"producers followed: Stoewer offered a car with front-wheel drive in 1931, Adler in 1932 and Audi in 1933. In 1934, the very successful Traction Avant cars were introduced by Citroën of France. The Cord 810 of the United States managed a bit better in the late 1930s than its predecessor one decade earlier. These vehicles featured a layout that places the engine behind the transmission, running ""backwards,"" (save for the Cord, which drove the transmission from the front of the engine). The basic front-wheel-drive layout provides sharp turning, and better weight distribution creates ""positive handling characteristics"" due to its low"
"1934 - Citroen introduces the Traction Avant, featuring front wheel drive and unitary construction. Citroën becomes bankrupt and is taken over by the Michelin Tire Company. 1934 - Matford begins building Ford cars, but ceases in 1939. In 1947, the company is reorganized as Ford SAF and sells cars under the Ford name. 1936 - While the British and German economies powered ahead during the 1930s, growth in the French economy was at best tentative, with a period of destructive strikes and economic paralysis during the middle years of the decade. In Germany the Hitler government treated the German auto-industry"
"front-wheel drive, considerably later than their continental rivals. For instance, the arrival of the front-wheel drive Volkswagen Golf hatchback in 1974 came four years before any of the four British-based carmakers had launched an equivalent car. By the time the first small British-built hatchback, the Vauxhall Chevette, was launched in 1975, the French Renault 5 had already been in production for three years. However, British Leyland's larger Austin Maxi had been sold with a hatchback and front-wheel drive since its 1969 launch, although it sold similar-sized cars like the Morris Marina and Triumph Dolomite alongside it as a rear-wheel drive"
"Citroën Traction Avant The Citroën Traction Avant () is an executive car produced by the French manufacturer Citroën from 1934 to 1957. Approximately 760,000 units were produced. This Traction Avant pioneered mass production of two revolutionary features still in use today: four-wheel independent suspension, and front-wheel drive. The Traction Avant, French for front-wheel drive, was designed by André Lefèbvre and Flaminio Bertoni in late 1933 / early 1934. The Traction Avant pioneered front-wheel drive on the European mass car market, along with DKW's and Adler's 1930s models. Front-wheel drive had just appeared for the first time through luxury vehicle manufacturers"
"hp engine costing $6,500 and 2,300 lbs. Also, the company produced a taxi cab. Walter Christie spent most of his time racing and not promoting his cars. Because of this, the company folded in 1910. Christie (automobile company) The Christie Direct Action Motor Car Company was a New York City-based automobile manufacturer. It was founded by race driver and inventor J. Walter Christie in 1904, and lasted until 1910. The Christie Company was originally called Christie Iron Works, but the name was changed in 1906. Christie was America's first exponent of front-wheel drive. In 1904, he took a four-cylinder, 30"
"if still in an unopened package. Cord 810/812 The Cord 810, and later Cord 812, was a luxury automobile produced by the Cord Automobile division of the Auburn Automobile Company in 1936 and 1937. It was the first American-designed and built front wheel drive car with independent front suspension. It followed the 1934 Citroën Traction Avant and the Cord L-29, both of which also had front wheel drive. Both models were also the first to offer hidden headlights. The styling of the Cord 810 was the work of designer Gordon M. Buehrig and his team of stylists, which included young"
"30 Traction Avants drove from Los Angeles to New York City without incident. . Citroën Traction Avant The Citroën Traction Avant () is an executive car produced by the French manufacturer Citroën from 1934 to 1957. Approximately 760,000 units were produced. This Traction Avant pioneered mass production of two revolutionary features still in use today: four-wheel independent suspension, and front-wheel drive. The Traction Avant, French for front-wheel drive, was designed by André Lefèbvre and Flaminio Bertoni in late 1933 / early 1934. The Traction Avant pioneered front-wheel drive on the European mass car market, along with DKW's and Adler's 1930s"
"the front of a relatively flat fronted cab had been pioneered in France by Citroën in 1939 with a design that incorporated front wheel drive. Eleven years and one world war later Volkswagen had launched a flat fronted rear wheel drive light van with the engine at the back. By placing the engine at the same end of the vehicle as the driving wheels, both the Citroen and Volkswagen approaches avoided having to locate a drive shaft along the length of the load area. But the front-wheel drive solution required the front wheels to be attached using a type of"
