Help me out here, pals. While I love my co-workers here on the USS Jalopnuts, it has come to my attention that at least two of my co-workers are drooling simpletons who can’t wrap their puny, moist, palpitating brains around the idea that the front-mid engine layout is a thing. They’re idiots, right?
Let me clarify what we’re arguing about here: I’m of the belief that, when classifying a car by its engine position, there’s four main categories: front-engine, front-mid engine, rear-mid engine, and rear-engined. Raph and Mike, sitting right next to me, fingers wedged deep in the warm, damp recesses of their nostrils, maintain that the only categories are front-engine, mid-engine, and rear-engine, and cars that I would consider front-mid, they claim are simply front.
They’re fools.
Here’s my criteria: if an engine is between the axles, it’s in the mid category, and if it’s front of the midline of the car, it’s front-mid, and if it’s rear of the midline of the car, it’s rear-mid. An engine forward of the front axle is a front engine, and one behind the rear is rear-engined. Simple!
Raph and Mike simply don’t think a car with the engine in the front but behind the front axle is worth differentiating from a car with the engine hung way out in front of the axle, and that makes them fools.
There are real handling and dynamic advantages to a front-mid layout. I own a front-mid car, a Reliant Scimitar GTE and I really like that it’s front-mid, and not just because the spare tire goes up front.
Subaru worked hard to make the BRZ a front-mid car, because they know it’s great. The Citroën DS is one of the rare front-mid, front-wheel drive cars, and it’s great. Corvettes have had this layout, Maseratis, Mercedes, Morgans, Honda S2000s—this is simply not the same as a simple front-engined car.
Plus, look—if you don’t believe in front-mid, how can you make a distinction between a mid-rear car and a rear-engine car? You can’t, Raph. You can’t.
So I’m reaching out to you, dashing readers, because, collectively, you’re the smartest people I know when it comes to crap like this. So, please, tell these morons that front-mid is a real, distinct, and worthy layout.
Fools.