The myths that the 1959 Austin Mini had the first transverse FWD engine and that the 1962 Autobianchi Primula had the first transverse FWD power train with its transmission inline with the engine—as do essentially all modern FWD cars—have become deeply ingrained. But they’re not based on fact, so let’s set the record straight.
The first transverse FWD engine were in J.W.Christie’s racing cars, first built in 1904. It had a large four cylinder engine driving the front wheels via a rather unusual two-speed transmission. All the details on these very advanced cars are in our article of these unusual racing cars built between 1904 and 1907.
If the fact that the Christie cars weren’t production passenger cars disqualify them, DKW built hundreds of thousands of FWD cars using a transverse engine, starting with this 1931 “Front” F1.
As can be seen here, it’s a transverse two-stroke two-cylinder engine. The transmission is in front of it, not inline with the engine.
When Saab set out to build a new small aerodynamic FWD car after the war, they very much looked at DKW’s rather advancedF9 prototype from 1939.
The F9 was intended to have a three cylinder engine, and the early prototypes had the engine located transversely, with a transverse transmission behind it, as seen above, and similar to their earlier twin. But they could not keep the transmission from breaking behind the more powerful engine.
Ferdinand Porsche had a similar problem with the immensely powerful supercharged mid-engine Auto Union race car. His solution was placing the transmission behind the differential, and having the power double back. This allowed for a stronger and lighter unit, as well as placing the engine as far back as possible.
Since DKW was part of Auto Union, the engineers there used the same solution, relocating the engine in a longitudinal position in front of the axle center line. That was a big first too, for a production car, and would of course become the main alternative configuration to the transverse front engine, used in such cars as the later DKWs and Audis, and with boxer engines in the Citroen 2CV, Subaru, Alfasud, among others.
I’ve digressed…but now we’ve covered both modern FWD engine position firsts in one post.
Although the 1949 Saab 92 was clearly inspired by the F9’s very aerodynamic body and two-stroke engine, they did not copy the F9’s longitudinal engine.
Instead they used a transverse twin, but now with its transmission located inline with the engine, precisely as done in the Primula and the great majority of FWD cars ever since. So Saab gets the credit for being the first.
Saab did emulate the F9’s longitudinal three cylinder engine starting with the 1956 93, but by then that was not new.
The Saab only took the title by a few months. The 92 was first built in December of 1949, and in March of 1950, the German Goliath GP700 arrived, also with a very similar arrangement, a 700cc two-stroke twin and inline transmission.
Here’s a shot of that. The Goliath GP 700 also pioneered fuel injection in the 1952 Sport, a coupe that looked rather like a Porsche of the times.
Just two months later, the Lloyd LP300 appeared, with the same configuration but with a smaller 300cc engine. Both the Lloyd and Goliath were part of the Borgward family, so it’s clear that Borgward engineers favored this arrangement for their low and middle-priced FWD cars.
Of course that was a bit easier with a two cylinder engine. So I take nothing away from the brilliant solution Alec Issigonis arrived at in creating the drive train for the original Mini. With the transmission located directly below the engine, and sharing the same sump, it’s a model of space efficiency. Realistically, there’s no way a transmission located inline with the engine would have fit in the Mini’s narrow chassis.
Fiat’s brilliant designer/engineer, Dante Giacosa, sought to improve on the Mini’s rather convoluted arrangement, and placed the transmission inline with the engine for the Primula. But this was for a class (or two) larger car, and thus it was possible. It wasn’t new, as it’s essentially the same configuration that the Saab 92, Goliath GP700 and Lloyd LP300 used back in 1950, albeit with two cylinder engines.
Related reading:
Cohort Classic: 1952 Goliath GP700 Rometsch Sport
Curbside Classic: 1958 DKW F94 Sonderklasse – The Proto-Audi
Vintage R&T feature: J.W.Christie’s FWD Racing Cars
I knew the one about the Christie, having read an article on his racing cars decades ago either in an Automotive Quarterly or an AACA related publication. That guy has one of the most fascinating histories as an auto designer you’ll ever read. Would make a fascinating CC article.
On the other hand, while I knew a bit about the Saab 92, I hadn’t realized the uniqueness of the design.
Jowett had a flat four in its Javelin (1948), in front of its front wheels. From what I read they did not want FWD because no decent solution was found (or available) for producing cost effective constant velocity joints.
How was this solved for other early FWD cars? Surely they cannot have simple universal joints in their drive axles.
Tracta made a CV axle in the late 20s.
Well, the constant-velocity joints have been around since the early days.
Many front-wheel-drive cars from late 1920s to 1930s used some variations of constant-velocity joints, including Miller Front-Drive race car (1925), Ruxton (1929), Cord L29 (1929) and 810/812 (1936), Citroën Traction Avant (1934), and others.
Panhard used the cheaper double universal joints at the wheel hub along with telescoping drive shafts (as to reduce the whiplash if the wheel is steered at the sharp angle or the suspension travel is greater).
Interesting read and only right to ensure the record is clear.
OOI, how strong was the link between the SAAB 92 engine and the DKW? Good observation or directly shared technical knowledge with German engineers in Trollhaten?
