I was on the Motor Trend future car page (yeah I know that what they say you kind of have to take it with a grain of salt) but I was looking at what they said for the Monte Carlo. Making it RWD with an option to have FWD. This got me thinking. Cars today have the option to have FWD and AWD, and also RWD and AWD, what about RWD and FWD???

Does the new versidal RWD chassie have the capibilities to have BOTH Rwd and FWD. And is it cost effective. Or would it be cheaper to have the FWD/AWD or RWD/AWD option.

What do you think???

 

Let me see if I can answer this right. The reason you don't have a rwd car with an option of fwd is that the engine is mounted different for fwd and the transmission is totally different and the costs to configure both and to actually produce both is just too much. I think awd is cheaper because all that is needed is a driveshaft to the other wheels and a differential which is a lot easy than the other stuff. I think that is why this is not done.

 

Well I do know this, my friend had a earily to mid 90's f-150. he broke his drive shaft and was able to drive to drive back home to fix it because he had 4 wheel drive, he was able to drive back with FWD. so I still don't see why it "can't" be done.

cost??? well yeah having a chassie to accomidate an engine mounted regularly and transversly can be costly, but I think can be done. we have the ability to have the came engine on multiple drivetrain (ie Northstar V8). what about developing a tranny to do fwd on a regularly mounted engine? it's just about developed with 4x4 trucks

but... does it out cost having 2 cars, let say fwd Impala and rwd caprice, to have 2 chassie, 2 body structure and interiors along with all the engineering, that will sell 200,000 impala's and maybe 50,000 caprice's. or have one car that can be able to have fwd and rwd, selling high volume to cover the cost. I don;t think this would work with a small volume car, but with a high volume car it might be cheap to do???

like a said, it's just a thought

 

That is an interesting idea, actually. One problem may be that in the FWD version, you'd still have the larger transmission and driveshaft hump, but nothing going to the rear but exhaust pipes. It would be a fairly large amount of space that wasn't being occupied by much. Now if they developed a transmission that mounted like a RWD tranny, but drove the front wheels, then that area would be more "filled up". Doesn't Chrysler have a transmission similar to this? If you look at an Intrepid's engine, it's mounted as if it were RWD, but but the car's FWD.

 

It can be done on a Focus.Im sure you all have seen the 03 Cobra powerd Focus.Im sure that would take more $$$$$ to pass goverment crash standards..

 

Well how do the cars that have fwd and awd do it?? i'm sure there is a way they can remove the hump, like different floor or just cut out the hump and weld in some sheet metal.

 

Yeah, maybe if they could make two floorpans that can be interchanged easily. Or even just the center section. Or, they could have a RWD/AWD car, and make it where you can set it to power the rear wheels, the front wheels, or all of the wheels. That would be pretty cool.

 

If the car has IRS (which it would) then the hump doesn't have to be huge. However floorpans are an integral part of a cars' structure and I doubt it would be feasible to manufacture two different floorpans for the same car. It's much easy to engineer the hump to be as small as possible and hope people won't find it intrusive.

Most of the cars you see on the road today that started out as FWD and then become AWD still route most of the power to the front wheels. If such a car were to be made RWD only, the drivetrain (driveshaft and especially rear diff) would have to much stronger than the one used in the AWD version. Have you ever seen the rear diff on a Subaru? They're about the size of a golf cart's.

Overall I think the main drawback to this plan is that you'll have a car compromised to handle two different layouts, and therefore always suffering from the drawbacks of the one not in use. The market is heading towards smaller and smaller model volumes, often less than 100,000 units per year. As this happens the manufacturers are becoming more adept at making these small runs profitable, which negates the need for a "jack of all trades" chassis.

 

The only cars that could remotely have this ability is the outgoing LH cars and the Passat/A4 which has it's powertrain mounted lengthwise. But why?

You will have to develop 2 entirely different front setups. The initial purpose of AWD in performance cars is to make up for the shortcommings of FWD. In RWD, it adds all weather performance.

I really don't see what the purpose would be making a FWD car with optional RWD. There would be no financial or benifit advantage to the manufacturer in making such a car IMHO.

 

Olds had a 455 FWD in the late 60's. (Toranado?)

A few years back I saw a guy who built one with a 455 up front and one in the trunk. That's right TWO 455 Oldses. It could run with just the front motor (FWD) on, or both.

Sorry, the FWD & RWD comment made me think of it.