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This Tjaarda-designed prototype, displayed at the 1934 Century of Progress Exhibition in Chicago, had a Ford V-8 engine mounted in the rear. Source: Ford in the Thirties, by Paul R. Woudenberg, PhD. Peterson Publishing, Los Angeles, 1976.
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Up With Rear Engine Cars! by Allan V. Lacki. Just listen to the business news on TV! The world's financial markets gets more excited about pork bellies than new cars, and rightly so! In the eyes of savvy investors, new cars are mere appliances, like waffle irons or refrigerators.
After all, who cares if you or your neighbor buys a Focus, an Integra, or even
something "really radical", like a Subaru? I mean, when Car & Driver
tries to spice up its copy with articles about SUVs, you just know there's
not much cooking in the world of automotive innovation these days!
The Detroit establishment has forgotten, but there was a time when radical
improvements in automotive design seemed just around the corner. Automotive
visionaries, like Ledwinka, Stout, Tucker, and Porsche predicted vast
improvements in comfort, handling, aerodynamics and economy. How would such
improvements be achieved? By locating the power train in back of the rear axle,
where it belongs!
We may be few in number, but us rear-engine automobile enthusiasts demand
innovation, and at absolutely minimum cost! And what's more truly American than
the rugged individualist spitting in the eye of the multi-national
trillion-dollar automotive industry by driving a car with the engine in the
wrong end?!! Even Wall Street analysts, who worship at the altar of corporate
conformity, just say NO to the industry's "mature" product offerings. It's time
for a rear-engine renaissance!
Yes, those snooty BMW owners--and you know who you are--may be loathe to admit
it, but the BMW company saved itself from bankruptcy by producing
rear-engine cars, such as the Model 600 and Model 700!
Why is it that every car on the market in America today is a variation on the
water-cooled front-wheel-drive Austin America, of all things! Just think of the
cars that pioneered this layout: (1) the Fiat 128, (2) the Simca 1208, and (3)
the Oldsmobile Omega. Yikes!
Yet, for all the hoopla in the American press about family values, and despite
the demise of the Berlin wall, the march toward front wheel drive conformity
continues. Perhaps we thought it was a fluke, thirty years ago, when GM failed
to fight for the Corvair. Our suspicions should have been piqued when Porsche,
the Patriarch of Rear-Engines slapped its "924" label on a front-engine
water-pumping Audi. But even worse insults were in store.
Attention All High Serene Hippies: No, you're not exempt... The rear-engine
Volkswagen Vanagon is history, replaced by the EuroVan! Holy smokes, even the
quintessential anti-establishment "Hippie Van" has gone front wheel drive!
I guess, in the future, if you want to support a company that's still offers
unique transportation, you'll just have to buy an AM General bus! That's about
the only company that continues to sell rear-engine vehicles! (Buy stock in AM
General today!)