performance limiter...

Which was actually what I meant. I was using the popular concept of oversteer and understeer.

As you've already pointed out, I'm probably a lost cause as far as the FWD v RWD debate is concerned. Having driven hundreds of thousand miles in RWD cars, and only a few hundred miles in FWD ones, I find the degree of u/s in FWD cars difficult to live with. I've driven newer FWD cars than the Audi. My wife has a 2000 Toyota Corolla which I occasionally drive. At ordinary speeds they feel OK, but at higher cornering speeds, they make me feel insecure. I'm quite prepared to accept that that may not be the reality, but it's enough to put me off buying one as a daily driver.

I'm sure most of us

Two cars I would never buy. I don't think I could afford a decent Porsche anyway, but I think a BMW E30, even as an experienced RWD driver, would catch me out at some time or another. Some cars have what I would call progressive o/s. Others give little warning before they snap into o/s, which from all I've heard, is a characteristic of the E30.

My SD1 Vitesse has what I would call progressive o/s. The shift from mild u/s to o/s is quite gentle, and easy to control with the accelerator. More than once, on a certain long sweeping bend in the wet, I've held it in a drift at about 70mph all the way round. Controlling the sideways movement of the rear end with just the accelerator. Good fun in the right conditions. No other traffic or pedestrians around etc.

Which is what it all comes down to in the end. I was only able to recover from the front wheel slide in my Audi because the road was wide enough. If it had happened on a single carriageway road, I'd have been off the road, or on to the other side of the road. That wasn't my main concern however, It was the fact that it occured at a lower speed than that which I'd got used to with my RWD cars. The tyres were reasonably good quality with plenty of tread. Maybe fitting better tyres would have made an improvement, but the balance of the car felt wrong to me. At any sort of speed, cornering just didn't feel right. No doubt because I'd got too used to RWD, and cars with less u/s.

Whether FWD is better or not for me, is not really the issue though. It's about what I find most comfortable and happy to drive. In my case that's either RWD or 4WD. I had no problem with a couple of Celica GT4 turbos. They were quite well balanced, and handled in a similar way to a well balanced RWD car. My current 528i E39 BMW seems fairly well balanced too. Maybe not as well balanced as my old Vitesse, but then I haven't really explored it's limits yet, but then it does have switchable traction control, which I see little point in switching off. Maybe on a deserted car park in the snow one day, but not on a public road.

In the situation you describe, I'm fairly sure I'd have been in trouble. In fact make that certainly in trouble. I think I'm a reasonably good RWD car driver, but not that good, and knowing that I'd never have attempted that manouvre at that speed. I hope I know my limitations. :-)

I'm constantly amazed at the car handling demonstrated so well by rally drivers. To get round corners and keep the car on rough tracks at speeds of around 100mph with the car jumping all over the place, needs reactions far quicker than I have. Mike.

It will make it 8.3s 0-60 and won't change the top speed.

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember PCPaul saying something like:

Oh my god. I wonder what drivers did before FWD? Maybe they just got in and took it easy for a bit, eh?

Maybe the less confident drivers didn't choose cars with plenty of torque?

Maybe the nervous drivers would *like* to not have to worry about it 'suddenly taking off'. I don't for a minute think she will do that, but it does make the papers fairly frequently when some dozy old curmudgeon floors the wrong pedal and goes through a shopping centre...

Usually in a Triumph Acclaim...

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Dave Plowman (News)" saying something like:

Which were renowned for their rip-snorting roaring buckets of torque, of course. Ffs.

I've only driven one RWD car with even a moderate amount of power: a BMW

1 series. The only way to get it to do silly oversteer things was to turn off the stability etc and stamp on the throttle good and hard (auto). In normal driving you could feel it controlling things if you accelerated hard out of a sharp turn- you'd get a tiny skip sideways then the power would be cut- but it was no problem to drive, even for someone like me who has driven almost exclusively FWD for over 20 years.