This might be a stupid question.
But in general what is a more stable better handling car?

I know most sports cars are rwd but it seems like they slip out a lot?

If there was a fwd s2000 and a rwd s2000 i would think the rwd would obviously get around the track faster, but is it safer if it was fwd?

 

FWD is more economical and probably safer, but it would depend on the car mostly. My mind isn't capable of imagining a FWD S2000, sorry

 

In most cases, a car is only as safe as its driver. Most people would never be impressed by a sports car that bills itself as safe above anything else... think TVR.

 

Hm, RWD is harder to drive and it is dangerous if you are not aware of the weaknesses. A FWD is much easier to drive. I have some dumb street racer friends and they drive cars like RSX-Ss like crazy and they never get close to crashing (doing stuff like stomping the gas when turning then thinking they're "drifting" cuz the wheels are spinning).

 

First day I drove my car after getting registration I was going around a bend and blipped the throttle. Next thing I know I'm facing the opposite direction in the grass (I basically did a 180 and ended up on the OTHER side of the road). My GF slapped me and I learned to respect the POWA of dreams.

That probably wouldn't have happened if it was FWD.

 

No, if FWD it would just push in the direction you were traveling. I think someone who is really skilled can do things in a RWD car that are just impossible in a FWD car. But, for the avg joe a FWD car is safer and easier to handle as it approaches the limit or at the limit.

 

rwd makes for a better handling car. The front wheels only influence direction, while the rear wheels are tasked with propulsion. FWD makes for a car with very low limits, as the front wheels are used for both propulsion and steering, and the rear wheels are wasted.

Stability depends on the way the car is set up, including tires and suspension. You can tune a lot of the factory understeer out of a FWD chassis, and many RWD cars set up to understeer a bit from the factory, which can be tuned out as well. The reason most factory cars are set up to understeer is because it's sen as "safer" by people who are inexperienced at driving.

If you learned to drive with FWD cars, meaning your first few cars were FWD, you will probably think FWD is safer and "more stable." If you grew up driving RWD vehicles, your opinion is likely different. I dislike FWD because understeer prevents the car from continuing around a curve properly. Oversteer allows the car to neotiate a curve that would otherwise be impossible to make, because it rotates the car into the curve. Oversteer is easy to control and adds to the ability of a car to stay on the road, whereas understeer takes control away from the driver and directs the car off the road. In addition, you can influence oversteer and understeer with the throttle as well as the steering, which gives the driver two methods of control over the direction and attitude of the car vs. understeer's single method. If the car is understeering, slowing down is your only option of control, as you can't steer or accelerate. If the car is over-steering, it is still under the control of the driver. I would rather have RWD in bad weather for those reasons.

Clearly, the prevalence of FWD has not led to an elimination of accidents, for all the claims that FWD is somehow safer and easier to control. Police cars and all trucks are RWD, and you don't see them peppering the ditches after a snowstorm like you see FWD minivans and cars.

 

your friends are just taking advantage of the nature of their vehicles. Would the be any smarter if they were doing the same thing with RWD cars? I'd argue they would be better drivers if they started with RWD, but I won't suggest they would be smarter

RWD is no harder to control than FWD, but it is different. RWD is actually easier to control at the limits of adhesion because you actually have some control.

 

Same here minus the GF in the car. Thats why my next car WILL have some type of stability control.

 

There was a time when RWD was gospel when it came to which was better, but fwd cars have really stepped up. If you watch the Honda cup races, EGs and ITRs hang with the S2000s and in most cases beat them too... but then that could be an issue of weight, but anyway.
They both have very different driving dynamics and therefore techniques to go fast. However, I feel that a RWD has more control. What people always consider when they think about good control is how you control an oversteer because people see oversteering as losing control. In that respect, both FWD and RWD have methods of coutering them. But what makes RWD essentially better is that it can also control understeer whereas fwds can't. And this fact gets expondentially worse as you add more power to the car.
For the average joe (probably including me as well), fwd is much better and a lot more safer, but in skilled hands, rwd is a lot more controllable. But AWD arguably trumps all. I dunno, I honed my everyday driving in a 240sx with no stability control or abs and never had any issues with spinning out, but when I was in my civic I felt that I had to trust the car more.