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Hooniverse Asks: What’s the Most RWD-Looking FWD Car Out There?

By Robert Emslie Jun 12, 2017


Have you taken a gander at the 2018 Camry yet, I mean, really checked it out? You might be forgiven for having given Toyota’s latest volume sedan a pass since the previous models have been about as aesthetically interesting as North Korean haircuts. Toyota really wishes you’d let bygones be bygones as they’ve claimed that this time they’ve really given the Camry soul in its style. What they’ve really given the four-door mid-sizer is a plethora of exaggerated faux scoops and angry eyes. Elegant and timeless it is not, but it should keep the cars moving out of the showrooms. 
One interesting design element imbued in the next Camry is prominent hips. Yep, your ’18 Camry’s got back. This is a styling trope typically reserved for rear-wheel drive cars, to lend emphasis to the power emanating from that end of the car. It’s something you’ll see in the Coke-bottle designs of American cars in the sixties and early seventies, as well as in the best of the pony cars. That makes it somewhat odd to see it here in a FWD car, but the ’18 Camry isn’t the first to steal this style. What we want today is your nominations for others, until we find what might just be the most RWD-looking FWD car there ever was.
Image: Motor Trend 

By Robert Emslie

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126 thoughts on “Hooniverse Asks: What’s the Most RWD-Looking FWD Car Out There?”

    1. Honda: disproving the “only RWD, 50/50 balanced cars can handle” crowd wrong since 1969 or thereabouts.

      Reply

      1. Any car can be statically balanced, but it’s a bit harder to adjust the balance and angle of the car mid way through a corner with a FWD, and I say that as a former Peugeot 205 GTi owner. Individual FWD can be fun and better than many RWD cars (e.g. Renaultsport Megane), but I always say, if you were building a clean sheet design, purely to be fun, you’d make it RWD.

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    2. The VW Transporter has been standard FWD for the last 27 years and it’s as popular as ever. It’s perfectly fine unless you strap massive hitch weight behind the vehicle.

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      1. It’s nice not to have your engine slung over the front axle though, even with 4WD.

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      1. All the more amazing because it shared a platform with the Buick Riviera, which was RWD at the time.

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      2. When the Olds Toronado commercials first appeared on our (new to the market) color TV my jaw just about hit the floor. I thought it was the most amazing thing in existence.

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    2. I think fans of RWD barges are just bitter that the Toronado and Eldorado proved that huge engines and FWD aren’t mutually exclusive, making these models a technological milestone and indeed no lesser of a car in the process. Besides if you disliked them you could still buy a conventional Cadillac or Olds coupe.

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          1. Speaking of turning in graves …with the possible exception of Ferrari, every Italian marque has been a zombie at one time or another. These days it’s Lancia.

          3. Not necessarily. Despite having made some lovely cars once upon a time, I don’t believe there’s a lot of equity in the Lancia brand.

    1. At least the previous generations had rally inspired performance trims with optional 4WD.

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    1. I am amazed no effort was made to hide/obscure the view of that spindly-looking beam axle. No Italian Design Finesse there…at all!

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        3. They are also a known weakness for RV users, since they will set under continuous load (a commercial truck is empty for a couple of hours a day, typically, whereas an RV is always 80+% loaded).
          Helper springs or airbags are counter measures.

          Reply

  17. My old K-5 Blazer when the U-Joint for the rear drive shaft broke and I drive it around on the front axle only.

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        2. I’m not sure, I’ve never built one.
          For what it’s worth, about 80% of the ones I have seen start off as GMT400 Chevy/GMC trucks. Dunno if something about those makes them more suitable for reconstruction, or if it’s just that much easier to find rear ended donors of that model.

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        3. That car was blessed with a with a rare engine.
          The 425 cu in (7.0 L) big-block was the first tall-deck “big block,” produced from 1965 through 1967. It is arguably the best engine Olds made in the muscle car era, although it never made it into a “muscle car”. It used a 4.126 in (104.8 mm) bore and 3.975 in (101.0 mm) stroke. Most 425s were painted red, though the 1966 and 1967 Toronado units were light blue. All 425 engines were fitted with forged steel crankshafts with harmonic balancers.

          Reply

          1. I know all about the FWD Caddies and Olds. I was responding to the pic of the FWD K2500.
            This is not the first case of mistaken commentary I’ve seen lately. Can we change the website style sheets to widen the commenting section so we can get more levels of indentation?

          3. Chill out, chief. That ain’t an acceptable accusation around these parts.
            And I did comment under the photo of the K2500. But you see, someone commented before me, and comments are posted in chronological order, so the comment of the Olds, which was a response to the K2500 before mine, shows up before mine.
            The other indication is the little arrow after my handle pointing the handle of the person to whom I was responding. You’ll note that it was 0A5599, not P161911.

          4. Been around these parts a long time,back before it was taken over by a few tight asses that think they own the place.

          5. Come on, man — why do we have a problem? Aren’t we both car guys trying to entertain ourselves a bit during the work day?
            I wasn’t trying to be a jerk or call you out in reference to the old FWD GM land barges — I was just using it as an opportunity to address something that has long bugged me about the commenting system since it has lead to two misdirected replies to my comments recently.
            I suppose I could make my comments less vulnerable to such misinterpretation by being more explicit (i.e. calling out what I’m replying to), but the commenting system design could take care of that by indenting appropriately instead of giving up on indentation after a certain depth of response.

          6. I commented on the Olds ,you are the one wishing to make an issue of that.

          8. You must be on a mobile device,I am at my W/10 home office,we see different displays.

          9. Nice try. That’s a screen cap made with the snipping tool in Windows 10, as rendered in Chrome. I checked IE and Edge — same rendering.
            And I see you’ve deleted your comments now that you’ve realized your mistake. Class act.

