As I mentioned yesterday, David is in town and we’re working on a fairly idiotic automotive project that we’ll be writing about soon. This means, of course, visits to auto parts stores. And auto parts stores means at least some standing at a counter as someone looks up something on a computer that’s running what looks like text-only software designed to emulate a 1980s WANG terminal. One plus about this, though, is that often these countertops have these printed mat things, and on one I saw yesterday, there was a diagram of a car. A car I have questions about.
You can see the mat up above there, which was at an AutoZone, and I encourage you to scrutinize it with the focus of a bored customer who doesn’t want to be confronted with any actual news on their phone, or whatever. Because I think you’ll find something strange, like I did.
Here, look for yourself and see if you can spot it:
Let’s zoom in on each end, just to be sure. First, the front:
…and now, the rear:
See what I’m getting at here? I bet you do. It’s this:
I think what we’re looking at here is a very rare sort of machine, a front transverse-engined, rear-wheel drive car! I thought maybe this could be an AWD setup, but I don’t see any kind of driveshafts going to the front wheels, so it really does seem like a transverse front/RWD setup!
This setup is exceedingly rare! In fact, I can’t think of any actual production car that used this setup, though Ford did play with the idea, building some genuinely bonkers Tempos with transverse straight-eight engines!
(photos: Ford via Drivingenthusiast.net)
The driveshaft was connected to the middle of the engine using something they called a T-drive. They seem to have built a Thunderbird with a similar layout, a T-Drive T-Bird, and at least one concept car, in 1991:
Deeply strange stuff. Seems like an overly complicated way to get power to wheels, too, and is there really a demand for a straight-8 sideways engine?
Still, I laud Autozone for their bold choice to commemorate this exotic layout in their countertop mats. It’s possible they just wanted to show the most common engine layout, transverse front, but still have a way to show a rear-drive/differential. That’s possible. But I prefer to think some designer toiling at Autozone appreciates the exciting periphery of automotive engineering, and wanted to share it, subtly, with a mass audience.
Good job!
I guess I can understand why you are seeing what you’re seeing (or not seeing) when you looked at said diagram, and I would feel the same way if I interpreted it as you are, but in my opinion I don’t see the oddity, I’m seeing a rendering (allbeit rudimentary at best) of a basic traditional transverse engine AWD/FWD platform that is the drivetrain of almost every unibody car that offers all wheel drive… You seem to be overlooking something, Imo it’s glaringly obvious that that’s a transmission attached to the left hand side of that engine. Even though there’s not a clear depiction of front axle shafts in this highly generic almost comical rendition of a car and it’s parts is accurate enough to give non-mechanically inclined patrons a depiction of the vehicle they likely own. Not sure if you ever had to do business with the public but if you haven’t then you should know that there are A LOT of stupid people out there, which will be 90% of the people who will come in your store so the car rendering doesn’t have to be more accurate than it is because they won’t understand it anyway… Sure I think it’s silly and funny to me, an auto service technician 20 years experience that the depiction shows off locations of the components it highlights but other than that, I know that what is there is nothing more than exactly what it needs to be
This is the right answer
Yup, time for Torchinsky to take his remedial auto shop classes. Nearly every AWD vehicle not built on a truck platform uses this layout now, typically with the front diff built into the transmission, and many have done so for more than 20 years. Admittedly the shape is a curve ball since it looks like the offspring of a 2-door Tempo and a bar of Dove soap with hints of c.a. 2000 4-door Jetta, and back then none of those three was available with AWD.
Does the O2 sensor go in the drive shaft, or are the rear wheels exhaust driven?
Looks like a bad DIY attempt at making an AWD Plymouth Breeze.
Jason, ummm..
You were expecting some kind of automotive accuracy from AutoZone?
I mean beyond the fact this mat was 100% developed by a marketing team, and I’m sure some counter employees have their souls crushed having to ask “turbo or non-turbo?” when looking up wiper blades, I wouldn’t expect any actual automotive knowledge to be associated with that company.
The tangent of the Tempo reminds me that I saw a “4×4” Tempo on Craigslist recently. Now, I had heard of the Pontiac 6000STE before with it’s AWD system, but never the Tempo. Sure enough it exists.
If a factory AWD Tempo can exist perhaps this mystery car is based in some real example?
The Tempo team must have been some interesting individuals. AWD, diesel, and V6 were options for what would otherwise be very boring and mundane basic transportation.
Yeah, surprisingly there were a lot of variations on the Tempo that most don’t realize, but most of them didn’t overlap or did so by 1 year.
Autopian merch request: one of those counter mats for my garage workbench, but with a detailed and annotated cross section of one of Torch’s Obscure Cars from Imaginary Countries. Or David’s jankiest repair. Or both!
I want one depicting a Chinese Tiller Truck 😀
I would have expected something like one of those placemats with all the fancy cocktails, except they would all be different automotive fluids.
With tiny umbrellas in them.
Maybe the Tokyo Drift EVO IX:
https://www.edmunds.com/car-reviews/features/tokyo-drift-test-rear-wheel-drive-mitsubishi-evolution-ix.html
Just wait until they update the drawing and use AI to create it. Gonna be an even bigger abomination.
