While You Were Sleeping: April 22, 2015

@SpinnyD A great read. Thanks for the link Spinny. So apparently Clarkson is about to give birth to a new TV project. Well, he's got May and Hammond in the mix and he's known to be talking with Top Gear ex-employees. Bully!

@TrailerTrash I love this debate. I agree about the weight, but it's not a massive difference. There are plenty of light weight rwd cars out there. I also think that at short wheelbase and modest power levels the performance difference had more to do with road or track design than anything else. I doubt making a mx5 front wheel drive would necessarily slow it down. Depends onthe venue. As far as enjoyment goes I guess I'd present the same context related argument. I have both layouts in my garage and I find myself on throttle more often while having fun in the rwd car, at least on my roads. The technique for driving fwd fast hinges on high corner entry speeds, which feels less responsible to me on public roads. Simply put, brake early, then throttle on is more enjoyable with a rwd layout, and I feel like I'm playing with the balance of the car more often without having to be reckless to get there. I do also enjoy b and some c segment fwd cars for this, but they'd be improved by rwd subjectively if not objectively. Imagine a rwd Fiesta. Of course without windy local roads I probably wouldn't have this add a priority. In poor weather I still prefer rwd. All the advances that have helped fwd cars have also been applied to their rwd cousins. Tires, weight and stability control programming matter far more than drive layout in this era.