[sameerrao]

Nice analysis there. This is the first time I looked at your series of posts. Nice thought provoking stuff.

I have some comments to make :

1. You mentioned the 917 as one the best handling examples of a rear engined car. Having looked at the engine bay of my Autoart 1:18 model it is clear that the 917 is mid-engined and not rear engined - then engine lies ahead of the rear axle. The 934 and 935 are of course true rear engined cars

2. On the rear engined issue

My take on this is that the rear engined approach was what Ferdinand did on the Beetle (and the Auto Unions before it) and carried it forward to his road cars for reasons of practicality as you rightly pointed out.

Today, the location of the engine is not as critical as it was 20 years back. Suspension design has progressed to such an extent that design flaws as it were have been tweaked out of the car. Thus great handling cars are there from all spectrums - Front engine/rear drive, Mid-engine rear drive, and so on....

Placing an engine in the rear was successful in racing because:
- Very good traction on the exit of corners as the weight was directly on the rear tyres
- Porsche had really skilled drivers to compensate for tricky wight transfer issues in wet conditions and sudden manouevres. The Auto Unions particularly were a nightmare to drive and required the skills of a Rosemayer, Stuck or Nuvolari to exploit the maximum from it.

From a hillclimb prospect there is no better design as you need max traction in the rear.

But today apart from the GT3-Cup and GT3-RSRs, rear engined is absent from racing. Pretty much everything is mid-engined - Formula One, IRL, CART, LMP or front engined - NASCAR, BTCC, etc.

So from a racing standpoint, yes rear-engines were successful in its time but so was mid-engined cars... so I cannot conclude that one is instrinsically better than the other.

From a road car perspective,
Rear engined Porsches were pretty lethal up to the late 80s - many an amatuer found himself going backward through the hedges. Todays 996 is nothing compared to a 911 SC or equivalent model. Wider tyres, more downforce in the rear, and aero work done to reduce lift in the rear have made the new 911 a pussycat.

The older cars were tricky at the limit and difficult to drive quickly when faced with the ordinary obstacles one gets on normal roads
- bumps and odd cambers on the road
- obstacles in the mid corners forcing you to brake while cornering
- wet roads

You needed to re-learn how to drive when you had the older 911s. This is a good thing in my book

Is today's 911 the best handling sports car? Its up in the air, I mean there are so many good cars that would qualify - Ferrari Modena, Lotus Elise, etc. The current 911 is good (effective in my book) but to me I think the older cars are better (more character).

In conclusion, rear engined is flawed from a weight distribution side of it but I love it because of its flaws. Conquering a 911 will make you a better driver.

Also to explore all sides of this issue, I would like to paste a review of the 996 GT2 by Damon Hill.

You know that feeling you get just before your plane touches down on the runway? Like a floating, hovering, drifting feeling, heart in mouth, breath held and nobody saying anything. A sort of stressful collective meditation. As long as the plane dangles in the air, the unspoken question permeates the fuselage: “Has he got this right?” and we sweat the clammy sweat of cowards. Strangely, that is exactly what you don’t get in a Porsche GT2.

What you feel instead is a kick up the backside when you accelerate, and a feeling that if you don’t lift off the pedal, pretty soon you could actually be taking off.

But there’s also an inexplicable feeling of being stuck to the bitumen at all times — the very opposite of floating — so you know there is no danger of becoming airborne. Porsche seems to have exclusive rights to this sense of utter solidity within a motor car. Everything is tight, like a body builder’s buttocks (I’m sorry about that simile, but just take a look next time you get the chance). The seat is tight, the upholstery is tight, the ride is tight. If I had to find a word that typified all Porsches it would be “tight”.

And if I needed a term to typify the GT2 in particular, it would be “extra tight”. It is just as well it is tight, because this is a seriously fast car with such an ample spread of torque it makes you feel you’re on the rebound from a bungee jump. With its 462bhp, this is the most powerful 911 ever produced for road use.

