Front wheel drive pickup trucks

[sager]

Don't you think it's odd that no manufacturers( that I know of) produce a front wheel drive pickup truck. Two wheel drive pickups have very bad traction on snow and ice. You'd think that a front wheel drive model would be very attractive to drivers living in northern areas of the world. And yes, I realize that 4 wheel drive pickups are hot sellers, but this is a question about front wheel drive only.

[psychorallyfreak]

Meh, I don't know...I personally can't see any practicality for a FWD pickup. Hell, I can't see any practicality for a RWD pickup, either! lol

[curtis73]

FWD is not a wise choice for trucks since they typically are used for towing and heavy duty haulling. With a full payload in the back, it can take weight off the front. Also, with 1000 lbs of tongue weight on the rear, it can take 200-300 lbs off the front. My cousin towed his 18 ft travel trailer with a Caravan and he couldn't start out with more than about 1/4 throttle without lighting up the front tires . You should see him try to get up a hill

The other big problem with a FWD truck is that you'd be further upsetting the already front-biased weight. By shifting that weight up front, I wouldn't be surprised if normal cornering would randomly allow the tail to skid way out uncontrollably. There would also be brake bias issues. It would be very hard to modulate rear brake bias without losing control.

Despite their front-biased weight, you might be surprised at how well the balance is. They look very unbalanced, but there is plenty of weight back there. For most trucks, there is more empty weight on the rear axle than there is on many full-size cars like Caprices, Town Cars, and the like.

I've seen front drive truck conversions that are really neat. They were employed on flat bed car transporters so they could make the flat bed really close to the ground.

[drdisque]

there were 2 FWD pickups in the 80s based on car chassis. The Dodge Rampage and one made by VW