Does your personal preference in drivetrain actually influence your overall driving experience, or is your choice based merely on the, potentially dubious, marketing ploys engineered by highly competitive automobile manufacturers? Is your goal to reach the finish line first, or just to get to work in one piece? Unless you re Jason Statham in The Transporter, having to choose an E Type Jaguar For Sale isn t necessarily as clean cut as it appears at the outset.
For the driving purist, a rear wheel drive (RWD) configuration will always be the one most desired. RWD is what Henry Ford had in mind when birthing the very first combustion engine propelled passenger vehicle. And its merits can still be seen, burning up the tracks in the high stakes world of Formula One Racing, for example. So why has the public been gradually shifting towards front wheel drive (FWD) and all wheel drive (AWD) vehicles instead?
And while, to some, it may appear to be an overnight success, the FWD engine has actually been gaining steady recognition of its merits for around seventy years already. The auto manufacturer Mini first introduced the FWD to the world in the 1950s. Treated as little more than a novelty at the time, improvements in technology and rising fuel costs have made FWD vehicles a staple of modern highways.
With it being the easiest to develop, FWD motorcars also tend to come with the lowest price tags. Making them easier to sell than the average gas guzzling four wheel drive. Which begs the question of why more auto manufacturers don t simply switch over to making front wheel drive vehicles as well. It s because manufacturers fear the gamble of investing their limited development budgets into something they haven t tried and tested themselves. It s far safer to simply stick to what they know.
So, it seemed like nothing more than a leap of faith when a traditionally rear wheel drive manufacturer, like BMW, decided to hop onto the FWD bandwagon as well. While, on the surface, appearing to be a risky proposition, they obviously did their homework and realized that FWD vehicles make up more than half of all the cars sold every year. With RWDs claiming a mere twelve percent of the overall market share.
In addition to cost effectiveness, it seems efficiency is the average road user s primary concern when choosing a car for day to day usage. FWDs are cheaper to develop and engineer. Hence, the prevalence of that format on most entry level automobiles. Their smaller size also makes them lighter and, therefore, more fuel efficient than other drivetrain systems.
In contrast, AWDs require many more automotive components to get the engine s energy channelled to all four wheels at once. This makes AWD vehicles heavier relative to their FWD and RWD cousins. Translating to a bigger price tag at purchase, and less mileage being syphoned from every gas tank. But with all wheel drive configurations becoming more commonplace, their performance advantages have continued to grow. In addition, their reductions in premiums has had even the most budget conscious consumers revving up to consider an AWD as their day to day vehicle of choice.
Ultimately, when choosing the most suitable drivetrain, it s your daily routine and weather conditions encountered that become the biggest determining factors. So long as you re willing to fork out for a set of snow tires in winter, choosing a FWD vehicle over an AWD one makes negligible difference in a long run. But when compared to a RWD, front wheel drives and all wheel drives still come up trumps for handling well under adverse weather conditions, like in snow or rain.
For the driving purist, a rear wheel drive (RWD) configuration will always be the one most desired. RWD is what Henry Ford had in mind when birthing the very first combustion engine propelled passenger vehicle. And its merits can still be seen, burning up the tracks in the high stakes world of Formula One Racing, for example. So why has the public been gradually shifting towards front wheel drive (FWD) and all wheel drive (AWD) vehicles instead?
And while, to some, it may appear to be an overnight success, the FWD engine has actually been gaining steady recognition of its merits for around seventy years already. The auto manufacturer Mini first introduced the FWD to the world in the 1950s. Treated as little more than a novelty at the time, improvements in technology and rising fuel costs have made FWD vehicles a staple of modern highways.
With it being the easiest to develop, FWD motorcars also tend to come with the lowest price tags. Making them easier to sell than the average gas guzzling four wheel drive. Which begs the question of why more auto manufacturers don t simply switch over to making front wheel drive vehicles as well. It s because manufacturers fear the gamble of investing their limited development budgets into something they haven t tried and tested themselves. It s far safer to simply stick to what they know.
So, it seemed like nothing more than a leap of faith when a traditionally rear wheel drive manufacturer, like BMW, decided to hop onto the FWD bandwagon as well. While, on the surface, appearing to be a risky proposition, they obviously did their homework and realized that FWD vehicles make up more than half of all the cars sold every year. With RWDs claiming a mere twelve percent of the overall market share.
In addition to cost effectiveness, it seems efficiency is the average road user s primary concern when choosing a car for day to day usage. FWDs are cheaper to develop and engineer. Hence, the prevalence of that format on most entry level automobiles. Their smaller size also makes them lighter and, therefore, more fuel efficient than other drivetrain systems.
In contrast, AWDs require many more automotive components to get the engine s energy channelled to all four wheels at once. This makes AWD vehicles heavier relative to their FWD and RWD cousins. Translating to a bigger price tag at purchase, and less mileage being syphoned from every gas tank. But with all wheel drive configurations becoming more commonplace, their performance advantages have continued to grow. In addition, their reductions in premiums has had even the most budget conscious consumers revving up to consider an AWD as their day to day vehicle of choice.
Ultimately, when choosing the most suitable drivetrain, it s your daily routine and weather conditions encountered that become the biggest determining factors. So long as you re willing to fork out for a set of snow tires in winter, choosing a FWD vehicle over an AWD one makes negligible difference in a long run. But when compared to a RWD, front wheel drives and all wheel drives still come up trumps for handling well under adverse weather conditions, like in snow or rain.
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