash.
BTW most purely racing cars are mid-engined and expensive.
I owned a Porsche 911 back in the '70’s (and my wife-to-be had a Beetle), and the purported advantages of rear engines were more efficient traction and braking power. Both these advantages supposedly came from the effects of weight transfer --even today, Porsche 911’s have perhaps the best braking of any performance car and handling is awesome in the hands of an experienced driver. Before most cars had power steering, the lighter front weight gave VW’s and Porsches unparalleled steering feel, too, and the heavier weight on the driving wheels gave them unparalleled traction in the snow (until they rusted out, for reasons that had nothing to do with engine location). This was especially noticeable going uphill, when the center of gravity shifted to the rear.
This is all very heavily qualified. First, handling may have been great below the limits, but because of inertia, a rear-engine car can “suddenly exceed the cornering limits” and spin out – rear engined cars were often treacherous. Second, engine location is only one factor in the handling pie chart – suspension geometry /shape and tire pressure are also important, and Porsches of certain vintages actually understeer (up to a point) due to their suspension geometry. Third, modern suspension technology makes engine location a minor consideration for traction under nearly all normal driving conditions.
According to the literature I’ve read, Ferry Porsche, who designed the VW and eponymous Porsche cars, arrived at his decision for engine location based on empirical considerations, which certainly included manufacturing cost (Porsche’s boss, a man named Adolf, wanted the car to be affordable above all else). He tried different combinations and finally made a decision for various reasons known but to him. When a German engineer makes up their mind, it’s often hard to change it, for better and for worse.
Safety? Front and rear have their theoretical pros and cons, and engine location is probably a small part of the overall safety and engineering pie charts (except for the old rear-engined VW bus and the East German Trabant, which would probably tie as the most inherently dangerous vehicles ever mass-produced).
“If we go to the late 1940s, the Tucker Torpedo”
I really liked the seer-able headlamps.
Joseph
The Tucker had a lot of wonderful advances that were missing on other makes. In addition to the center headlight that swiveled when you turned the steering wheel, the Tucker also featured door openings that were cut into the roof in order to allow for greater ease of entry, and a dashboard that was free of protruding knobs and other things that could cause injury in a collision. Additionally, the windshield was designed to pop out upon impact, in order to spare front seat passengers from decapitation.
Also–the engine and transmission were designed so that they could both be dropped in about 15 minutes, in order to swap-in new components. Preston Tucker envisioned dealers keeping several engine/trans units in stock, and major engine/trans problems would be resolved by a fast swap, with the original units then being repaired on a bench, while the customer motored away.
However, the overall design was not fully developed, which is to be expected when a new start-up company never gets beyond the stage of hand-building ~50 cars. In addition to the obvious handling problems, the engine’s incredible torque frequently led to the right rear axle shaft snapping if the driver floored the accelerator.
The engine–which was made by Syracuse Air-Cooled Motors (the successor to the Franklin Automobile company) and was essentially identical to the one used in Bell Army helicopters–had so much torque that much more engineering of the drive train and rear suspension was needed, but never gotten to, as a result of the company’s fast demise. However, because of the military specification, that engine was rated for 300 hours of full-throttle use, during the same era when a Cadillac V-8 would have likely self-destructed after ~15 hours of full-throttle usage. The only substantive change to the engine was Tucker’s conversion of it to water cooling.
I’ve been thinking about the front engine vs. rear engine discussion. When I was in elementary and high school, school buses had the engines in the front. These buses were on truck chassis with a bus body made by Superior, Carpenter, Wayne, Hicks, etc. More recently, many school buses have the engines in the rear and the Bluebird body seems to be the standard.
For the school bus, is there an advantage to the rear engine design? I do know that in my day when the bus bodies were on the truck chassis, when a bus became too old for the route, the owner/operator would remove the body from the chassis, fit a truck cab and a grain bed. The bus body would sit on blocks and become a chicken coop. The drivers for my school were farmers, so there was an economic advantage to being able to convert the bus to a grain truck. In my area, we don’t have the owner/operators any more and the school district owns the buses. After the bus is no longer serviceable for carrying school children, I assume it is scrapped. I assume that there must be an advantage to having the engine in the rear for the school bus.
Today, the hot-ticket high-dollar motor homes are all diesel pushers. I suspect school buses use the same chassis…This design moves all the heat and noise to the rear…
Tucker scared the heck out of the Detroit Automotive Establishment. They did everything they could to insure his failure. Since he was under-capitalized and could not build a modern assembly plant and he refused to merge and turn over control to a company like Studebaker who could have put the car into mass production, he sealed his own fate…The 50 cars he hand-built today are the rarest of the rare, guaranteed to bring the highest price at any fancy-car auction…
“Today, the hot-ticket high-dollar motor homes are all diesel pushers. I suspect school buses use the same chassis…This design moves all the heat and noise to the rear…”
I wish that they had the rear engine school bus in my day. I rode in the back of the bus and it was always cold. The heater was in the front so the driver was warm, but anybody more than 3 rows back froze. I guess today the bus driver has to freeze.
