Auto News 5

Front-wheel-drive layouts worked better twenty years ago, when cars were lighter and engine output was akin to a couple of ponies on quaaludes. Today's obese modern cars require serious, purebred muscle to haul them around, and as a result, quick front-wheel-drive cars suffer from easy-to-provoke wheel spin and steering that's been novocained to mask torque steer. Point a powerful front-wheel-drive car up one of San Francisco's famously steep grades and try--just try--to get moving without squealing the front tires. Now try it in the rain, or--heaven forbid--snow.

There's little question that the future of the automobile includes some measure of electrification. The big debate is how much we'll rely on an electric system's volts and amps instead of an internal-combustion engine's pistons and valves.

The only thing more volatile than a can of gasoline and an open flame is what happens when you put a diesel geek in a room with a gasoline junkie. The diesel fan will point out that his fuel doesn't explode, it just burns slowly. In return, the gas freak will accuse the diesel fan - and his fuel - of being boring.

In 1933, German chancellor Adolf Hitler promised Mercedes-Benz the 500,000-reichsmark (approximately $3 million today) incentive offered to any German racing team willing to campaign a car in the new grand prix era beginning the following year. To the Führer's chagrin, Ferdinand Porsche stepped forward to request equal treatment. Porsche presented drawings of a supercharged V-16 engine ideal for propagandizing Germany's technical eminence and nominated the Auto Union combine as Mercedes-Benz's sparring partner. Hitler's resolution - an equal split of the sponsorship largesse - triggered the Age of Titans, one of the fiercest rivalries in motorsports history.

French-Canadian Gilles Villeneuve was the most spectacular comet to blaze across Formula 1 in the modern era. Didier Pironi was a French rocket groomed for stardom by the Elf fuel company. As teammates at Ferrari in 1982, their careers collided with fatal results.