Originally Posted by
IWantAnAudiRS6
Why else are all the Swedish cars FWD/AWD??
Look at Volvo and Saab... not a rear-driver among them. There are frequent complaints from road testers about the torque-steer on an S80 T6, or the old 9-3 HOT Aero...
FWD was originalyl designed to be good on ice/poor weather conditions. Hence why a Mini absolutely trounced huge, RWD Ford Fairlanes in 1967 (?) at the Monte Carlo rally (it could have been '69, I am open to correction...)
Actually the story is a bit different Ford Falcons were entered in 1963 and 1964 by FMC, after five Falcons were entered by Ford Australia in the 1962 Safari Rally. In 1963 the cars were caught in the Cevennes with very bad weather, the lead driver, Bo Ljungfeldt, lost 8 minutes. Bu on the six timed special stages (in the sixties rallying was slightly different from what we know as rallying today) the Falcons were a revelation, Ljungfeldt won all of them. Even after the correction formula had been considered (and this penalised the big engined Fords against the small engined Minis) he would still have won but for those 8 minutes lost in the Cevennes. In 1964 they tried again, this time with Falcon Futura Sprint's. Again Ljungfeldt set fastest times on all the special stages, but because of the correction formula he was lying 5th before the final test on the Montecarlo Grand Prix Circuit, where he drove magnificently to come up 2nd behnind Paddy Hopkirk's winning Mini Cooper 1071 S. So you see if it hadn't been for the correction formula the history could have been very different.
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