New four-wheel-steering Prelude

Press, 24 September 1987, Page 40

New four-wheel-steering Prelude

Honda’s new four-wheel-steering Honda Prelude will go on sale in Britain next month. We, in New Zealand, can buy it now. There are actually four new Preludes, two of them fuel-injected and with four-wheel steering available. The new 2-litre EX, twin-carburettor, manual orthodox car retails for $51,450, while the most expensive variant is the 2litre 16-valve engined model, featuring Honda’s PGM-FI injection system and automatic gearbox, which will sell for $65,950. Anti-lock brakes are available as an option on both fuel-injected cars at an extra cost of $3500. These new models have double wishbone suspension, front and rear, the former rear coil-struts and trailing links having been replaced. What is more, air-condi-tioning is fitted to all models, while power-as-sisted rack and pinion steering is new on the EX versions. The 2-litre fuel-injected 16-valve models are fitted with larger ventilated disc brakes and ride on 195/ 60VR 15 tyres compared with the 185/70VR 13 tyres of the EX Preludes. The fuel-injected engine develops 160 kW at 6000 rpm, while the carburettor cars produce 85 kW at 5800 rpm. Although both versions are quite advanced technically, when compared with the older versions, the advantages will probably pale to insignificance in the eyes of the general motoring public, which should be more interested in Honda’s four-wheel-steering system, which I tried out recently on a testing curse devised by the Honda distributor, NZMC, Ltd, on the Pukekohe racing circuit. Honda has been working on an all-wheel steering system for the last decade. There is essentially nothing new in four-wheel-steering, for it has been a facility fitted to specialised commercial vehicles for some time now. It is, however, a relatively new feature on

passenger cars and, it would appear, most of the development work in this regard has been undertaken by the Japanese car Industry. Nissan, for example, has more than 40,000 Skylines out on the roads and running in the hands of the Japanese motoring public already. Mazda has announced a four-wheel steering system which, it is rumoured, might even be employed upon cars available in this country within the next year or so. All sorts of extravagant claims about who was the first of the Japanese manufacturers to think of and develop four-wheel steering have been made, but the weight of evidence seems to suggest that it was Honda, for the very simple reason that Honda has devised a relatively simple mechanical system, whereas the other manufacturers have developed more complicated systems involving electronics and hydraulics. Essentially the Honda system comprises steering boxes which steer the front and rear wheels and a centre shaft which transmits the rotation of the steering wheel shaft from front to rear. The angle that the driver turns the steering wheel is transmitted to the front box initially. Rack and pinion steers the front wheels and activates the centre shaft to the rear steering box,

which has a double-crank design that steers the rear wheels in two ways. Small steering movements, usually found in high-speed driving, steer the rear wheels up to 1.5 deg. in the same direction as the front wheels. However, if the steering wheel is turned through larger angles, as in low-speed manoeuvring, the rear wheels are steered up to more than five degrees in the opposite direction, thereby improving manoeuvrability in much the same manner as with a rear-wheel-steering forklift truck. If it is possible to estimate the efficacy of fourwheel steering, from the point of view of manoeuvability, it seems appropriate to mention that the minimum turning circle of a four-wheel-steering Prelude is 9.6 metres whereas that of the orthodox two-wheel-steering Prelude is 10.6 metres. Bear in mind that the latest Prelude is longer over all and stands on a 256 cm wheelbase, whereas the older model had a wheelbase of 245 cm. In practise, I found that four-wheel steering more or less made an ass of a seemingly impossible par-

allel parking slot and made reversing on an extremely narrow road Into a garage located at right angles to the road a piece of cake. In such situations, one does not suffer the frustrations of an average driver, who often has to go back and fourth in an energy-sapping operation to get a car parked perfectly. In the normal course of events, one should be able to carry out a parking manoeuvre in one single and simple opertion. To my mind, ease of manoeuvrability is the best thing aout four-wheel steering, although I must admit that the artificial situations set up on a racing circuit could hardly be considered suitable yardsticks for measuring its high-speed effectiveness. Although I was able to make back-to-back comparisons, using an older Prelude along with the all-wheel steering version I did not feel that the additional expense involved and the mechanical complexity in the allwheel steering system was entirely justified in the handling improvements which, to me, appeared to be marginal. Perhaps that is a harsh judgment and I’m prepared to await an opportunity to appraise the car under everyday driving conditions before coming to any hard and fast conclusions. Suffice it to say that both cars acquitted themselves admirably on an 80 km/h slalom course and

changed direction sharply in adequate fashion at 100 km/h. It’s only fair to say that the all-wheel steerer was marginally less dramatic in undertaking these manoeuvres than the orthodox Prelude, but that might possibly be attributed to the longer wheelbase and suspension improvements of the later model, to say nothing of the 60 series tyres and other features of the more modern rubber. However, I must say the all-wheel steering Prelude went through Pukekohe’s notorious hairpin bend much more smoothly than any other Japanese production car I have driven

on the circuit and that is certainly saying something. I believe that all-wheel steering will help mediocre drivers appear more skilful than they are and it should help the quickerthinking incompetents avoid trouble. On that basis alone, it is probably worth the additional expense and complexity, but it is not cheap motoring and, as Honda has not yet made any noises that would indicate that it is going to extend all-wheel steering to lesser models in its range, it seems probable that it will enjoy very limited use in the next decade or so.