When you drive a GT2 people in other Porsches pull alongside and stare. The silver metallic paintwork must have something to do with it — it makes it look solid, like an ingot of silver in the shape of a Porsche. I know it also looks like a toad, but it’s a sexy toad, one with an engine and a place to sit. In fact two places to sit. You could have seats in the back too, if you wanted, but that would mean taking out the roll cage, and you really need one of those — probably more than you need passengers.

So practicality is compromised, but how practical are you going to be in this car anyway? Do you honestly need to get where you’re going that quickly? Do you really need to corner with that amount of confidence?

That is not to say this Porsche is without fault. The 911 is famous for its rear-mounted engine, and as any student of automotive design will tell you, the best way to make a car handle well is to keep its area of greatest mass as close as possible to the centre of gravity (ie, the middle of the car). The Porsche’s engine, by contrast, almost protrudes from its rear, like a portly child sitting alone on a seesaw with nobody to balance the other end.

So why don’t they put the engine near the centre of gravity? Because that is where we sit, and this flaw means the car wants to swap ends under braking like a bolas. Bizarrely, it would probably become almost undriveable without someone sitting inside it partly to counter the weight of the engine — but since it won’t be happening I’ll excuse Porsche that obscure criticism.

And considering this monumental conceptual error, they do an amazing job of mitigating the self-induced problems. But no matter how well this car handles, which it does fantastically, it will always have to get around the fact that there is not enough weight on the front wheels to help stop it really quickly. Because the engine is over the rear wheels all the setting-up has to trade off front-end grip for stability. I know I’m a former champion, so I’m a little too sensitive to these drawbacks for the needs of normal life on the roads, but I can’t help thinking to myself, “What if?”

What if Porsche moved the engine forward? There would be nowhere for the rear-seat passengers then, but considering that the rest of the car makes Ferraris look a little like Airfix kits (and they only have two seats), why not just do it for a car like the GT2? They could still do their four-seater versions, yet have a flagship model that totally flattens every other supercar on earth.

Until I get the job of design director at Porsche we’ll just have to make do with the GT2 as it is — a 196mph seesaw. But even the most beautiful jewels have their flaws, and those flaws are what makes them distinctive. There is no other car like a Porsche, and the GT2 is the epitome of that original 911 concept, a sports car built around the sacred ideas of Ferdinand Porsche.

So accepting that, we are left with a truly gorgeous car that will satisfy every need of ordinary road-going mortals (into which category I humbly submit myself since retiring from competitive driving). Weight distribution excepted, this car excels in every other area of engineering. But the pièce de résistance is — as always with Porsche — the engine.
A superb 3.6 litre flat-six (you may remember Hill’s Cylinder Equation from my last Sunday Times article, which stated that engines with a multiple of three cylinders sound the best) engages drive through six cogs selected by a great cable-operated gearlever that helps eliminate vibration. All clever stuff.

Not that you need to shift particularly quickly or very often, as the vast torque is spread so widely. I must admit that I can’t stand racy engines that need to be buzzed all the time to make them do anything at all.

(As an aside, did you know that they use Porsche engines in helicopters? It helps them stay up longer apparently, and that doesn’t surprise me in the least.) The added plus to such engine characteristics is that on a long trip through Europe it will hum along at particularly low revs, allowing you to listen to music at speeds in excess of the UK limit and still have enough muscle left to pull out and pass without even changing gear. A word of advice, though: be very polite to the police when they stop you, for they will be justifiably unamused.

You know, there really is no ounce of doubt about this car. We include it in our P1 fleet because of its pedigree, its looks and, of course, its performance. But the ultimate reason we love it so much is that we know it will deal with all varieties of driver with as much nonchalance as Kimi Raikkonen exhibits upon winning a grand prix.

And, of course, it is a truly great driving experience, blessed with sufficient acceleration to provide you with a momentary face-lift.