ok, i will:
so then why are you still flapping your gums? that's all i ever said from the beginning.
are you mentally retarded or something? you keep coming back to what people prefer now. nobody's arguing that with you. just how they came about in the first place! jeezus!
um first, yeah read below, second, I guess what I said the in my first post about it came out wrong, I didnt mean it to sound like I was denying that FWD was introduced by the gas crisis, I was just trying to illustrate that consumers quickly fell in love with the FWD concept and thats why detroit geared itself to a nearly complete switch to FWD instead of the partial you saw at first. Anyways, TGO, dont take offense at the next part of my post because you do seem like you are thinking things through and its not my intention to get into a pissing match with you since obviously I misunderstood you since I thought you were arguing the other point with me, so this is intended for the kid who keeps quoting wiki to me, is arguing that the US consumer doesnt want FWD cars, its all a marketing conspiracy, and told me about how he just won the internetz.
Lol, I think world is a little more complex than what you think, as the marketing folks out there love people like you

...you seem to think you have wrapped your arms around what the consumer wants, or did want, at the onset of fwd platforms in the US...what makes you the expert? :shrug: it's just your personal opinion unless you can cite some form of factual evidence to back it up...however, since you like wikipedia so much, :laugh: heres something else for you to ingest since it conflicts with your statement that rwd drive platforms are cheap to produce...
"Making this change easier (to fwd) was the fact that U.S. manufacturers had invested relatively little in the rather expensive and complex task of developing modern rear-wheel drive independent suspension layouts. Detroit's "Big Three" enjoyed a remarkable run of 75 low-cost years building passenger cars with the live rear axle design first seen on the Ford Model T. Some suggest that the introduction of the modern Volkswagen Rabbit in 1975, from a mainstream U.S. competitor, served as a useful wake-up call for the "Big Three." Chrysler's vehicle lineup was almost entirely front wheel drive by the end of the 1980s. GM followed Chrysler in the mid-1990s, with the exception of the Corvette and F-body lineup."
...suck it up, you're in losing argument, so you might as well admit defeat
You do realize that quoting wikipedia isnt making you any smarter. Quit while you think you are ahead. What do you mean "cause I love wikipedia so much" Really, you have been the one quoting it. You honestly dont have a clue what you are talking about anymore do you, you just quoted an article that had nearly nothing to do with the topic at hand except the fact that they are talking about front wheel drive. Go read a book. Seriously, dont you know what you are doing at all? Yes the internet has a lot of information. I know it seems like a magical place to you and it makes you feel smarter every time you hit the letter tray and differnt pictures come up on the magic box on your desk. But you have to take your mouse. Thats the little thing with 2 buttons that makes the magic arrow on the screen move, and you have got to use that to click other sources of information. Then when you have clicked those sources of information, read them, find out where they get their facts from, then decide what those facts mean when you compare them to the idea you are trying to think of. Thats called learning. Now, stop. When your head stops hurting you can try to read the next sentence. keep doing that until you actually understand what you are talking about. Come back when you need more than 2 hands to count your IQ.
I mean seriously, quoting me a story about how it wasnt so bad to switch to front wheel drive cause they hadnt been making many rear drive vehicles with independent suspension? What does that have to do with whether or not you can produce a cheap rear wheel drive car.
Ok, I understand you dont trust information if it doesnt come directly from the almighty wikipedia, so here you go.
http://wikicars.org/en/Tata_Nano
See look it comes from a wiki!!! your brain should be able to handle that right? OMG a REAR WHEEL DRIVE CAR. Its cheap, small, and gets good milage????? Whats that? I havent just shattered the whole pretense of reality that the other wikipedia article you read gave you. Ok take a deep breath. Now explore the internet. You will never guess what you find, LOTS of cheap rear wheel drive cars that have been produced but failed, or the american consumer never wanted in the first place. If thats to hard for you, please PM me, there is really no need for us to clutter this thread anymore, and I can show you dozens of examples. Heck I might even be able to direct you to several articles from magazines, yeah I know its analog not digital, but once upon a time thats where we got our information from, and really, its often more reliable than what someone posts on the internet.