This coalesces bits that have all appeared through this site, and a glance at the internet shows the Mini/Primula version is still the universally told tale. I hope this little piece gets the attention it deserves, to set things straight.
All the Autobianchi can claim is now the first to combine hatchback, 4-wheel discs and end-on transverse powertrain in one, a rather narrower (if still significant) category.
Whilst accepting that it must be true, I can’t work out why Porsche’s reversing the power flow through the box removes any strain or adds any lightness.
I think it was more of just getting it right rather than any intrinsic magic of the transmission’s configuration. It was certainly a more elegant solution than what DKW had been trying to do with the F9’s initial setup.
Interesting article on the FWD origins which proves that there are many misconceptions. I’ve learnt that the early transverse front-drive cars would have been made by an austrian company, Graf und Stift between 1895 and 1898. In addition, DKW had a german precursor, Stoewer which produced the Stoewer V5, a car close to F1 but sadly, not the same success. However, I’m stunned that you didn’t talk about Miller front-drive cars which had an inline layout even if the engine was behind of the differential.
This post was not meant to be a thorough look at the history of FWD; that’s a bit more involved. Of course the Miller, Tracta, Citroen TA, Cord and Ruxton (among others) all had their engines behind the front axle; that was essentially the default position before the transverse (and front of axle) positions arrived.
I also forgot o mention that there were a number of very early FWD cars that experimented with various configurations. But obviously none of them were built in significant numbers, or deemed successful. The DKW and Saab were mass production cars. That was the point I was getting at.
I think that the front-drive is as old as the car itself and you’re right to shed a new light on early adopters as DKW, Saab (I also like the Trabant 601 which went unnoticed during the Mini’s launch) for which we are too often used to minimizing the role. The problem with the american engineers was that they were too focused to get the most smoothest or/and powerful engines than possible. They would ever have developped engines as a two-stroke (DKW, Saab) or an aircooled engine (Citroën) and however, it was nevertheless an obligatory passage to overcome the problems with the fwd tech.
Today I learned that the Triumph 1300 had a role in the development of the Saab 99. I was reading the December 1966 issue of Car and Driver, and Saab developing a new car based on the Triumph 1300 was mentioned. Based on the description of the planned slant-4 Triumph engine, it was clear they were referring to the Saab 99.
The architecture of the Triumph 1300 was unusual, and it seemed possible that its longitudinal engine and easily serviced clutch could have been shared with the Saab. Then I searched online and found confirmation that the Saab’s production transmission was a development of the Triumph 1300 transmission. Oddly, the small-engined Triumph was thought to have poor handling due to its high engine placement, while the larger-Triumph-engined Saab was a successful road racing car in the US.
When I was shopping for another car at a mostly-foreign used car lot in San Jose, there were two offerings in my sub-$500 price range (those were the days, huh?): a fairly tired-but-running Triumph TR-3, and a very strange DKW Sport 2-seater, age unknown, with a plywood roadster body and a transverse 3-cylinder air-cooled engine. The salesman said the DKW’s “key has been lost, but it’s here somewhere”; I think the clearly oil-soaked wood around the protruding cylinder head had him and his crew too spooked to try it! I was smart enough to stick with my Austin Mini woodie-wagon, and am still glad I did.
Thank you for this extremely thought-provoking post!
That Auto-Union transmission is a bit of a mind-bender…
DKW and Adler just don’t get the recognition they should for pioneering mass-market FWD. Citroën made it work for larger cars (eventually), but the Germans were really at the cutting edge of FWD in the early 30s.
Thanks.
I’ve been meaning to do a more comprehensive piece on the history of FWD, and started collecting notes a couple of years back. I need to go back and finish that.
There was another Lloyd with front wheel drive and a traverse engine, only this was British and built in Grimsby. It was launched in 1946 with a fiendishly complicated twin-stroke engine that was hell to fix.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lloyd_Cars_Ltd
Issigonis first thoughts for the Mini showed more obvious DKW/Trabant influences with a bulkhead mounted fuel tank and a 2 cylinder transverse engine with in line gearbox. The engine was half an A series which would have been 474cc 18bhp, similar to the 1957 Trabant. Allegedly too rough running it was abandoned in favour of the now familiar ‘gearbox in sump’ arrangement, this exposed the deficiency of the gearbox, leading to the the notorious power sapping, whining transfer gears.
Although the Issigonis/BMC arrangement was viewed with suspicion Peugeot adopted something similar for the 204, did Honda for their air cooled fwd cars?
BMC persisted and developed a 4 speed automatic gearbox with AP (not an automated manual), a 5 speed manual and a 6 cylinder in line transverse fwd by 1971. Not necessarily very good ideas, reliable or good to drive, but adventurous.
I remember our family Austin Maxi pulled onto the side of the road en route from Yorkshire to Bavaria with caravan in tow in 1972. The bonnet was open to let the overheated engine cool. According to my mother the German onlookers weren’t deriding the British build quality, but marvelling at the advanced engineering – or so she said!
Hazelcars built 1951 fitted with a Ford 4 cylinder transverse engine with an end on gearbox, see : hazelcar.co.uk