"the introduction of the 1935 monocoque Opel Olympia, and the Macpherson strut by Ford in the 1950s), until the late 1970s and early 1980s. In 1931 the DKW F1 was launched. This was the first successful mass-produced front-wheel drive car in the world. It was priced at 1,700 Reichsmarks . (The British 1928-30 Alvis cars 'FWD' models had handling problems and only 150 were made. The British 1929 BSA was a three-wheel competitor to Morgan and the motorcycle combination market, the 1931 four-wheeler was very short-lived. The 1929 U.S. Cord L-29 having been seriously flawed, production ended at 4,429. The"
"Citroën Citroën () is a French automobile manufacturer, part of the PSA Peugeot Citroën group since 1976, founded in 1919 by French industrialist André-Gustave Citroën (1878–1935). In 1934, the firm established its reputation for innovative technology with the Traction Avant. This car was the world's first mass-produced front wheel drive car, but also one of the first to feature a unitary type body, with no chassis holding the mechanical components. In 1954 they had produced the world's first hydropneumatic self-levelling suspension system then, in 1955, the revolutionary DS, the first mass production car with modern disc brakes<ref name=""vintagecars.about.com/internet archive""></ref> and,"
"the financial difficulties in post-war Italy, the 33 never saw the production. Had Alfa-Romeo succeed in producing 33, it would precede the Mini as the first ""modern"" European front-wheel-drive compact car. In 1955, one of the first Japanese manufacturers to utilize front-wheel drive with a transversely installed engine was the Suzuki Suzulight, which was a small ""city"" car, called a ""kei car"" in Japanese. In 1959 Austin Mini was launched by the British Motor Corporation, designed by Alec Issigonis as a response to the first 'oil crisis', the 1956 Suez Crisis, and the boom in bubble cars that followed. It"
"Cord 810/812 The Cord 810, and later Cord 812, was a luxury automobile produced by the Cord Automobile division of the Auburn Automobile Company in 1936 and 1937. It was the first American-designed and built front wheel drive car with independent front suspension. It followed the 1934 Citroën Traction Avant and the Cord L-29, both of which also had front wheel drive. Both models were also the first to offer hidden headlights. The styling of the Cord 810 was the work of designer Gordon M. Buehrig and his team of stylists, which included young Vince Gardner and Alex Tremulis. While"
"Apollo and Buick Skylark. In 1980, General Motors released its first front-wheel drive hatchback models, the Chevrolet Citation and Pontiac Phoenix. Ford Motor Company's first hatchback was the Ford Pinto Runabout, introduced in 1971. From 1974, the Pinto was also rebadged and sold as the Mercury Bobcat. The 1974-1978 Ford Mustang II offered a hatchback Mustang for the first time. Chrysler Corporation's first hatchbacks (and first front-wheel drive cars) were the 1978 Dodge Omni / Plymouth Horizon models, which were based on the French Simca-Talbot Horizon. These were followed by the 3-door hatchback Dodge Omni 024 / Plymouth Horizon TC3"
"a reason for the adoption of the four-wheel-drive quattro system in the high performance Jensen FF and Audi Quattro road cars. Early cars using the FWD layout include the 1929 Cord L-29, 1931 DKW F1, the 1948 Citroën 2CV, 1949 Saab 92 and the 1959 Mini. In the 1980s, the traction and packaging advantages of this layout caused many compact and mid-sized vehicle makers to adopt it in the US. Most European and Japanese manufacturers switched to front wheel drive for the majority of their cars in the 1960s and 1970s, the last to change being VW, Ford of Europe,"
"the front of the vehicle, powering the front axle. It was thus arguably the world's first front-wheel-drive automobile, but it never saw mass production, with only one copy ever made. In 1898, Latil, in France, devised a front-wheel-drive system for motorising horse-drawn carts. In 1898/9 the French manufacturer Société Parisienne patented their front-wheel drive articulated vehicle concept which they manufactured as a Victoria Combination. It was variously powered by De Dion-Bouton engine or a water cooled Aster engine. The engine was mounted on the front axle and so was rotated by the tiller steering. The name Victoria Combination described the"
"rear axle. A 1911 front-wheel drive car had a transverse engine with a clutch at each end, driving the front wheels directly. The first successful transverse-engine cars were the two-cylinder DKW ""Front"" series of cars, which first appeared in 1931. After the Second World War, SAAB used the configuration in their first model, the Saab 92, in 1947. The arrangement was also used for Borgward's Goliath and Hansa brand cars and in a few other German cars. However, it was with Alec Issigonis's Mini, introduced by the British Motor Corporation in 1959, that the design gained acclaim. Issigonis incorporated the"
"front wheels. Spyker is credited with building and racing the first ever four-wheel drive racing car, the ""Spyker 60 HP"" in 1903. Bugatti created a total of three four-wheel-drive racers, the Type 53, in 1932, but the cars were notorious for having poor handling. Miller produced the first 4WD car to qualify for the Indianapolis 500, the 1938 Miller Gulf Special. Ferguson Research Ltd. built the front-engine P99 Formula One car that actually won a non-World Championship race with Stirling Moss in 1961. In 1968, Team Lotus raced cars in the Indy 500 and three years later in Formula 1"
