The last time my Wife was shopping for a car she was looking at a lot of different brands and models trying to size up exactly what she wanted.\u00a0\u00a0 She was thinking one possibility was a red convertible with leather interior, and so we went and test drove a variety of models that offered this combination, or as close to it as we could find.<\/p>\n
As we waiting for the Sales Person to grab the keys for one test drive I explained that the vehicle we were about to drive was Front Wheel Drive (FWD).\u00a0 My Wife asked, “Why are you telling me that; Do I care?”<\/p>\n
This gave me pause.<\/p>\n
To me, the fact that this car was FWD meant that it would not corner or accelerate as well as a similar Rear-Wheel Drive (RWD) car.\u00a0 Further, it also meant that the car was not intended for a ‘serious’ car enthusiast \/ driver, but was being marketed or targeted for the features offered and not as a driver’s car.\u00a0 On the other hand, a FWD vehicle can be very good in the snow or weather.\u00a0 So one might choose a FWD performance car if one lived in parts of the country that get a lot of snow or harsh weather.<\/p>\n
However, my Wife never plans to drive the car on the track.\u00a0 If the wheels are screeching around a corner she will likely just slow down.\u00a0 She probably prefers understeer to oversteer, for the same reason many manufacturers tune their cars to understeer — it gives the driver time to react and slow down, even if at the same time it tends to give up a bit of speed through the corner.\u00a0 The fact that the car does 0-60 in 0.5 seconds less or more is immaterial in her weighing of the virtues of a car.\u00a0 A very detailed argument on weight transfer under heavy acceleration being advantageous to a RWD car and disadvantageous to a FWD car would bore her.\u00a0 And I paused in my response because it occurred to me, weighing these fact, that perhaps she<\/em> did not care.<\/p>\n I think that BMW and I were very surprised recently to find that 80% of buyers of the rear-wheel drive 1-Series BMW think that the 1-Series incorrectly believe the 1-Series is FWD.\u00a0 This reminded me of my Wife’s question.\u00a0 Many buyers may not care that a car is FWD or RWD, only that it has the nameplate and features for the price range they are shopping.\u00a0 I would have guessed that all BMW drivers were technically oriented, and were buying their BMW because of its driving and handling characteristics, and because it was a RWD performance sedan.\u00a0 Not so apparently.<\/p>\n I am very glad that Cadillac went to RWD cars for the CTS family.\u00a0 There is something re-assuring to me about the dynamics of a RWD car when cornering, and about the packaging of the engine longitudinally under the hood, with better associated engine access.\u00a0 I am interested in how the new XTS does, and I am willing to believe that AWD can be a viable approach given tuning that allows a high percentage of torque to be vectored to the rear wheels when needed.\u00a0 But I continue to believe that the best performance in acceleration and cornering will be available from a RWD configuration, and I am glad that Cadillac continues to offer RWD luxury performance sedans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The last time my Wife was shopping for a car she was looking at a lot of different brands and models trying to size up exactly what she wanted.\u00a0\u00a0 She was thinking one possibility was a red convertible with leather … Continue reading