What was the first front wheel dive car on the roads?

[Donwill]

There was the Morgan 3 wheeler, I think the similar BSA had a long chain drive to the rear wheel,If my memory serves me correctly. Don

[nightjar]

It is, nevertheless, officially the first car in the world, recognised as such by the FIA.

Colin Bignell

[Rob G]

engine was a two stroke 125cc BSA (I think) driving the single front wheel. The whole engine pivoted for steering via cables - can't remember how the gear change linked but it was on the steering column. Starting was by pulling a floor mounted handle, cable connected to the kickstart.

My mother got 'Belinda' stuck in Edinburgh's tram rails once and it tipped on its side - the traffic directing bobby just pushed her back over again !

Showing my age Rob

[Andy Dingley]

Really? The FIA are normally a bit sniffy about recognising tricycles as "cars", hence the 1964 land speed record splitting between Campbell's four-wheeler Bluebird holding the FIA record whilst Breedlove's tricycle was faster, but only held the FIM record as a tricycle motorcycle.

[Steve Walker]

Unbeliever, Rod is quoting the Subject of the thread where the OP (Dave) made the original typo.

SteveW

[Stephen Howard]

The Series III Land Rover had it. When the halfshafts broke, which they often did if you didn't have a Salisbury diff, you could select 4WD and use the front axle as the main drive. However, if you turned a sharp corner the steering wheel would be ripped out of your hands and the vehicle would run into a full lock. It was probably something to do with slack on the dog clutch. First time it happened to me I took out a bollard off the Pentonville Road in Islington.

Regards,

[Rod]

There were Morgans with shaft drive as well as those with chain - both to rear wheel. Of the couple in my direct experience (and allowing for many years passing), the Jap V-twin engined one had chain drive and the Ford pop engined one had shaft.

(The Tri-King 'replica' had, IIRC, shaft drive.)

[Dave]

>>> ? (Changed "dive" to drive)

I don't think so. Here is my post...

"I think it was the mini.

Dave"

In total

Dave

[Dave]

Ah! Yes, I forgot about that. I must be confusing the question with the first transverse engine :-(

Dave

[Rod]

Yes - and that is the post I replied to (thinking initially that it was the OP punting a guess). No snipping. No changes to headers. Just a vanilla reply.

Had I seen a real OP, I would have responded in the same slightly sarcastic way to that. As it is, I am still unaware of the OP. Judging by what I can see of the thread, most other posts also saw Dave's post but not the OP.

[Steve Walker]

That's the way I saw it, Dave's is the first post in this thread for me and I assumed that he was asking the question in the subject and putting in his own guess to the answer.

SteveW

[Rod]

Also the case if you look in Google groups. And when I look at the header, there is no References tag...

Subject: What was the first front wheel dive car on the roads? From: Dave Date: Wed, 13 May 2009 22:19:04 +0100 Newsgroups: uk.d-i-y X-Mozilla-Status:

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[The Natural Philosopher]

Most steam cars had transverse engines..

[Dave]

Due to the nature of my news reader, I cant go back to posts it deleates. Thinking about it, I remember the OP being made, but not it's content.

Dave

[Dave]

uni-berlin.de!fu-berlin.de!postnews.google.com!news2.google.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!backlog2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.bt.com!news.bt.com.POSTED!not-for-mail

sv3-aEhZwQ66R4ClMG1XTFW7C2tlgn9Rn+0SMcNtZYRLHcIBBUWcB2OOz6XK6idJuWFtGw64gVxtMhArQXa!q+vDEQ0Xqq4PVr4SMVk6dSu2bgBT2U541COv2RcyP1pqprRPgWBhAm+Zs9KJilcvfPLaQHeAM4fj

From that, I can see where the confusion came from :-)

Dave

[<me9]

So did the series IIA and prolly earlier. With the handbrake working on the transmission I often wondered what could be done with a drive shaft failure on a hill (as they nearly always seemed to be) if you had freewheeling hubs? The only solution I could see was to ask a passing pedestrian to get a spanner and lock the front hubs, while you kept your foot on the footbrake.

[nightjar]

Technically, it was an artillery tractor, but I suppose they are willing to be a bit more flexible about definitions that far back.

Colin Bignell

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Dave Plowman (News)" saying something like:

FIAT made a small fwd car in about 1929. It was probably the first popular (or not, depending on reliability) fwd. Can't recall the model name, though.

[Roger]

The message from Grimly Curmudgeon contains these words:

Apologies if this is repeat information but my message last night has yet to appear on zetnet's news server.

The 1931 DKW had both transverse engine and FWD. Likewise the postwar Saab 92.

[nightjar]

...

The typo is in the title, not in the body - dive instead of drive.

Colin Bignell