MOTORDOM.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18203, 2 March 1929, Page 15

MOTORDOM.

FRONT WHEEL DRIVE. There are indications that front wheel drive cars are about to' receive more attention from motor manufacturers. Although it has been the general practice for more than a quarter of a century to place the engine in front and to carry the** power to the rear whels through a gear box and a propeller-shaft, the front drive principle is far from being new. One make of lorry has been built in France for more than twenty years with the front wheels as both drivers and steers; as far back as 1908 an American racing car called the "Walter Christie” (fUM drive) competed at Dieppe, France, and during the last five or six yeare many front drive racing cars have been built both in Europe and in America. It frequently happens that an idea rests in the minds of a few engineers years before it receives practical application, and front wheel drive is just one of such ideas. Other developments had to take precedent, and now that these approach perfection, front drive suggests itself as a * possible further step forward. One of the advantages of using the front wheels for driving the car is the greater liberty allowed in body building. For several years car heights hive been reduced, for sports cars, thit'fs until a minimum has now beeh attained with present mechanical construction. Whatever the methods employed to reduce the height bt cars the rear axle remains the limiting factor. If a "dead” axle can be substituted for the usual "live” axle, a saving of several inches is immediately obtained. Body builders p bably will be the strongest partisans of front wheel drive. It gives them, in effect, a platform entirely free from mechanism, on which to build a body without any consideration of clearances, accessibility, or varying heights. While the front drive principle has many advantages, there are still objections and difficulties to be solved before it becomes more generally adopted. One of the real difficulties with front wheel drive is that the axis pins for the stub axles cannot be placed at an angle and thus there is no castor action on the front wheels. This is a problem, which time may solve, and undoubtedly it will be solved in the end, because a car without castor is unstable when the throttle is shut, though stable when the front wheels are driving. Suspension ought to be better with front than with rear wheel drive, for unsprung weight is reduced to a minimum. From the standpoint of the user there is the advantage that the body and the mechanism are separate, and the most extensive repair work can be carried out without any disturbance of the body or any danger of soiling or damaging it.