New Corvette - Like or Not?

[FormerHangie]

Rubbish. Flogging an economy car is kind of... sad. Particularly for the car. Fast car slow. What is slow? There is plenty of fun to be had within the speed limits. It's more about using the steering wheel, brake pedal and gear shift than it is just about trodding down on the gas pedal and watching the speedometer needle climb.

Actually it's quite fun.

Front wheel drive is cheaper to build which is why it exists . Not many race cars have it do they? In snow they are deadly compared to rear wheel drive. The 911 is a great car on any road and with good tires you really have to screw up to have it swap ends. It's the only porsche I would buy or was ever interested in.

FWD has packaging advantages which is why it rules the market for smaller sedans. It's also better than RWD in snow. Almost all purpose built track racing cars are rear mid engine, NASCAR being the exception. I assume NASCAR sticks with front engine, rear drive for historical reasons. It's not like I can give you $30,000 and you can go down to the Ford store and get me a rear drive, V8 powered Fusion. As long as the cars on the track bear no relation to their namesakes, might as well go with the better design.

The Cayman is one of my favorite cars to drive. Absolutely wonderful.

Yes, the limits are very high, but oh so much fun to go around corners steering with the throttle only, with the tail hanging out. Get into the territory where the 911 wants to swap ends, and the Cayman simply obeys.

Twenty minutes with a Cayman, and you'll never want front-wheel-drive again.
Actually, I've never wanted front wheel drive.....


Hey, 35 AoA, I think it's time to take that M3 to an autocross or track day and let it find the rev limiter.

You must have vastly different driving conditions than I do. I have an old Mk I Focus, and in those rare situations where I can do some cornering at a sporting speed, I'm almost always the fastest one, but I'm still nowhere near my limit. The only exception is on very slow turns, where the combination of cornering and accelerating can induce wheelspin. The last car I had that I could get the rear end loose on the street was a 1979 Mazda RX-7, and that was mostly because Mazda had installed a little too stiff of rear swaybar. They rectified that on the later RX-7s.

When I first met my wife, she had a '93 Honda Prelude. I drove it a few times, and found that I couldn't get it anywhere the limit of adhesion at any speed I'd care to go on the street. The problem is that I can't see far enough around the turn to make sure nothing is going on where I'm about to go.

I spent 15 years club racing with the SCCA, and found once I got on the track, I started driving on the street more conservatively. Compared to what you can do on the track, what you can do on the street just isn't worth it.

Speaking of race tracks, I was up at Road Atlanta this morning for a different type of race, a 10K footrace. There was a new Corvette there that belonged to one of the other participants. When I first saw it, I didn't recognize it, and for a moment thought it was an exotic. I did give it a look over, and I can confirm I think it looks great. There's a louvered section around the taillights I didn't care for, but other than that I think it's a great design, and I'm not at all a Corvette lover.

 

[Dav8or]

Front Wheel drive has better traction in the snow because the weight of the engine is over the front wheels.

In addition, physics suggest that FWD offers better control on slippery surfaces like snow because the wheels are pulling the load rather than pushing it. Pulling is always esier than pushing. Obviously, one can drive RWD successfully in the snow, it's been done for decades. I would suggest that FWD is far safer than RWD for the total novice in snow.

 

[Gary F]

Born in western NYS, very adept at driving in snow.....including heavy snow. Much easier to control skids, better traction in rear wheel drive cars or trucks. This is why, of course, race cars always use rear wheel drive. Also a reason why German designed cars still have drive shafts, due to snow, even though they're more expensive to build. Front wheel drive was sold as being "safer" which is total BS. They are simply much cheaper to build.

Where you were born is irrelevant. Where have you been driving? I have 14 years experience driving all sorts of vehicles where we get over 200 inches of snow each year. It really helps to have the drive wheels pointed in the direction you want to go. Sometimes I will drive my 4WD Jeep Cherokee or Wrangler in rear wheel drive in the snow just to keep things interesting. The FWD VW Passat I previously owned was better in slippery conditions than any rear wheel drive vehicle. I drove a Toyota Corolla rental in Wisconsin today and it did OK. The guys that own RWD vehicles here store them for the winter just as we do motorcycles.

 

[us AAirways]

Where you were born is irrelevant. Where have you been driving? I have 14 years experience driving all sorts of vehicles where we get over 200 inches of snow each year. It really helps to have the drive wheels pointed in the direction you want to go. Sometimes I will drive my 4WD Jeep Cherokee or Wrangler in rear wheel drive in the snow just to keep things interesting. The FWD VW Passat I previously owned was better in slippery conditions than any rear wheel drive vehicle. I drove a Toyota Corolla rental in Wisconsin today and it did OK. The guys that own RWD vehicles here store them for the winter just as we do motorcycles.

I don't store my rwd car. I have to make the payments year around, so I am driving it year around.

 

[Gary F]

I don't store my rwd car. I have to make the payments year around, so I am driving it year around.

If you think fishtailing on snow and ice is fun stay with RWD cars. I'm too old for that.

