Not Tropeworthy: Every Car Is Rear Wheel Drive

I really don't see what makes this a trope. I can't imagine many people notice or pay attention to it. There are relatively few examples and all the real life ones just seem to say "Some cars are rear wheel drive, some cars aren't."

I don't understand this trope. I though most cars were rear-wheel. But if they aren't why would a story want to portray it as such? How is that cool - it's just practical.

Or is this meant to be a specific list of stories portraying as rear-wheel-drive specific models that are actually front-wheel-drive?

Most commersial cars have front-wheel drive. Sport cars have more frequently rear-wheel drive, or 4WD/AWD. That's still a vast simplification that may not be true everywhere anyway.

I don't see a trope. All kinds of drives exist everywhere. People Sit On Car Seats Driving Cars With Different Drives.

Well, at least one of the examples is of filmmakers using a model of car that's actually front-wheel drive but deliberately making it look as if it were rear-wheel drive. If, as the description claims, that sort of thing is common, then it's definitely a trope. The fact that most people wouldn't notice or care doesn't really matter.

The page as it stands is a mess, though, with more aversions and real-world natter than actual examples.

Why did they fake a rear-wheel drive car? Is it cooler? Is it The Coconut Effect?

Is this trope about the thing that most cars in fiction have a specific pattern of orientation of their drive that does not match the Real Life pattern?

Who knows? But honestly, I've seen this trope everywhere. I remember a scene in which a car was prevented from going anywhere because someone superstrong was holding the rear off the ground. I also remember countless scenes where smoke would billow from rear of the car, to indicate burning rubber.

Unfortunately, that's all I got. I don't remember the specific scenes or movies they've appeared in. As hinted in question above, there's a trope here. Its purpose is just not clear.

How is that different from a car that simply has rear-wheel drive? There's not storytelling purpose in that.

If it's a trope, it's a trope. Specific storytelling purposes can be figured out later.

edited 4th Jul '12 3:51:05 PM by abk0100

Too Meaningless To Trope?

The Fast And Furious example suggests though that there is some sort of meaning.

edited 4th Jul '12 4:13:24 PM by Routerie

What about: A car is featured and behaves like a RWD. However, researching said car on the internet reveals that the car is FWD. Otter tropes form this are: Wrong drivetrain for the car (DNDTR), and DNDTR for any aspect of a car. (Can get really bad)(Other than Every Car Is a Pinto)

edited 4th Jul '12 4:52:09 PM by spacemarine50

As I get it, it's Artistic Licence or Did Not Do The Research depending on the case. I'd restrict the examples to cases where the car in question shouldn't be a RWD; if it's a FWD/4wd model or a type of a vehicle that basically only ever comes in FWD/4wd.

And the RL examples should be kicked out. Nothing in RL is AL or DNDTR.

edited 4th Jul '12 5:23:09 PM by peccantis

It generally comes up with cars do drifts and other kinds of fancy maneuvers that don't work on front-wheel drive, even if their car would be front-wheel drive in real life.

The thing is, if you take a FWD and make it appear as a RWD, how do you do that as DNDTR? There's lifting one side of the car and having it spin, but doing so would probably reveal which wheels turn. To make a FWD swerve as a RWD, wouldn't you have to do it deliberately?

What I want is a list of examples where this trope makes a point, and isn't incidental or just doesn't matter to the story at all. Something that takes it away from People Sit On Chairs.

By using a stunt car/CGI model without making sure it's the same type than what it's pretending to be.

And what purpose does the drive have there? What makes it not just an example of DNDTR?

edited 5th Jul '12 3:32:45 AM by Feather7603

/shrug

when it's not DNDTR, i.e., when it is AL, it's Rule of Cool. That's pretty much it. It's not like a trope needs to be lofty and full of meta and deep ideas to be a trope. I mean, what purpose do Chainmail Bikini and its "skimpy battle gear" relatives serve other than a breach of realism for Rule of Cool and/or Rule of Sexy?

In this case it's, eh, Coconut Effect in full effect. Creators thinking that RWD antics are something that "cars just do" so they make their cars do it regardless of actual realism regarding the type and model of the car in question.

edited 5th Jul '12 4:18:39 AM by peccantis

Here are two guesses off the top of my head:

1. How would the super-strong party know that lifting the rear of the car would do that, unless s/he happened to know the particular make of car was RWD?
2. Smoke billowing from the REAR of a car gives more of an indication of forward motion. Things like rockets, jet engines, ships and others leave smoke from the tail when they move forward. In most mechanics, smoke from the front means something wrong under the hood.

Again, that's all I got.

Those are good points.

The first pretty much has to happen with the rear wheels. If it was the front wheels, the driver would easily see the lifter, and it's almost always a surprise moment.

The second is a simple shortcut to showing high speed or acceleration.

However, those are different conventions. Same mechanic, but different purposes. Not the same trope. They could fall under the same index, but they're not related tropes.

But what's trope worthy about a car simply BEING rear-wheel-drive? It's not a hard assumption to make. At least not here in Australia where the most popular models of cars have always been rear-wheel-drive. A car doesn't need to be a high-performance sports car to be RWD.

Maybe the lifting a car's back axle to stop it moving should be a trope of its own, with FWD examples being listed as DNDTR examples of it?

The Rule of Cool is a partial factor of this trope.

Don't try to deny it. MEN. LOVE. FAST. CARS. This is scientific fact. The revving of an engine has been proven to stimulate and increase testosterone in men.

When it comes to action movies, racing games, what-have-you, the target audience is going to want to hear those engines revving. They want to hear the tires squealing, seeing the wheels spinning in place while they warm up to grip the asphalt and leave smoke billowing behind before they rocket out of position and go 0-60 in 2.8 seconds. They want to see cars powerslide and drift the corners, leaving long black rubber tire streaks on the pavement in the process.

So what are you going to do with common front-wheel-drive vehicles? That lame-ass economy priced Saturn is the only vehicle you have access to in order to chase down the bad guy. You're gonna make it look cool and turn it into a Rear Wheel Drive just so you can see the lame car burning rubber and drifting in the corners. That's what this trope is. Turning the lame and mundane cars into the cool and race-worthy just so that it can be cool and race-worthy.

This trope reminds me of Final Fantasy IX. Early on in the game, there is one NPC you can talk to who asks what you think about engines being situated near the front or the back of an airship. The NPC takes a stance towards engines on the front since it provides more solid control, and doesn't like the idea of engines in the back just to provide more power. That is what this trope is: Rear Wheel Drives are designed to throw more power into the car by pushing the entire vehicle from the rear wheels instead of pulling the whole mass behind it with the front.

I'm not sure what, if anything, can be done about the examples. I can't tell if any of them are wrong, since they're all informative. This is certainly tropeworthy.

edited 5th Jul '12 10:18:24 PM by DRCEQ

Does that ever actually happen, though? I can't think of any films where they've picked a Saturn and made it into a RWD rather than just having a muscle car.

There's also the case of a car that revs up to a high speed and pops a wheelie before taking off. That's a very solid indicator that said car is meant to be RWD.

That's a bit dismissive. At the very least, they can be considered a Type 1 and Type 2 of the same trope.

edited 6th Jul '12 5:10:48 AM by KingZeal

Again, are we REALLY gonna include RW Ds being RW Ds in the examples? I can see why the popularity of RWD vehicles in visual media should be mentioned in the description, but as for examples... I'd say no. No examples that go "lookit, this action film also has 32 RWD cars."