No offense meant, but if you have never owned a FWD car, how can you honestly make a judgment about its snow handling capabilities? You could have driven one or two in the snow, but that will not give you the same experience and expertise as owning one.

I have owned several FWD cars and one RWD car, my Z28. Z28 could get the job done 90% of the time. After I put the winter tires on the back, I never got stuck. But, I had to be careful where I parked and I was not going to take on piles of snow that I deemed too risky. Yes, it took off alright, but it took longer to get going than FWD cars. Yes, it could park, but took longer to get in/out than FWD car.

A big advantage of a RWD car, though, is turning, coming downhill. FWD cars are notorious for understeer in snowy conditions, whereas RWD is better equipped to handle such turns.

 

Your right and wrong. GM needs a LX type car badly, but they also need top notch FWD cars since that is still what most people buy. The think the V8 will steal so FWD buyers away from the competition.

 

I would agree about a FWD having better traction in snow from a stand still.
However in all other situations, I would much rather have RWD for control purposes.
I hate when my Grand Am keeps going straight when I'm trying to turn.
At least a RWD car will go where you point it.

 

My motto the last 2 winters here has been "Have Blizzaks will travel". Oh yeah, some weight in the back also helps. Still, lots of folks prefer FWD, so whatever your choice, I wouldn't balk at GM for offering a high power front driver. Especially one that gets to 60 in less than 6 seconds.

 

Just a quick note on RWD/FWD and snow-handling/traction. The major factors involved in friction are (yes, I paid attention in my college physics class):
(1) the amount of weight being applied per the contact surface area
and
(2) the co-efficient of static friction of the two materials in contact (read: the roughness/grippiness of the two materials; extreme example: think glass vs sand paper).

While traction control systems can control the amount of slip by limiting tire speed, FWD has the advantage of the engine/transmission weight sitting over the front axle -- something that RWD w/traction control just can't beat. I live in Minnesota -- and have driven virtually everything: 4WD, AWD, RWD with and without traction control and FWD. IMO, for a daily driver in snowy weather, FWD beats RWD w/traction control.

 

Sure. It's a great idea. The V8 Impala is great competition for sport premium FWD cars like the Acura TL, Nissan Altima/Maxima, etc. It should also compete well against the new V6 Passat and the Saab 9-5 (oops!).

And if you don't care about drive wheels . . . .

 

How's does this custom HHR grab ya?



Yeah baby!

 

I almost like it better than the regular HHR. I'm wondering what the HHR would look like if it had more mainstream, non-retro styling to the front end. I'm picturing the front-end of the new minivans scaled down onto the HHR. The HHR would then resemble a "mini-SUV" of sorts.. might be kinda cool. Ahh, I'm rambling..