Looks like my Lancer Evolution drivetrain honestly.
I don’t see any reason to believe that it doesn’t also drive the front wheels. Which would make it a much more common transverse engined AWD car
It’s pretty clearly one of the Chrysler cloud cars (JA Platform for the beautiful nerds, Chrysler Cirrus/Dodge Stratus/Plymouth Breeze otherwise). Sadly, I’m not sure Chrysler ever had AWD plans for that, although they did have the AWD minivans (transverse-engined) at the same time, and rumours they had considerations for AWD LH cars (longitudinal-engined to make it easy).
I think so as well. Look at the ICM example image. That’s an old style unit that hasn’t been used since the mid-2000s. And the MAS is using a metal flange insert style that I don’t think has been used since the ’90s, as almost all of them are now inline all-in-one plastic units.
How old is this diagram?
The overall outline is very cloud-ish. If I had to put a name to it, I’d say Cirrus since I think it had that little extra ridge in the trunklid.
Aren’t there a lot of transverse engined, AWD cars on the market these days?
Ahh, and the taxi work begins..Can’t wait for those blogs
I thought I saw an absolute beat to death NYC taxivan being dragged through Chapel Hill before the snow hit. It looked gross, can’t wait to see it look somehow more gross.
Hmmm. Imagine that ;3
Funny thing, I live like 45min from Chapel Hill… 30ish if you Bo Duke it on the back roads. I have to wonder, anyone else here live in Chatham County?
“… is there really a demand for a straight-8 sideways engine?”
Sure, why the hell not? I’ll take that. This is Autopian, isn’t it? Can a get a V5 diesel in it as well? I like to be different.
Wasn’t there an AWD tempo in the 80’s? I swear I remember my parents owning one (brown!) when I was a kid. There was a button on the headliner that activated the rear axle, so wouldn’t that be a transverse I-4, with a driveshaft to the rear?
Yep, there was! Available from ’87 to ’91. It wasn’t a huge seller and hardly any exist today.
https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/ford-tempo-AWD.jpg
There’s one for sale on Craigslist right now if you want to save an example.
From my memories of that car, they were not worth saving.
I actually owned a 1987 Tempo AWD. I had to remove the rear half shafts in the spring due to it eating its U joints
As others have pointed out, what you’ve identified as a driveshaft appears to be the exhaust. One of the telltales is that the unit is supported from underneath by what seems like a concrete block with an embedded eye hook, and that would cause a driveshaft to be severely out of balance. I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that what you call the differential is actually an amorphous 2D shape existing in 3D space, which—like a hypercube—is difficult to render in one less dimension. Also the rear shocks have less travel than the sidewalls.
It’s a tesseract!
Duh. It’s an exhaust shaft. Exhaust is routed through the rotating shaft into the mufflerential (that blobject between the rear wheels). From there, it flows out the backxle through the brake drumsticks. That mat is a good reminder to buy a fresh set of muffler bearings when picking up air fresheners.
That’s a genius engineering solution! You could probably run some wiring right through the middle of that as well.
This is why muffler bearings are so important. They lubrify the wiring’s swivelocity to prevent entanglification.
What’s with the car on the mat?
Autozone Guy: Year, make and model?
I’m just asking about the car on the mat.
Autozone Guy: V6 or V8?
No. Just tell me what this car is.
Autozone Guy: Auto or manual?
I don’t think you’re listening to me?
Autozone Guy: We have the AC Delco for $8 or the Prestone for $47.
Still remember the baffled look on the Autozone Guy’s face when I was needing plug wires for my brother in law’s ’68 Cougar. There was a whole page of possible engine choices and still several options when narrowed down to 302. Wires will all the same kid, just pick one and I’ll look in the box and see if you got lucky.
I lost most of my hair trying to buy a couple feet of 3/8″ fuel hose at AutoZone.
How is “Hollywood” David handling the cold and snow in NC? It’s a good measure of how fully he’s acclimated to LA
Did you spend a lot of time in Ho Jos as a child?
I think the item in the rear is actually a muffler, and the exhaust exits through pipes in the centers of the rear wheels.
I love that idea! That would be hilarious to see. Are you always doing a burnout if that’s the case? I mean your wheels would always be smoking.
Isn’t that how the rear tires are kept inflated? Plus warming the air in them helps melt through snow and ice as you pass over it, providing better traction,
It also appears to be RHD, or possibly center drive, that steering wheel does not look like it’s LHD for sure. So we have a transverse V engine, let’s go V8 because it’s more fun, with center drive, exhaust combined with the driveshaft, and RWD. Rare beast indeed!
I’ll say! It also has the exhaust and the drive shaft combined into a single unit, or so the oxygen sensor placement would have us believe.
Jason you just earned an Extra Miler Award. I work for America’s leading auto parts company and that is my opinion.
That vehicle is from the Cars Cinema Multiverse, aka the Transverse.
Can’t say transverse anymore if you work for the government