Why is the engine of a sports car in the back?

There are four types of driving modes involved here, namely front-rear-wheel drive, front-wheel drive, mid-rear-wheel drive, and rear-wheel drive. With the development of automobiles, the layout of the engine of the car has been changed in a variety of ways according to the actual advantages and disadvantages.

The rear-wheel drive layout is not without use, the Volkswagen Beetle, Fiat 500 and other models in the 80s of the last century basically use the way of the rear layout of the engine, the engine is placed behind the rear axle, and the space of the cab is relatively large, but because the trunk is placed in the front of the car, and the front part is also integrated with the steering system of the car, the trunk space will become smaller.

This layout also has a big disadvantage: the front part of the car is too light, and when driving at high speeds, the grip of the front part will be reduced, and the steering stability will decrease, which will have a greater impact on the stability of the car at high speeds. In addition, because the engine is placed at the back, in order to improve the heat dissipation performance of the engine, it is necessary to introduce air from the front of the car to the rear for heat dissipation, which increases the complexity of the car design to a certain extent.

As a result, today's cars are largely not used in this way.

At present, family cars are mostly "front-wheel drive".

Before the 80s of the last century, almost all family cars were driven by front and rear drive, the engine and gearbox were front-loaded, and the rear-wheel drive was used, which required the engine to be longitudinally placed and the gearbox to be longitudinally positioned.

The advantages of this layout are: the front and rear weight distribution of the car is more even, it has good handling stability, and when starting and climbing, due to the backward shift of the center of gravity of the car, the grip of the driving wheels can be greater. But the disadvantages are just as obvious:

Due to the longitudinal arrangement of the engine, there is a high demand for space, which requires power to the rear wheels and requires a propeller shaft, which can encroach on the cab space, especially for small and medium-sized cars, where this layout cannot be used.

After the 80s of the last century, the demand for vehicle miniaturization is enhanced, and the traditional front-rear-wheel drive model can not be used on the small car due to structural reasons, so there is a front-wheel drive model, this layout engine front-mounted transversely, gearbox, steering system, are concentrated in the front of the car, the center of gravity of the car will be concentrated in the front, its advantages are: the car structure will be more compact, conducive to the miniaturization of the car, and the transverse layout of the engine can reduce the encroachment of the engine on the cab space.

There is no reason why the front and rear are all determined by the manufacturer.

The drivetrain arrangement of a car can be divided into five categories: engine front-rear-wheel drive (FR), engine front-wheel drive (FF), engine mid-rear-wheel drive (MR), engine rear-wheel drive (RR), and four-wheel drive (4WD).

Front rear wheel drive (FR).

In the early days, most of the cars were in the FR layout, but now they are mainly used in mid- and high-end cars. The advantages of FR are: the axle load is evenly distributed, that is, the front and rear weight of the vehicle is relatively balanced, and the handling stability is better.

The disadvantages are: there are many transmission parts, the mass of the transmission system is large, and the transmission shaft that runs through the cabin occupies the platform space in the cabin.

Precursor (FF).

FF is a common layout scheme used in modern small and medium-sized cars. The advantages of the FF are: the floor of the cabin is lowered, the handling has obvious understeer characteristics, and its anti-skidding ability is also stronger than that of the FR.

The disadvantages are: the adhesion of the drive wheel will decrease when going uphill; The front wheels are driven and steered, resulting in complex structures and poor working conditions.

Mid-mounted rear-wheel drive (MR).

The engine is placed between the front and rear axles and is rear-wheel driven, similar to the arrangement of a Formula 1 car. There is also a "front mid-engine", in which the engine is placed behind the front axle and before the occupants, similar to the FR, but with the same ideal axle load distribution as the MR, resulting in improved handling. The advantages of MR are:

The axle load is evenly distributed and has very neutral handling characteristics. The disadvantage is that the engine takes up space in the cabin, reducing space utilization and practicality, so MR is mostly a sports car that pursues handling performance.

Rear-wheel drive (RR).

In the early days, it was widely used in mini cars, and now it is mostly used in buses, and it is rarely used in cars, but the "tail flicking" of the Porsche 911 is famous because of the RR. The advantages of the RR are: compact structure, no heavy propeller shaft, and no complicated front-wheel steering and drive structure.

The disadvantage is that the rear axle load is larger, which creates a tendency to oversteer in terms of handling in contrast to FF.

Four-wheel drive (4WD).

Regardless of the above layout, four-wheel drive can be used, which was most used in off-road vehicles in the past, but with the development and application of limited-slip differential technology, four-wheel drive systems have been able to accurately allocate torque between wheels, so high-performance sports cars are increasingly using four-wheel drive for improved handling. The advantages of 4WD are: all four wheels are powered, the ground adhesion rate is the largest, and the passability and power are good.

The rear engine will have a major change in the center of the car, one or two cars, most of the weight is on the engine, in modern car building theory, the weight ratio of the front and rear of the car is 50:50 is the best, so some sports cars will put the engine in the back, on the other hand, most of the cars with rear engines are sports cars, an important purpose of using the rear engine, do you know what it is. The aim is to reduce the length of the transaxle and thus the mass of the sports car.

The reason why the sports car is that it is powerful, if the engine is installed in the front, the back is relatively light, and if it drifts on the runway, it will not be able to grasp the direction! So generally the better sports car engine is in the back!

The rear-mounted engine, just convenient design, and the requirements of the model, the speed is the same.

For a better specific gravity! If it's a perfect gravity of 50:50, it's best!

When it comes to cars, everyone will definitely not find them novel, they are all strange things. If, let me ask you a question, do you know what is most important for a car?

The engine is easy to break when placed in front