I think for short circuit racing the British Touring Car Championships tactic of using ballast on RWD and 4wd cars to rig the race results so FWD cars win says it all. About 50Kg on RWD and 80Kg on 4wd.
For longer races and drag racing there's not a lot between RWD/4wd. RWD saps less power at speed and is lighter, 4wd puts more power on the road easily at low speed. The big thing about Cossies and Quattro's was that anyone could drive a 200+bhp car as it only had
100bhp at each end, about the same as a good family saloon, while back then without multilink suspensions 150bhp RWD was a handful. Look at the reputation of 3.0L Capris, swap ends at the drop of a leaf.
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:) There's always an exception to every rule. Thinking back, the milk floats I used to drive were all rear wheel drive, and a few Sierras.
In California, something big, with a big V8, and rear wheel drive is the norm when you're sixteen... :) Charlie's 5.0 V8 jobbie was pretty much the standard issue...
RWD milkfloats, ahh that takes me back. The diesel ones were easy enough to get out of shape, but only managed it once in a leccy one (and it wasnt thru spinning the back wheels up surprisingly)
Hmm, whilst I agree, that's only half of the story.
Good points. But you're tackling the issue from a performance aspect, and for many drivers, ultimate performance isn't really an issue. Indeed, I'm sure that with the lack of knowledge about today (caused by cars being quicker, cheaper and easier to get hold of), anybody can buy a "performance" orientated model and when looking at the acceleration figures, dismiss the all wheel drive model because it is slightly slower than the front wheel drive model to 62 mph.
Manufacturers appear to be putting running costs might be, or interior space, or numty-proof-ness, in front of other aspects, rightfully or otherwise.
The Smart, and four banger BMWs, are not considered as numpty proof in the snow as your generic front wheel drive car. To be fair, I don't think there's all that much difference - except I see a lot more crashed RWDs and AWDs* than I do FWDs.
I don't especially buy the FWDs are more economical than RWDs, but since they don't sell a standard production car with the choice between front or rear wheel drive cars, we can only base assumptions on parallels between various cars. Looking at the small hatch class, diesels, with between 140 and 160 PS and just over 300 Nm, we've three cars in my database:
Alfa Romeo 147. 119 mph, 9.9s to 62, 47.9 mpg. BMW 320d Compact. ~130 mph, ~9s to 62, 51.4 mpg VW Golf IV. 134 mph, 8.6s to 62, 52.3.
The RWD car is midway between the other two in terms of performance and fuel consumption... no advantage either way...
Of course, this information is merely a snapshot, and one can't base opinion on it, well unless... Interestingly enough, although the Alfa is the least powerful here, it's also the lightest and has the highest power and torque to weight ratios, so on the above information I speculate that Alfa Romeos are crap. :)
*I suspect the number of crashed AWDs has everything to do with the drivers thinking they can drive however they want because it's all wheel drive, rather than a lack of car ability.
My original statement was going along the lines of :
"You've gone from a nice renowned-for-it's-grip-and-mini-like-handling Ford Ka, to a chatty old not-renowned-for-anything Volvo, and you think it's better just because it's RWD ?
Clearly the FWD Ka would annihilate the RWD Volvo on an A-B dash (given similar power-to-weight, obviously)"
Faster != better. The Volvo is slower than the Ka, but when the car decides it's going to go sideways, it's much more controllable and gradual than it is in the Ka. Something moderately well setup and RWD would easily make the Ka look like a joke down a twisty road. And you don't have to left foot brake like a madman to get the car to turn in ;).
I've had both Dolomite 1300, and 1300fwd Triumphs. Near as dammit the same engine and weight, the Dolomite being a touch heavier due to a longer tail. The fwd is maybe a little more forgiving in that it's got independant suspension on all four corners, compared to the live axle on the Dolly, but the Dolomite was more fun and rewarding when gotten right.
I'm trying to find the specs on the Triumph 1500. It was fwd, but there was a rwd version, which later became the Dolomite 1500. About the only car I can think of that came in fwd and rwd versions at the same time, although possibly too out of date to make the comparison with modern cars.
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