No area of car design has advanced more than this in the past 90 years, and it’s easy to see why.
While the internal combustion engine was a child of the late 19th century, the leaf-sprung ladder chassis used by almost all cars in 1928 differed little in concept from that used by wagons dating back to the mid-18th century.
Yet so little was known about chassis design that even in the mid-1930s the Mercedes-Benz racing team was shocked to learn that the primary springing medium of its state-of-the-art W25 grand prix car was not its suspension but flex in its chassis.
There had been cars with what we would recognise as modern unitary construction before the war – notably the 1922 Lancia Lambda – and the Americans were far ahead of most of Europe in this regard duringthe 1930s. But it wasn’t until the 1950s that this stiff, light, space-efficient form of chassis became common, alongside the spaceframe construction that was simpler for low-volume manufacturing.
This was also the time when most manufacturers replaced their leaf springs with coils and designed truly independent suspension, at the front at least. Independent rear suspension took far longer, with designers preferring to mitigate the worst effects of non-independent rear axles with devices such as the Panhard rod, Watt’s linkage and De Dion tube. To this day, almost all small hatchbacks, and an increasing number of family hatchbacks, feature non-independent torsion beam rear axles because they are cheap and easy to package.
But if we’re looking for landmarks, there was none more striking than the Lamborghini Miura that dropped jaws at the 1966 Geneva show, thanks to an engine mounted neither in the front nor at the rear, like many small cars of the era and all Porsches. Mid-engined design was nothing new in racing circles, but centralising the car’s major mass in a road car was something else (even though, like so many developments we think of as pioneers in their field, it wasn’t actually the first mid-engined road car – take a bow the Matra Djet).
The Miura’s configuration was not without issues, notably the low polar moment of inertia that resulted and what then happened once the car started to slide, but the benefits in grip, response and steering could not be ignored. Two years later, Ferrari introduced its Dino and proved that, with a bit more thought and a bit less mass, a mid-engined car could be the sweetest-handling device imaginable.
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The Rrenault gt turbo...
had 4 shocks and inboard brakes for less unspung mass...yeah the french in the 80's were the busnizz, the R5 had a ride that was so sweet and non crashy, incredible suspension and 13 inch tyres
In an article about ride,
In an article about ride, there is no mention of Citroen's hydropneumatic suspension ...
That's because...
...it died out. Not a trend-setter, see.
A bit like Harrier jump-jets: lovely idea but no advantage in the real world - unless your aircraft carriers are either too small or not equipped for proper jets.
And no, VIFFing wasn't used anywhere in combat.
This article is heavily
This article is heavily weighted towards lap times, which is an empirical measurement of progress but not entirely relevant for most of us.
Downforce is surely irrelevant to most cars and most journeys too.
In terms of ride and handling of the average car, there is a strong argument that we are going backwards. The dreaded SUV and the fashion for massive wheels are largely to blame.