      3. Can the stock front diff handle that, or does it have to be beefed up in some way?
        Keifmo wants to know.

        Reply

          1. What’s your point?
            Your comment displays below the picture of the Olds, waaaaaay after a bunch of other comments, not immediately after the K2500.
            I think maybe you need to refresh the page. Comments get rendered differently immediately after submission versus when the page is accessed initially.

          2. Looking at Hooniverse right now,my repost of your comment is directly below the picture of the stretch chevy.

      1. That Blazer got 10mpg. It didn’t matter if it was around town, on the highway or towing a boat in the mountains. 10mpg. Good thing it had a 31 gallon gas tank and gas was about $0.99/gallon most of the time that I had it.

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    3. That’s just what I did with my Tacoma. Sure was nice being able to drive to the repair shop. The fwd-only driveline felt a bit rubbery, and I did not push it.

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      1. The 4WD system on my Blazer was NOT designed to be used on pavement. Turns were interesting.

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  18. Most rwd designs have less front overhang…an element that fwd does not favor–heck, Audi front drive design puts the whole engine forward of the front axle! As such, it is not the hips that indicate rwd, its short front overhang. To my eye, shorter front overhang give rwd cars a more graceful, impressive appearance.

    Reply

      1. Yeah, it’s front drive, but front-mid layout. That does help with the external proportions, but the thing still looks like a constipated frog.

        Reply

  19. North Korean hairstyles are definitely more interesting than camry styling. I know I have read more articles on the former.

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          1. They do seem to have a way of killing the companies that produce them.

        2. I would say it was never fully given a shot at success. Nobody wins le mans their first try, Nissan pulled support after just one race.

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          1. It was a long way from Nissans first attempt at Le Mans.Their previous attempts were far more successful
            The understanding I have is that it proved the phrase that the designers were working too was, “In theory, practice is just like theory” , and that attitude ran into reality fairly quickly. Sometimes received wisdom is the only wisdom that counts .

          2. I mean they did not fully develop even the base spec of equipment that they originally intended. I would have liked to see them do a whole WEC season at least. All-new cars need heavy development, just not something you can do in just one race. Their previous attempts were also using a warmed over TWR chassis, not an all new unconventional design. I really think that the GT-R LM had the aero to take the fight to Toyota and Porsche, they just needed more time. I don’t think Carlos Ghosn is an enthusiast/racing fan so much as he’s an effective businessman. Ending the project was likely the better fiscal move.

          3. My understanding is that it was fairly obvious quite early on that the whole concept didn’t work, that’s why it was dropped so quickly. The practice didn’t align with the theory.

    1. The Altima was even available with the same V6 engine. The Altima coupe never made any sense to me…neither do Solara (Camry Coupe) nor Accord coupe. Coupe reduces practicality and replaces with, well, a “different” appearance.

      Reply

      1. The Accord Coupe seems to exist mostly to satisfy those who would have bought a Prelude if Honda hadn’t killed it off. It’s a bit more grown up sporty coupe than the Civic Si coupe, and I think it might be the only remaining way to get a Honda V6 lashed to a manual gearbox, since Acura has gone all automatic.

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    2. Compare the two in profile. From the front of the doors back, there is some family resemblance (though both are pretty generic looking). But on the Altima, the front wheels are pushed nearly to the door and the front overhang is long. The wheels on the Infiniti are much closer to the nose, which is aesthetically more balanced.

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        1. That maroon 2CV pic looks like some sort of low-budget late-Cold War version of Fury Road. It just does.

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          1. Except instead of killing each other, they just stop and have long discussions about the meaningless of life while smoking the last of the Gitanes.

    3. Perhaps the longitudinal packaging enabled RWD proportions?
      I dunno, since it certainly never helped FWD Audis with longitudinal engines.

      Reply

    1. Well, to be fair, the Pacer was originally designed to be a FWD car with a rotary engine. But the supplier (GM) dropped out at the last minute, forcing AMC to use their old standard drivetrain.

      Reply

  26. I’m voicing a vote for my own dear Rover, here.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/df1038a2551e4f60b083e57e48a9ead377675ff197d6dd0482427a7092a43bc4.jpg
    Were it not for the legacy (or Legend) of Honda’s involvement twelve years prior, the 800 had absolutely no reason to be front wheel drive. Alas, the Honda mechanical package was far more constrictive than the old SD1 layout, so transverse fours and sixes were all we got.
    Like the Jumbo-Taurus Lincoln Continental, a car this long has no business being front-wheel drive. Indeed, people are still surprised when they’re told that my Rover has a six and not an eight, and that the front wheels spin in the dirt rather than the rears.

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    1. People still ask me on the very rare occasions I use my 820 Fastback S1 if ‘that’s the one with the V8?’

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    2. Which sort of makes me realize that budget Mazdas have been considerably more sexy than expensive, only occasionally realible, and always ultra-depreciating BMWs for almost a decade.

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    3. Which sort of makes me realize that budget Mazdas have been considerably more sexy than expensive, only occasionally realible, and always ultra-depreciating BMWs.

      Reply

    4. I’ll be the one to say it: There’s no reason for your standard hatchback to be RWD. It adds weight and complexity. Even hot hatches like the Focus and Golf can do without it. If a Mazda should be RWD, it’s the long hood, low slung Mazda 6.

      Reply

      1. I think you may have overlooked the point that the Mazda3 isn’t RWD. The only RWD cars Mazda has sold in the last 20 years are the MX-5/Miata, RX-7 and RX-8 sports cars.
        As for the BMW 1 Series, I consider that car a major disappointment no matter which end is driven.

        Reply

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