 

[rbridges]

Front wheel drive is cheaper to build which is why it exists . Not many race cars have it do they?

I thought that was due to torque steer.

 

[Dav8or]

I thought that was due to torque steer.

Torque steer is one issue, but mostly a RWD car on dry pavement can actually exit a curve faster than a FWD car because the rear wheels with power applied can be used to help steer the car through the turn and because the power is already on, the car is set up and ready to rocket out of the turn. FWD does not stand a chance in racing. Now AWD, that's another story.

 

[Jimmy cooper]

Where you were born is irrelevant. Where have you been driving? I have 14 years experience driving all sorts of vehicles where we get over 200 inches of snow each year. It really helps to have the drive wheels pointed in the direction you want to go. Sometimes I will drive my 4WD Jeep Cherokee or Wrangler in rear wheel drive in the snow just to keep things interesting. The FWD VW Passat I previously owned was better in slippery conditions than any rear wheel drive vehicle. I drove a Toyota Corolla rental in Wisconsin today and it did OK. The guys that own RWD vehicles here store them for the winter just as we do motorcycles.

What an absurd post. Where you were born and drove for 30 years has a lot to do with it. Store a BMW 5 series sedan for the winter? Silly talk. Good sedans are balanced in weight front to back . Buffalo and along the lake shore gets big time snow most every winter. Deep enough that they had to send someone out with a bamboo pole in winter to see where cars were on the college campus before plowing. Pick up Trucks stored too? Simply throw four , five bags of sand in the rear and proceed. Get a grip!

 

[Gary F]

What an absurd post. Where you were born and drove for 30 years has a lot to do with it. Store a BMW 5 series sedan for the winter? Silly talk. Good sedans are balanced in weight front to back . Buffalo and along the lake shore gets big time snow most every winter. Deep enough that they had to send someone out with a bamboo pole in winter to see where cars were on the college campus before plowing. Pick up Trucks stored too? Simply throw four , five bags of sand in the rear and proceed. Get a grip!

I doubt that you and your RWD Beemer could have kept up with my humble 2002 VW Passat in winter driving conditions.

 

[35 AoA]

My steed can barely get around the block in 1/4 inch of snow.....and that is with plenty of experience driving in snow behind the wheel. High tq, lightweight RWD cars are unforgiving in snow. Heck, mine will scare you on a wet road if you come off the accelerator too rapidly. That said, I see no reason why a modern BMW, with layer upon layer of traction control and various adaptive transmission modes would give the daily driver in light to moderate snow any problems. I very easily took my RWD C43 through heavy winter weather for many years without as much as a question from the rear end.

 

[Gary F]

My steed can barely get around the block in 1/4 inch of snow.....and that is with plenty of experience driving in snow behind the wheel. High tq, lightweight RWD cars are unforgiving in snow. Heck, mine will scare you on a wet road if you come off the accelerator too rapidly. That said, I see no reason why a modern BMW, with layer upon layer of traction control and various adaptive transmission modes would give the daily driver in light to moderate snow any problems. I very easily took my RWD C43 through heavy winter weather for many years without as much as a question from the rear end.

All that stuff helps but having more weight on the drive wheels that are also pointed in the direction you intend to travel trumps RWD in slippery conditions. That's just physics.

 

[35 AoA]

All that stuff helps but having more weight on the drive wheels that are also pointed in the direction you intend to travel trumps RWD in slippery conditions. That's just physics.

Agreed. I certainly wasn't arguing that RWD is the way to go for someone who is planning on doing a lot of winter driving. Just that more modern nanny devices can make them a little bit more manageable. I'd take a FWD or AWD vehicle in the mountains any day of the week.

 

[Gary F]

Agreed. I certainly wasn't arguing that RWD is the way to go for someone who is planning on doing a lot of winter driving. Just that more modern nanny devices can make them a little bit more manageable. I'd take a FWD or AWD vehicle in the mountains any day of the week.

One of my partners has a 630 HP Shelby Supersnake and I would like to see how it handles on winter roads. I'll race him in my son's 148 HP Subaru Impreza between 1 December and 31 March anywhere in Michigan.

 

[FormerHangie]

I thought that was due to torque steer.

FWD cars have a couple of disadvantages when used for performance driving. First is the torque steer you mentioned. The second one I can think of is weight transfer. When a car is accelerating, the torque of the wheels causes a rearward shift in the car's weight distribution. In a two wheel drive car, you'd like to have the weight on the drive wheels, which is exactly the opposite of what a FWD car has. When under braking, there's a frontward weight shift. Since all four wheels have brakes, you'd like to have the weight evenly distributed so all four wheels can do as much braking as possible. An FWD car is already nose heavy, and the weight transfer makes it more so, which makes the rear brakes ineffective.

A tire has about the same amount of total grip regardless of direction. Any grip used for cornering isn't available for acceleration, and vice versa. When exiting a turn, if you get hard on the throttle, an FWD car tends to push towards the outside of the turn than more than does an RWD car, so your exit speed is a little lower. Also, when driven hard, the front tires on an FWD car tend to catch a lot of abuse and are more likely to overheat and become less effective.