Re: Re: Peugeot Back ... rwd comments
From: Joseph Ashment (wyofisher@earthlink.net)
Date: Thu 16 Dec 2004 - 23:17:45 EST
That just about sums it up.
> [Original Message]
> From: Gnarly 505stx <gnarly505stx@yahoo.com>
> To: <peugeot-L@yahoogroups.com>
> Date: 12/15/2004 2:06:03 AM
> Subject: Re: [Peugeot-L] Re: Peugeot Back ... rwd comments
>
>
>
>
> Thomas John <thomas@ikonengold.de> wrote:
>
> ....I totally disagree about the statement "front wheel drive is the
> future".
>
>
>
> ofcourse RWD is superior. race cars use it, police cars (USA) use it
(with fringe exceptions), prestige cars use it, etc. when i sold new
volvos (1/2 rwd), i used to say, "Real cars are rear wheel drive..." and we
sold a lot more 960s than nearly all other volvo sales people :)
>
> but first and foremost, car manufacture is a business, for better or for
worse...
>
> i believe its apparent that if companies, especially small ones in the
large tight market want to survive, FWD is necessarily the future,
especially if they are going to take advantage of the American market.
fwd is cheaper and easier to build, with higher profit margins.
>
> as volvo-isti and as Swedes, we were sadder than the next guy to see a
company with a strict RWD heritage step away from it in Sweden. and now
that the company has backing with DEEP pockets, we see other volvo-isti
irrationally hoping the company can fish out a new RWD platform, but it's
futile. normal new car buyers are almost NOTHING at all like us. only the
smallest, most insignificant numbers of them care or know anything at all
about true driving dynamics and the principles of motoring tradition.
those are just esoteric concepts that dont make the list of what car
companies need to do to make money, especially when its easy to simulate
those attributes to a mostly ignorant buyer. and in the name of profit and
survival, there is nothing disingenuous about it. they never said they
were defenders of the traditions of the motor car. we just decided we
would ascribe that role to these companies, because they used to be so slow
to change and because evolution was more
> acceptable than revolution in auto design. in the newer, tighter
market, these conditions just arent so anymore.
>
> sad!
>
> it's just as honda says here in the US, "SIMPLIFY."
>
> its amusing to see a few american cars coming back around in NEW rwd
versions, necessarily with sophisticated traction control. but its also
interesting to see the results: the first one, lincoln LS (on the Jag S
type platform) FAILED miserably and lincoln canceled plans to introduce
another RWD and is now planning FWD only.
>
> Cadillac introduced an Opel here as the Catera. no one bought it and its
a target or ridicule, but it was just a place holder until the new cads
were ready. two are RWD and just went on sale. mostly, no one talks about
them being RWD, but they talk about their other styling characteristics.
>
> chrysler just introduced RWD again in its top of the line (with much help
from parent Daimler-Benz) and everyone is talking about RWD in this car.
we'll see !
>
> but, on the ground, in show rooms (a place i know well!), especially in
the northeast, new car buyers in the $25,000 - $37,000 range still ask, "Is
it front wheel drive?" in the first 45 seconds! FWD is the simplest,
easiest "fix" in the minds of most american new car buyers to the problem
of driving everyday on snowy, icey, slushy roads... not to say you cant
educate some of these people, but its the mainstream, mass market where
most of the $ $ $ are for better or for worse i say.
>
>
>
> jay
>
>
>
>
>
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