front wheel drive

[daveismissing]

1999:
http://wardsauto.com/news-analysis/falling-out-love-front-wheel-drive

Rear-drive buyers have money. And they do know what they want. He says Lexus research indicates 52% of those purchasing RWD cars had a specific model in mind. "In other words, before they come into the dealership, you've already sold the car." In contrast, just 30% of FWD buyers know for certain which model they want.

Read closely, because Lexus is saying customers clearly know the difference between FWD and RWD and understand, at least partially, what it all means.

"Consumers today are very well-educated on their vehicles," concurs Lincoln's Mr. Evans. "They know the characteristic s of the type of vehicle they're looking for."

...the manufacturing aspect. The industry largely is in agreement that FWD cars are less expensive to produce than are unibody RWD cars. Mr. Quisenberry says that FWD cars also are easier to design for a broad range of different body styles and sizes.

"FWD is easy to package; it's simple to engineer," he says. "There is a lot more development time required for a rear-drive car."

....
Cadillac executives acknowledge their miscalculation of RWD's influence on the luxury car formula; the once-mighty division's fortunes have tumbled almost in direct proportion to its gradual shift to "corporate" front-drive platforms. Caddy barely had shown to the door the last of its RWD cars, 1996's Fleetwood, before its planners were busy penning a lineup of RWD replacements, most based on the upcoming Sigma architecture.
....

[daveismissing]

7 Cars That Should Have Stayed Rear-Wheel Drive

https://www.carthrottle.com/post/7-cars-that-should-have-stayed-rearwheel-drive/

[daveismissing]

http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/features/a5966/the-front-wheel-drive-probe-was-almost-a-mustang/

So, in a 1985 act of lunacy, Ford executives decided that what real-wheel-drive American muscle-car fans really wanted was a front-wheel-drive Japanese car, so long as it had
a shiny pony badge slapped on its grille. The call was made to phase out the rear-drive Fox platform in favor of a front-wheel-drive platform jointly developed with Mazda.

Using the kind of marketing brilliance that brought us "New Coke," Ford planned to sell the outgoing rear-drive
car beside the new Mustang as the "Mustang Classic"—a scarlet letter refrencing a time when consumers could guzzle gas
as they pleased. Like Coca-Cola, Ford was so confident in this strategy that it put its entire Mustang development budget behind it.


By early 1987, FWD prototypes started testing around Dearborn, and word of the planned RWD abandonment started to get out. Contrary to
executives' plans, enthusiasts were livid, and Autoweek magazine published an April cover story titled "The New Mustang" which laid out the blasphemy in full.

Fans pelted Ford with hundreds of thousands of letters against the proposed change to a car that had become an
American icon. The target audience made itself clear: it wouldn't stand for a front-drive Mustang.

In response, Ford executives enacted a rare change in strategy, although they couldn't abandon the FWD platform entirely. Instead of continuing
with the new Mustang as planned, the outcry gave birth to the Probe, a new vehicle set to debut in 1989 on the new FWD platform. Executives
planned for the Mustang and Probe to compete head-to-head in showrooms, and their confidence that the FWD platform would eventually win out was undiminished.

[TexasT]

See how that wrong wheel drive is working out for that probe. Cadillac is finally getting the picture and Buick might be with their new avista show car.