Oh, you know, it's only lighter, cheaper, usually reduces understeer, usually eliminates torque steer, and allows for better vehicle balance front to back.
According to Google, this car: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancia_Rally_037 The time? I don't know. I'll say somewhere around the 1980s.
How about not sparking off that argument again? FWD, AWD, RWD, they all have their flaws, and their pros, it depends on what car it is, and what it's built for.
I drive an AWD Subaru and still wish I had a good RWD car to drive every once in a while. AWD is fast, but it isn't always a lot of fun. RWD lets you slide a lot more easily.
There are some, but those are few and far between. The vast majority of AWD cars put most power to the front wheels. Most Subarus, if not all, split the power evenly between front and rear wheels. The new Focus RS has the drift mode setting which puts the majority of power to the rear, while still sending some (around 30% if I remember correctly) power to the front. It's still very uncommon.
Subarus have longitudinally mounted engines. I would so love to get one and convert it to pure RWD, just to watch everyone have a collective aneurysm. That is all.
You won't find many collective aneurysms for something very frequently done. That said, with removal of the transfer case the remainder of the gearbox is designed for fwd application (hence why base models in some markets are fwd). But rwd is doable. You essentially remove the front diff and half shafts, plug the holes they leave. Weld up the centre diff and go destroy your rear end as the stock wrx and below back end cannot handle that power direct
In that case, significant power upgrades to such a car would also require a better rear diff, would they not? So then, theoretically (haven't looked), upgraded units should still be available. I was going to ask if it would be possible to remove the center diff entirely and run a driveshaft all the way from the gearbox to the rear diff as in a normal FR, but then remembered what you said about the gearbox. I'd have to look up what's going on there to see if a solution could be worked out. For some reason, even though I knew that the Impreza was natively FWD, I'd just automatically assumed that a longitudinal engine meant that the drivetrain worked as in an AWD version of a natively RWD car, with the gearbox set up to send power rearward and the center differential sending some of it back to the front.
...and adds higher probability of oversteering sliding into a ditch, tree, pole, fence, 18wheeler in the opposite lane, pedestrians on the sidewalk etc. The only condition where RWD is good is in hands of a skilled driver on a good road, preferably a racetrack, preferably in a good weather.
I mean, I've driven nothing but RWD through the past 4 winters with no issue. I'm still alive. It's all in the tires man. My Grand Marquis with studded snow tires will out perform an AWD car in the snow with all seasons I bet.
It's a smart setup. Input shaft across the top, output shaft along the bottom as pretty typical for a longitudinal gearbox. Output shaft however is hollow and has the front driveshaft running through it to the front differential which is mounted within the gearbox casing. Fwd models simply attach a coupler to the rear of the transmission to lock those two shafts. Awd models have centre differential with the outer casing engaging on the output shaft of the gearbox and an output linking to that hidden front driveshaft. It's some pretty impressively packed engineering. Limits about 150hp or so per differential before you want to just use the STI gearbox that works differently. Quaife and a few others make uprated units. Sti rear diff has a different drive pattern on it so isn't drop in but a custom modified drive shaft can do it. I've heard of someone fitting a BRZ gearbox too. And an additional popular mod, leave it as a fwd gearbox, but modify the front differential mount so you can flip it over. This way the outputs are reversed. You can then fit it in a similar mount as intended for a Volkswagen flat 4 and transmission in the back of a sand rail.
You are probably a better driver than those teens who think hating FWD cars automatically increases their driving skills. I still doubt, though, that your Mercury can beat an AWD car in the snow if both cars have studded snow tires.