"in 1999. The Swedish insurance company, Folksam, rates the 1st-gen Accent as one of the safest cars in its weight class. Hyundai Excel The Hyundai Excel (Hangul: 현대 엑셀), also known as the Hyundai Pony, Hyundai Presto, Mitsubishi Precis and Hyundai X2, is an automobile which was produced by Hyundai Motor Company from 1985 to 2000. It was the first front-wheel drive car produced by the South Korean manufacturer. The Excel range replaced the rear wheel drive Hyundai Pony. As with the original 1974 Pony, the Excel was designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro. The Excel was available in three- or five-door"
"the center of the car, produced 10 hp (7.5 kW). A two-speed planetary transmission was fitted. The angle-steel-framed car weighed and used half-elliptic springs. In 1926, Errett Cord, now the owner of Auburn, partnered with Duesenberg Corporation, famous for its racing cars, and used it as the launching platform for a line of high-priced luxury vehicles, the Duesenberg Model J. He also put his own name on one of the first front-wheel-drive cars, Cord, known as the Cord L-29"". The company employed imaginative designers such as Alan Leamy, chief designer of the 1933 Auburn Speedster, and Gordon Buehrig, designer of"
"shop in Léon where they made scientific toys. Needing money for Trépardoux's long-time dream of a steam car, they acceded to De Dion's request. During 1883 they formed a partnership which became the De Dion-Bouton automobile company, the world's largest automobile manufacturer for a time. They tried marine steam engines, but progressed to a steam car which used belts to drive the front wheels whilst steering with the rear. This was destroyed by fire during trials. In 1884 they built another, ""La Marquise"", with steerable front wheels and drive to the rear wheels. As of 2011, it is the world's"
"names. Faced with fierce competition from up-to-date designs from Volkswagen, General Motors moved to a front-wheel drive hatchback in 1979 with the latest version of the Opel Kadett, followed in 1981 by new Ascona (which retained the Vauxhall Cavalier name for the British market). In 1982 it opened a new plant Zaragoza, Spain, to produce the new Opel Corsa supermini; this car was later imported to Britain as the Vauxhall Nova. Production of the Kadett/Astra and Ascona/Cavalier models was divided between factories in Germany, Belgium, Spain and Britain. The Vauxhall Carlton was briefly built in Britain from its 1978 launch,"
"Hyundai Excel The Hyundai Excel (Hangul: 현대 엑셀), also known as the Hyundai Pony, Hyundai Presto, Mitsubishi Precis and Hyundai X2, is an automobile which was produced by Hyundai Motor Company from 1985 to 2000. It was the first front-wheel drive car produced by the South Korean manufacturer. The Excel range replaced the rear wheel drive Hyundai Pony. As with the original 1974 Pony, the Excel was designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro. The Excel was available in three- or five-door hatchback and four-door sedan models. The Excel was the first Hyundai car to be exported to the United States. The Excel"
"the English car company, had produced the front-wheel-drive roadster, Lloyd 650. The two-stroke, two-cylinder motor was mounted transversely in the front and connected to the front wheels through four-speed synchronised gearbox. The high price and lacklustre performance had doomed its production. Only 600 units were produced from 1946 to 1950. In 1954, Alfa-Romeo had experimented with its first front-wheel-drive compact car named ""33"" (not related or referred to sports car similarly named ""33""). It had the same transverse-mounted, forward-motor layout as the modern front-wheel-drive automobiles. It even resembled the smaller version of its popular Alfa Romeo Giulia. However, due to"
"114-inch-wheelbase Continental Ace, putting a Frontenac nameplate on the grille and selling them as the Frontenac Ace. Although Continental continued into 1934, Frontenac called it quits in 1933. Dominion Motors also built Reo cars and trucks for the Canadian market. Reo continued to use the plant into the early 1950s and in 1950 and 1951 Kaiser used part of the plant to assemble Kaiser sedans for the Canadian market. Only Dominion carried on and Continental was already out of the picture in 1934 and the majority of the plant was being operated by Reo on its own, 1934 into the"
"The two largest manufacturers at the time, Ford Motor Company and General Motors (GM), both of the United States, were focused on expanding globally, with General Motors either acquiring or partnering with local automobile manufacturers, such as Opel of Germany, Vauxhall of England and Holden of Australia, while Ford created overseas subsidiaries such as Ford of Germany, Ford of Britain and Ford Australia. Both Ford and GM's overseas subsidiaries would later develop their own line of bespoke automobiles independently of their American parents. In 1933, Ford introduced their first car designed for European tastes that was not sold in the"
