why no FWD pickup trucks?

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with all the different types of hybrid cars and trucks, how come no one has made a front wheel drive pickup?
Would save me from having to get a 4wd truck to be able to get around in the winter.
How complicated would it be to make a 2wd Ford, Chevy, or Dodge, or Toyota, 1/2 ton truck with 8' bed standard cab, but front wheel drive?
 
What would be the sense in a FWD truck? If you have a FWD truck, forget about putting anything in the bed, much less towing anything, the front end would be too light to get enough grip.

If you want FWD get a car.

Personally I hate FWD and will never own a FWD vehicle.
 
FWD drivetrains aren't typically as durable or as capable of delivering as much power to the ground in a reliable way as RWD ones are. In a RWD drivetrain, you have much more room available for the transmission, driveshaft and axles, so they can be bigger and stronger. With FWD, it all has to be crammed into the engine compartment, so you have to reduce the size, which reduces the strength as well. You also have the problem of torque steer with FWD, which could be a real issue with a big load in the back.
 
quote:
Originally posted by gmayer5454375:
What would be the sense in a FWD truck? If you have a FWD truck, forget about putting anything in the bed, much less towing anything, the front end would be too light to get enough grip.
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as it stands with a rear wheel drive pickups, the back end is too light when there's nothing in the bed and there is no traction when there's snow. So you need 4wd. Instead, why not make it fwd? Then you don't need the extra weight and fuel mileage penalty of 4x4. And if it wasn't able to tow or haul as much as a traditional pickup, that's ok. Instead of a 1/2 ton rating, make it 1/4 ton. Would be just like a suv or van, except you have an 8' bed. It doesn't need to be the pickup with the biggest tow/haul rating.
I'm sure any torque steer problems could be solved, there's enough fwd vehicles on the road to go off of.
 
Hmmm....kind of makes me feel like findin and old 70's era toronado, putting a lift kit on it chopping it in half and welding a pickup truck rear end....look kind of funny, but there you have your fwd pick up
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Actually fwd for a pickup is an interesting idea, especially for one of those four door extra cab ones....
 
Car and Driver:
Honda’s lineup has always lacked a pickup truck and the SUT Concept unveiled in Detroit shows Honda is planning to change that. Scheduled for introduction in 2005, the production SUT (for sport-utility truck) will be based on Honda's Global Light Truck Platform and will be produced by Honda Canada Manufacturing in Alliston, Ontario. The concept hints strongly at the production model; thus, we can expect to see the concept’s SUV-style interior with seating for five, a five-foot cargo bed, a reinforced unibody chassis, a four-wheel independent suspension, and an all-aluminum VTEC V-6 engine coupled with an electronically controlled four-wheel-drive system. When designing the SUT, Honda concentrated on active young fathers, or “cool dads,” who mix work, family, and play, as well as Honda’s full array of products, including motorcycles, ATVs, personal watercraft, marine engines, and power equipment. According to Honda, the SUT’s styling theme is "billet machined aluminum," which is meant to relay the idea that it was machined from a single block of metal.

Yes, it's coming. It has written spelled all over it! It's called the Ridgeline.
 
quote:
Originally posted by XS650:

quote:
Originally posted by TomH:
The only FWD pickup I can ever recall was the VW Rabbit pickup. Didn't sell too well IIRC.
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Dodge Rampage. It was the pickup version of the Plymouth Horizon/Dodge Omni. Almost the same as a Rabbit.
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I tend to think of the Rampage as a mini El Camino of sorts, not quite a car, not quite a pickup. I think that the Subaru Brat would also fall in this classification.
 
my dads rabbit truck isnt torqueless. its got a jetta turbo diesel swapped into it. its running a huge intercooler and pushes over 200ftlb of torque.
 
I've wanted front wheel drive capability for my 4wd pickup. The default is rear wheel drive, and it does get squirrely when the road conditions get bad. The bad part is that full time 4wd is fine for snow, ice, and mud, but it's not useful in mixed conditions as you get binding. Even on snow when I did get decent traction it would hop, especially when turning, so you get try to avoid using it as much possible.

A decent solution with a 4wd would be to also have locking hubs, so that you could put it in 4wd and unlock the rear hubs for driving unloaded on bad road conditions. A friend noticed that my front axle was about the same size as the rear axle on his 3/4 ton Suburban, so it should be able to handle unloaded conditions.
 
quote:
Originally posted by 1sttruck:
[QB] I've wanted front wheel drive capability for my 4wd pickup. /QB]
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One of the IH 4WD crew cab pickups we had in the
Air Force in Turkey in the early 1960s tossed the rear drive shaft. While the motor pool was waiting for parts we ran it in 4WD with no rear drive shaft. It worked OK. Steering was little lumpy, I suspect it didn't use constant velocity u-joints in the front.

We had some dirt roads that were closer to trails than roads. Fortunately it was the dry season.
 
quote:
Originally posted by 1 FMF:
with all the different types of hybrid cars and trucks, how come no one has made a front wheel drive pickup?
Would save me from having to get a 4wd truck to be able to get around in the winter.
How complicated would it be to make a 2wd Ford, Chevy, or Dodge, or Toyota, 1/2 ton truck with 8' bed standard cab, but front wheel drive?
Click to expand...
Axle strength leaves alot to be sesired with cv joint type axles.
Load goes in the back not the front.

Torque applied traction is more effecient from the rear.

Did I mention I would not trust CV type axles to tow a heavy load?
 
You guys are operating under the (flawed) assumption that people actually haul or tow stuff with their pickup trucks
lol.gif


You could probably sell a bunch of trucks (F150 or whatever) FWD and not tell anyone, and less than half the people who bought them would notice it unless somebody told them.

Edit: I do agree though, if you are using a truck like you should, 4X4 or RWD is the way to go...
 
quote:
Originally posted by cryptokid:
my dad has a rabbit pickup and most of the problems you all say would be there isnt.
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Can't have torque steer problems if you don't have any torque
grin.gif
 
quote:
Originally posted by TomH:
The only FWD pickup I can ever recall was the VW Rabbit pickup. Didn't sell too well IIRC.
Click to expand...
Dodge Rampage. It was the pickup version of the Plymouth Horizon/Dodge Omni. Almost the same as a Rabbit.
 
quote:
Originally posted by 1 FMF:
And if it wasn't able to tow or haul as much as a traditional pickup, that's ok. Instead of a 1/2 ton rating, make it 1/4 ton. Would be just like a suv or van, except you have an 8' bed. It doesn't need to be the pickup with the biggest tow/haul rating.
Click to expand...
That would work for a light duty pickup. They could start with a Dodge Caravan. Chop off the rear passenger/cargo compartment, add a bit of frame to keep the rear from bending and add a pickup bed.

Cargo capacity would be the weight they saved by chopping off the body plus whatever the cargo capacity of the Van was. They could start with the longer wheelbase van and chop off the overhang so the cargo weight was closer to the center of the front and rear wheels. Just enough for an 8 foot long bed.

Building a fully functional FWD 1/2 ton pick-up would be easy if a major car company wanted to do it.

There are two big problems.

1. It would cost more to build than a conventional pickup of the same capacity.

2. It wouldn't look macho enough.
 
In the mid 70s Caddy-Caminos were available that took a FWD El Dorado front and an El Camino rear bed.....drove several myself.

Still had the Camino's 750lb load limit tho....darn near usless unless you were a Pimp in Buckskin....
 
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