Front-wheel drive

Front-wheel drive (FWD) is a form of engine and transmission layout used in motor vehicles, where the engine drives the front wheels only. Most modern front-wheel drive vehicles feature a transverse engine, rather than the conventional longitudinal engine arrangement generally found in rear-wheel drive and four-wheel drive vehicles.

Location of engine and transmission

By far the most common layout for a front-wheel drive car is with the engine and transmission at the front of the car, mounted transversely.

Other layouts of front-wheel drive that have been occasionally produced are a front-engine mounted longitudinally, a mid-engine layout and a rear-engine layout.

History

Prior to 1900

Experiments with front-wheel drive cars date to the early days of the automobile. The world's first self-propelled vehicle, Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot's 1769/1770 "fardier à vapeur", was a front-wheel drivenA Brief History Of Front-Wheel Drive – Jalopnik
/ref> three-wheeled steam-tractor. It then took at least a century, for the first experiments with mobile internal combustion engines to gain traction.

Sometime between 1895 and 1898 the Austrian brothers and bicycle producers Franz, Heinrich and Karl Gräf, see Gräf & Stift, commissioned the technician Josef Kainz to build a '' voiturette'' with a one-cylinder De Dion-Bouton engine fitted in the front of the vehicle, powering the front axle. It is possibly the world's first front-wheel-drive automobile, but it never saw series production, with just one prototype made.

In 1898, Latil, in France, devised a front-wheel-drive system for motorising horse-drawn carts.

In 1899 the inventor Henry Sutton designed and built one of Australia's first cars, called The Sutton Autocar.This car may have been the first front wheel drive car in the world. Henry's car was reported in the English press at the time and featured in the English magazine Autocar which the car was named after. Two prototypes of the Autocar were built and the Austral Otis Company was going to go into business with Henry to manufacture Henry's car but the cost of the car was too prohibitive as it could not compete with the cost of imported cars.

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.Grace's Guide to Industrial History. Profile of La Societe Parisienne
/ref>Bonhams Auctioneers, Profile description of Parisienne at Wikimedia Commons
/ref>Bonhams Auctioneers - Profile of La Société Parisienne - Victoria Combination
/ref> The name Victoria Combination described the lightweight, two-seater trailer commonly known as a Victoria, combined with the rear axle and drive mechanism from a motor tricycle that was placed in front to achieve front wheel drive. It also known as the ''Eureka''. By 1899 Victoria Combinations were participating in motoring events such as the 371km Paris- St Malo race, finishing 23rd overall and second(last) in the class.Unique Cars and Parts. Voiturette Racing - Before The Formula One
/ref> In October a Victoria Combination won its class in the Paris-Rambouillet-Paris event, covering the 100 kilometre course at . In 1900 it completed non-stop at . When production ceased in mid-1901, over 400 copies had been sold for 3,000 Francs (circa $600) each.

A different concept was the Lohner–Porsche of 1897 with an electric motor in each front wheel, produced by Lohner-Werke in Vienna. It was developed by Ferdinand Porsche in 1897 based on a concept developed by American inventor Wellington Adams. Porsche also raced it in 1897.

19001920

J. Walter Christie of the United States patented a design for a front-wheel-drive car, the first prototype of which he built in 1904. He promoted and demonstrated several such vehicles, notably with ''transversely'' mounted engines, by racing at various speedways in the United States, and even competed in the 1906 Vanderbilt Cup and the French Grand Prix. In 1912 he began manufacturing a line of wheeled fire engine tractors which used his front-wheel-drive system, but due to lack of sales this venture failed.

In Australia in 1915 G.J. Hoskins designed and was granted a patent for his front-wheel-drive system. Based in Burwood NSW Mr Hoskins was a prominent member of the Sydney motoring industry and invented a system that used a "spherical radial gear" that was fitted to what is believed to have been a Standard (built by the Standard Motor Company of England). A photo of the car with the system fitted is available from the Mitchell Library and the patent design drawing is still available from the Australian Patent Office. reference; "Gilltraps Australian Cars from 1879 - A history of cars built in Australia" (authors Gilltrap T and M) ISBN 0 85558 936 1 (Golden Press Pty Ltd)

19201930

The next application of front-wheel drive was the supercharged Alvis 12/50 racing car designed by George Thomas Smith-Clarke and William M. Dunn of Alvis Cars of the United Kingdom. This vehicle was entered in the 1925 Kop Hill Climb in Princes Risborough in Buckinghamshire on March 28, 1925. Harry Arminius Miller of Menomonie, Wisconsin designed the Miller 122 front-wheel drive race-car that was entered in the 1925 Indianapolis 500, which was held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Saturday, May 30, 1925.

However, the idea of front-wheel drive languished outside the motor racing arena as few manufacturers attempted the same for production automobiles. Alvis Cars did introduce a commercial model of the front-wheel drive 12/50 racer in 1928, but it was not a success.

In France, Jean-Albert Grégoire and Pierre Fenaille developed the Tracta constant-velocity joint in 1926. Both German makers DKW