Rear engined cars

[Tadhg Tiogar]

42 minutes ago, Sir Snipes said:

I had to Google the Tatra v8;

Doesn't look too bad. Very 90s. 300hp v8. 

Only five built. Has elements of XJ220 and BMW E31 in it. Tatra's last hurrah in luxury car making.

[Gord]

1 hour ago, dollywobbler said:

One issue that may have been mentioned somewhere in this is that stopping a rear-engined car can be tricky, because of the lack of weight over the wheels that do most of the stopping. Doesn't seem quite so much of an issue when you only have one front wheel though from personal experience...

From experience, rear engine cars like new/soft rubber on the front wheels, I guess in much the same way you should always fit the new tyres to the back on front engine cars.

A big problem will be when the car is only used occasionally and the tyre develops a hard outer layer.  Things improve after a few miles of driving, but you need to take care for the first few miles.

Rear engine cars are actually very balanced, at around 60/40% weight distribution when braking hard, as opposed to a FWD car which will be in the region of 80/20%.

[barefoot]

It's been a long time since I trawled through the whole of 'Unsafe at Any Speed' (a first edition from the local library), but I seem to remember that Nader spent an awful lot of time discussing the steering column on the Corvair as well, as it apparently didn't have the capacity to collapse & simply impaled drivers even in low speed accidents.

[dc2100k]

4 hours ago, dollywobbler said:

One issue that may have been mentioned somewhere in this is that stopping a rear-engined car can be tricky, because of the lack of weight over the wheels that do most of the stopping. Doesn't seem quite so much of an issue when you only have one front wheel though from personal experience...

I agree, in my C2 it is very easy to lock the front wheels over rutted/uneven/stony surfaces and the ABS doesn't really seem to have the capacity to deal with this. I don't mind as I grew up driving cars without ABS but I would concur it is the one weak-point on the car which is an otherwise excellent B-road tool.

[dc2100k]

Just watching those videos of the Hillman Imps, my god what fantastic little cars. The sound of that Coventry Climax fire-pump engine at full tilt!

 

Here is a video of a Clan Crusader (a rear engined Imp-based sports car) with a GSX-R engine in,  you can see how well it puts the power down:

 

Alas, doesn't quite have the character of a 1040cc Imp engine and straight cut gearbox:

 

[Yoss]

^^^^^ Ah, MTX. Responsible for the Favorit and Felicia convertibles. Not their finest hour, cosmetically speaking, that probably is the Tatra above. 

The Favorit didn't look too bad with roof down, in an 80's sort of way. 

But put the roof up and the proportions go all wrong. 

 

But The Felicia. Oh dear. I mean, I'm a Felicia licker extraordinaire but even I really would not want to be seen in one of these. 

Unlike the Favorit, they kept the four doors. The back end is particularly ungainly. 

And the roof has nowhere to go. 

And then you open the back door. 

Note the rear door window still uses the original glass so has a 90 degree corner which also looks terrible with the roof down. 

[Jamie]

9 minutes ago, Yoss said:

 

Note the rear door window still uses the original glass so has a 90 degree corner which also looks terrible with the roof down. 

you think just the rear window glass is the only hideous thing about it? 

[Yoss]

No, all of it is. Somehow even the bits they didn't change look worse than on the standard car. 

[Jamie]

12 minutes ago, Yoss said:

No, all of it is. Somehow even the bits they didn't change look worse than on the standard car. 

love to see it in a NCAP test

[AnthonyG]

10 hours ago, barefoot said:

It's been a long time since I trawled through the whole of 'Unsafe at Any Speed' (a first edition from the local library), but I seem to remember that Nader spent an awful lot of time discussing the steering column on the Corvair as well, as it apparently didn't have the capacity to collapse & simply impaled drivers even in low speed accidents.

To be fair, no contemporary American cars had a collapsible steering column - the particular problem with the Corvair was that the end of the steering mechanism was fairly close to the front of the car. 

Most contemporary models like the Falcon or Valiant, would have had the steering box behind, underneath or alongside the engine, so less chance of it getting forced backwards. 

[Gord]

Another selection of cars going slightly beyond their handling capabilities.

Some interesting models, some favourites from the 80s and 90s, and the odd rear engine Beetle, Renault and Porsche.

A few roll overs, and a few FWD cars destroying their front wheels.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lXBXsAOSFE&list=LLq97Ou-tNOWKBpqb16ai8uA&index=2&t=0s

Thank you for looking

Gord :-)

[bobdisk]

On 1/27/2020 at 12:57 AM, Tadhg Tiogar said:

Nobody's mentioned the NSU Prinz / Prinz 4 / 1000 / 1200 / TTS / Wankel Spider family of rear-engined smoll cars. Wonder what they were like....

Had an NSU Prinz 4 L until recently. Not much power (2 cylinder version), but a pleasure to drive. Drove from W. London to Somerset and back for the 2019 Microcar rally. No problems going around corners or roundabouts. Wish I never sold it, but it wanted too much rust repairs.

[Roobarb]

I own one of those fancy Porsche beetles and the handling really isn’t for everyone. 
Lift off oversteer is fun when you want it to happen but when you don’t...

Years ago, I was test driven, by the owner, in a SWB 911 (before the prices went insane - around ‘91). We ended up off the road with the back end skimming over a ditch. It was quite ‘exhilarating’. At the end of the drive, the owner looked at me and said ‘I’m guessing your not interested’.

Right now, I would love a Karmann Ghia, but that’s more cruiser than sports car!

[motorpunk]

I’ve just realised that 66% of my fleet has their engines in the back.

What was the question, again?