Front-wheel drive
In the 1980s, front- wheel drive ( FWD) s t arted showing up in an increasing number of new models in North America. But it certainly wasn’t new, and viable versions had already been on the market many decades before.
It might have seemed like the logical way to do it right from the start. The earliest cars were basically horseless carriages, and after all, the horse did go at the front. But asking these rudimentary systems to both power and steer the front wheels was difficult, especially since early cars used a tiller rather than a steering wheel.
It was easier to send engine output to the rear wheels, initially with a chain and later with a driveshaft, leaving the front wheels to point the way. In a couple of cases, including a steam-powered buggy by French manufacturer De Dion- Bouton in the 1800s, the front wheels were powered while the rear wheels did the steering.
Although s ome e arl y automakers did make FWD models, with varying success, it was ultimately auto racing that brought it to the forefront. John Walter Christie, who started a company called Christie Iron Works in New York in 1904, patented a design that featured an independent front suspension and a transversely mounted engine, with its crankshaft connected to the wheels in place of an axle.
Christie built six race cars, one of which topped 140 km/ h in a trial at Ormond Beach, Fla., in 1906. It’s believed he also built a handful of regular cars, and in 1909 he turned out a prototype taxicab, but the design was complicated and clunky, and he was never able to find success with consumer models. Instead, he later concentrated on frontwheel designs for fire trucks and tanks through his Front Drive Motor Co. .
The real credit for viable FWD, at least among North American cars, is generally given to race car builder Harry Miller. He began his career working with carburetors and developing a new alloy for engine parts, before branching out to building engines and then entire race cars. It’s likely that his fondness for FWD came from his early days, when he worked on the carburetors in John Christie’s cars.
With no driveshaft in the way, Miller’s cars sat low, and the hoods were extra long to accommodate the frontdrive unit. It’s even been suggested that conventional automakers copied Miller’s look in their rear-drive cars, producing the long, low silhouettes of luxury cars in the 1920s and 1930s. During the 1920s, Miller’s cars, or those powered by his engines, won the Indianapolis 500 five times. Every racer wanted one of his hand-built models, despite their high cost.
Miller retired from race cars in 1929, but there was more work ahead of him. He’d caught the eye of Errett Lobban Cord, who owned the prestigious Auburn and Duesenberg brands. Cord wanted something to fit the price gap between them, and he liked the idea of FWD. Miller was hired to work with Cord’s engineers to modify the racing design for this new brand. Introduced for 1929, the Cord L-29 was the first production American car with power to the front wheels.
It wasn’t perfect, and the car suffered from poor traction, universal joint wear, and a tendency for the transmission to slip out of gear. But its ultimate enemy was lack of sales during the Depression, which temporarily ended production. A second FWD model, the Cord 810/812, died in 1937 with the company’s closure.
Rear-wheel drive was still king, but a few FWD models popped up, such as Germany’s DKW, American luxury model Ruxton, and most successful of all, Citroën’s 7CV Traction Avant, introduced in 1934, and followed in 1949 by the famous 2CV.
It wasn’t until 1966 that a front- wheel- drive model rolled off an American assembly line, with the introduction of the all- new Oldsmobile Toronado, and a year later, the redesigned Cadillac Eldorado.
Rear- wheel drive is still primarily the configuration of choice for sports cars, and all-wheel drive is popular, especially for Canadians. But overall, the system that no one could quite figure out in its earliest days has become the most common of all.