"and General Motors (Vauxhall - UK and Opel - Germany). Toyota was the last Japanese company to switch in the early 1980s. BMW, focussed on luxury vehicles, however retained the rear-wheel-drive layout in even their smaller cars, though their MINI marque are FWD. There are four different arrangements for this basic layout, depending on the location of the engine, which is the heaviest component of the drivetrain. The earliest such arrangement was not technically FWD, but rather mid-engine, front-wheel-drive layout (MF). The engine was mounted longitudinally (fore-and-aft, or north-south) behind the wheels, with the transmission ahead of the engine and"
"Four Wheel Drive The Four Wheel Drive Auto Company, more often known as Four Wheel Drive (FWD), was a pioneering American company that developed and produced all-wheel drive vehicles. It was founded in 1909 in Clintonville, Wisconsin, as the Badger Four-Wheel Drive Auto Company by Otto Zachow and William Besserdich. The first production facility was built in 1911 and was designed by architect Wallace W. DeLong of Appleton Wisconsin. Zachow and Besserdich developed and built the first successful four-wheel drive (4x4) car, the ""Battleship"", in 1908. Its success led to the founding of the company. ""Badger"" was dropped from the"
"a fastback saloon and hatchback, the 1964 Primula was Fiat's first front-wheel drive production car. It had pioneered the transverse-engined front-wheel drive layout with the transmission and clutch to the left of the engine, which today is almost universally used on front-wheel drive cars. The brainchild of Dante Giacosa this mechanical layout had been developed for the Fiat ""123"", an experimental project undertaken to test various unconventional engine and transmission layouts for a mid-sized 1100 replacement; when Fiat's management endorsed the traditionally laid out (front-longitudinal engine, rear-wheel drive) 124 instead, it had spawned the innovative Autobianchi Primula. To replace the"
"front-wheel drive by 1990. GM followed suit in 1996 where its B-body line was phased out, where its sports cars (Camaro, Firebird, Corvette) were the only RWDs marketed; by the early 2000s, the Chevrolet Corvette and Cadillac Catera were the only RWD cars offered by General Motors until the introduction of the Sigma platform. After the phaseout of the Ford Panther platform (except for the Mustang), Ford automobiles (including the Transit Connect van) manufactured for the 2012 model year to present are front wheel drive; its D3 platform (based on a Volvo platform) has optional all wheel drive. Front-wheel drive"
"1905 in an unrestored storage. The first four-wheel drive vehicles to go into mass-production were built by (what became) the American Four Wheel Drive Auto Company (FWD) of Wisconsin, founded in 1908 (not to be confused with the term ""FWD"" as an acronym for ""front-wheel drive"").<br> Along with the 2-ton Nash Quad (see below), the 3-ton FWD Model B became a standard military four-wheel-drive truck for the U.S. Army in World War I. Some 16,000 FWD Model B trucks were built for the British and American armies during World War I – about half by FWD and the rest by"
"Christie (automobile company) The Christie Direct Action Motor Car Company was a New York City-based automobile manufacturer. It was founded by race driver and inventor J. Walter Christie in 1904, and lasted until 1910. The Christie Company was originally called Christie Iron Works, but the name was changed in 1906. Christie was America's first exponent of front-wheel drive. In 1904, he took a four-cylinder, 30 hp racer to Daytona Beach with an early front-wheel drive system. In all, six racers were built, two with 60 hp engines. The Christie Company produced a gran touring car in 1907 with a 50"
"torque multiplied by the 1st gear ratio. This design was pioneered in the 1934 Škoda Popular, and then in the 1950 Lancia Aurelia, designed by Vittorio Jano. Since this placement of the gearbox is unsuitable for a live axle (due to excessive unsprung mass), the rear suspension is either independent, or uses a de Dion tube (notably in Alfa Romeos). Rare exceptions to this rule were the Bugatti T46 and T50 which had a three speed gearbox on a live axle. The Nissan GT-R and Ferrari FF (and its successors) are unusual in being all-wheel-drive cars with front-engined layouts and"
"early Oldsmobile Toronados, whose GM stylists later stated they were trying to capture the ""feel"" of the Cord's design, also featured hidden headlamps. ""Servo"" shifting was accomplished through a bendix electro-vacuum pre-selector mechanism (a type of electromechanical shifting). This was the first American front-wheel drive car to be offered to the public, beating the Ruxton automobile by several months, in 1929. The brainchild of former Miller engineer Carl Van Ranst, its drive system borrowed from the Indianapolis 500-dominating racers, using the same de Dion layout and inboard brakes. Built in Auburn, Indiana, the Cord was the first front-wheel-drive car to"