I love this thread. Our biases clearly show.
It’s about triying to achieve neutral handling, but I gotta point out that Porsch has done an outstanding job achieving that with their rear-engined 911. As a matter of fact, at one time they intended to phase it out in favor of a front engine design (924/944/928). The front engined design never did outperform the 911. Eventually it was discontinued.
I should point out too that many of the world’s finest handling cars are front engined. There are Maserattis, Mercedes SL, and even a Ferrarri (the FF) that have front engines. And, of course, we have to ackowledge the "Vette, and even the (now discontinued) Viper.
The Corvair, ah, sweet memories. I too drive a Corvair in the late '60s (my dad’s '61 and then his '65). Put studded snow tires on those and they could go through anything. However, when you turn the wheel on icy roads the front end may or may not follow. It weighed very little. By the way, I bought a '61 Beetle in '69, and the Corvair was IMHO far superior.
Race cars are “all over the map” in their engine placements simply because there are numerous race classes and numerous restrictions from the various sanctioning bodies. NASCAR is frone engined, Formula 1 is midengined. In many European races, you’ll see "Vettes racing Porsche 911s racing mid-engined Ferarris racing Mercedes SLs. Many of them are “race what ya brung”, the only restrictions being safety related.
I’ve driven school buses by necessity and the rear engine designs are generally easier and safer to handle with frequent loading and off loading of kids. In that size vehicle where height is less of an issue then length, rear under the floor trumps for efficiency. In a car with unavailable space above, the opposite is true.
the best handling vehicles are mid engine with more efficient drive trains then front… Front engine are a compromise for rear cargo including read seats. It’s the rwd with a balanced chassis regardless of where the motor is that generally contributes to better handing in like vehicles.
Dag, my “impulse reaction” is to agree, because theoretically that should be true. But then I remember the high-end Corvettes, Vipers, Mercedes SLs, and the Porsche 911, and I think it’s too easy a statement to make. While the absolute best-of-the-best is probably the McLaren, the differences at the “high end” aren’t that apparent.
I contend that while mid engined cars are typically excellent handling, many other cars in the price range of the mid engined cars handle just as well. I can’t agree with that as an absolute statement.
Often form follows function, and the early automobiles can be compared to internal combustion engines powering stationary and portable equipment which hasn’t changed much in 100 years
The John Deere tractor was a portable engine with a power take off for farm use that someone had the bright idea to power the wagon wheels and leave the horses in the barn.
The first automobile was quite basic but it had a mid engine.
The 911 became a good handling car through decades of improvement, it didn’t start out that way - power off oversteer was pretty bad. But for road cars, just about any arrangement has been made to handle well. All out race cars, it’s mid engine rear wheel drive all the way.
Rod…must be a Patriots fan living out in the boon docks…any expense not to miss the Super Bowl this year !
My cave has its own power supply for the beer and pizza refrigerator and television. And the television can toggle from CATV to antenna remotely. But the Saints let me down. I may go to Bourbon St and mourn.
That sentiment can be echoed by supporters of the Packers too. The Giants threw a monkey wrench into a lot “favorites” dreams. If you had to choose a favored track to a world championship for the Pats, your misfortune needs to be a part of it. The Pats would have little chance with either Green Bay or New Orleans.
Well, I don’t know about all the safety problems or lack of but I always thot that a lighter front would make the suspension last longer, and steer easier. And a lot of the heat that we have to counter would be absent and the vents would be cooler, and the sound of the engine would be behind you. And the exhaust system would be much less and cheaper if ever repaired or replaced. And having the weight over the drive wheels in the rear would help heep a car straighter in bad weather.
Ellyellis–I once owned a 1961 Corvair and the statements you make were true about this car. I put a “camber compensator”–a transverse spring that went between the two rear axles that prevented the rear wheels from tucking under too far on corners and I thought the Corvair handled very well. The 1965 and later Corvairs had a full independent rear suspension and eliminated the swing type rear axle set up. I’m told that these cars almost eliminated the oversteer and had practically neutral steering. I really liked the Corvair.
Rear engine cars would have to have more efficient drive trains and make for better economy. Like front drive but with out the complexity of driving the turn wheels, it potentially has good handling with the best economy available…at the expense of space utilization.
I had a 1967 Corvair and really loved driving it. It went anywhere. I even used tire chains on it in heavy snow and really looked forward to getting out in the white stuff and playing. Damn you, Ralph Nader! I don’t think it got great gas mileage, though. Alas, today, I wouldn’t even be able to get in or out of it.