Talk:Front-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout

FM layout
I've added a note that the engine's center of gravity is moved behind the front axle. The wording before didn't qualify which center was being moved, and it was fairly easy to erroneously assume that the car's center of gravity was moved to behind the front axle; this would imply that the car's center of gravity was previously above or in front of the front axle.


 * I've never bought the idea of the "FM layout" being anything new. Surely nearly all pre-war cars are FM? Unlike the other 2-letter terms, it doesn't tell you which wheels are driven. For example, the Citroën SM had its engine way back behind the front axle, but drove the front wheels. Is this FM? Don't forget also that the early mid-engined cars (e.g. Auto Union and Cooper grand prix cars) were called rear-engined, indicating that the more fundamental engineering decision and psychological automotive classification is engine position relative to cockpit, rather than to axles. So perhaps we can have FR, FMR, FF, FMF, RR, RMR, MR to apply to all the layouts of two-wheel-drive cars — the last applying to the unusual designs where the engine is positioned within the cockpit area, typically under the seats as in the Toyota Previa). -- Hotlorp 19:29, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

FM layout
Front-Mid engine placement is really nothing recent. It has appeared on classics such as Shelby Cobra and Ferrari 250 GTO. Fellow Wiki editors with more knowledge on FM should probably expand this concept into a stand-alone section. -- 911fan 02:52, Nov. 30 2005 (Pacific)

Nomenclature
As a redirect from Systeme Panhard, this page could help readers by indicating the origin of this "FR," "FM," etc. nomenclature. Is this standardized usage among Automotive Engineers? Automobile Historians note the difference between "carriage style" and "Panhard style" (See Flink's The Automobile Age for instance) automobile design. If "FR," "FM," etc. is engineering jargon, shouldn't this page should be clear about it? --RedJ 17 01:53, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
 * True but only if the information is readily available. I have not found anything close to conrete and it doesn't benifit a wikipedia article to put highly questionable or unverifiable information into an article.-- Oni Ookami AlfadorTalk 08:11, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Volvo Transaxle
This article mentions rear transaxle Volvos, something I do not believe exists. I suggest removing this unless anyone knows of an example. Daniel J. Leivick
 * Volvo 340 and 360 uses a rear transaxle driven by a front engine. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Clarrieu (talk • contribs) 13:45, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

Reintroduction of FR Luxury
"GM phased out its FR luxury cars after the 1996 model year, and its F-car (Chevrolet Camaro/Pontiac Firebird) in 2002. GM reintroduced North American FR luxury cars with the 2003 Cadillac CTS"

I believe this statement to be incorrect. The Cadillac Catera (the CTS predecessor) was a FR luxury car in production from 1997-2001. 65.42.26.190 (talk) 19:41, 2 May 2008 (UTC)


 * True enough, but the Cadillac Catera wasn't an American car. It was a rebadged Opel Omega made in Germany; saying that GM returned to FR luxury cars in North America with the CTS is accurate.  But it still wouldn't be appropriate to say that the CTS reintroduced FR to North American luxury cars because the Lincoln Town Car was around for the whole time, and still is.  I should like to re-edit this section so as to convey the reality that FR was largely (but not entirely) phased out in American vehicles but has been making a recent comeback among luxury vehicles. Chaparral2J (talk) 07:39, 5 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Agreed, with one minor change. The current version states "In North America, GM returned to the FR market with the Cadillac CTS". This seems inaccurate since the Catera was sold in North America under the GM Cadillac name (even though it was a rebadged Omega).  "In North America, GM returned to production of the FR luxury car with the 2003 Cadillac CTS" seems to be a better fit. 65.42.26.190 (talk) 15:32, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Gen I CTS 3.2 is in fact a FMR
A lot of engine room images show that the center mass of the drive train is behind of front strut tower, and later the Gen I 3.6 engine or the Gen II or STS moves the drive train forward. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.250.42.178 (talk) 07:00, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Sports cars.
The article mentions that FR is seen as best for luxury but doesn't mention sports cars. Though many sports cars are mid engined now, Front engined sports cars are usually rwd because you can lay down more power (Because you don't have tourque steer.(Morcus (talk) 17:16, 3 August 2009 (UTC))

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Second bullet point of characteristics section, and the characteristics section itself.
Please forgive my writing style.

Bullet point (bullet point 2) in question:

"FMR should also not be confused with a "front midships" location of the engine, referring to the engine being located fully behind the front axle centerline, in which case a car meeting the above FMR center of mass definition could be classified as a FR layout instead. The V35 Nissan Skyline / Infiniti G35 / Nissan 350Z are FM cars."

^ 1. "be classified as a FR layout instead." Should this read as - be classified as a FM layout instead. - As the line reads 'instead', but it is referring originally to FR. And then the next sentence appears to give SAID examples of FM cars? , and you'll also note, "FR" simply links back to the same article page, but I believe it should be linking to the page for FM layout cars (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-engine_design) ?

2. Also, you'll see the abbreviation "FM" is used, but never was the abbreviation defined previously, and thus makes a writing error.

3. The paragraph/sentence, is just quite ambiguous in general, e.g -"in which case a car meeting the above FMR center of mass definition" - 'above' - is 'above' referring to the first bullet point of the characteristics, or referring to a previous section of text within that same bullet point?

4. The heading "characteristics" is almost done as if it is describing "characteristics" of the article in question (the article being Front-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout (FR)), yet it is actually only characteristics pertaining to FMR cars, which are a type of FR car. This can be fixed, by merely actually writing some details about FR cars, so that it is more clear that FMR cars are a type of FR cars, and that 'FMR cars' has been nested within this FR cars article.

5. If you go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-engine_design, you'll notice that FMR is given as an example of a TYPE of Mid engine car, yet the first words for this bullet point are "FMR should also not be confused with a "front midships" location of the engine" - So the article for mid engine, has contradictory information to the information of FMR found within the FR article. I strongly believe that FMR cars are a sub category of FR cars, and the mid engine article has got this contradictory information wrong, and thus, this particular edit needs to be relayed to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-engine_design talk page.

The structure and meta of the articles pertaining to two wheel, engine positioning systems is truly a mess, and it shouldn't be too difficult as it is a fairly easy self contained topic that consists of about 3 umbrellas, with a couple of sub categories within each umbrella. I think the whole 'wheel:engine positioning' 'domain/topic' of wikipedia needs a serious overhaul. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BattleCrap (talk • contribs) 12:39, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

But anyway... here is my proposed edit for the second bullet point, I think it is much more clear and less ambiguous:

"FMR should also not be confused with a "front midships (FM) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-engine_design)" location of the engine, referring to the engine being located fully behind the front axle centerline (as oppose to only its centre of mass behind the front axle). The V35 Nissan Skyline / Infiniti G35 / Nissan 350Z are examples of FM cars." — Preceding unsigned comment added by BattleCrap (talk • contribs) 12:34, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Fully agree that bullet point is confusing as crap. Note however the Nissan FM platform page simply says the "midship" design puts the center of gravity behind the axle, not that the entire engine is behind the axle (and it surely is not). My guess is "midship" is really just a nissan marketing term for FMR. Gjxj (talk) 17:34, 8 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Maybe the question has already been asked, but why is FMR not it's own article. To me it's a bit confusing having it take up such a large portion of this article, which should probably describe it as a subcategory at the very least. Jsmallzzz (talk) 03:45, 14 February 2023 (UTC)