Not Tropeworthy: Every Car Is Rear Wheel Drive

At the very least, I think there's a Missing Supertrope here.

Look at The Fast And The Furious example listed on the page. The first movie uses a Mistubishi Eclipse GST, a vehicle that was designed as FWD. It is mentioned that the GSX model was the only AWD model in the series, but converting it into a RWD would require a very extensive and meticulous process with some very precise reconfiguring that would take a lot of time and money to actually do. (And speaking as someone who drove the same model of Eclipse for 5 years, I know where they're coming from.)

However, they didn't use a GSX for the movie. They had to film a couple scenes with the car going backwards just to get some of the power slide shots that the Eclipse pulls off.

Admittedly, even the Eclipse isn't a Saturn as you and I used as an example, but if they wanted to convey to the audience that they suped up a common car in order to turn it into a race car, converting it into RWD would be the best way to show this.

edited 6th Jul '12 9:57:38 AM by DRCEQ

Part of the trope is that genuine RWD cars are far more common in movies than real life, but that part doesn't need a bunch of examples.

Reading the examples, they're just a mishmash of whatever drive the cars use there. I don't see how the trope is used enough for the aversions to be notable, and most actual examples are just cars with rear drives. Most of the Real Life examples are just about the benefits of RWD. Overall, there's no consistency in the examples that tells me there's a specific trope they're talking about.

The Fast And The Furious is one of few aversions in that it makes for a good example.

edited 6th Jul '12 11:07:13 AM by Feather7603

The Fast and the Furious one seems to be the only specific example of this Trope on the page. I admit that's worth a mention, but an entire Trope built around it?

Yeah. I call not a trope here if we can only find one valid example.

What about: every car in the work is RWD (and no modifications allowed)?

But so what if every car in a work is RWD?

Cars being RWD is not a trope.

FWD/4WD card being RWD on the other hand...

But we've only found that in one work, really. One example is not a trope.

I do agree there is something.... off.. about the examples on the page that needs correcting. Maybe we're just lacking examples that fit along the lines of The Fast And The Furious example. I.E: How the developers provide innovative ways to show off a FWD or AWD car as being RWD.

Maybe the trope can be renamed Rear Wheel Drive Is Just Better to provide justification on why they're more desired. This would make most of the examples correct uses from what I can see.

No, no! Don't choose a new title to validate tropeless examples. Instead, remove all examples that don't follow a trope. Even if that means removing the entire page.

How could this not be a trope. The Fast and the Furious is a particularly egregious example because they pretended an FWD was an RWD, but regardless, it's still a trope that RWD is way more common in fiction than real life due to rule of cool if there's going to be a chase scene. It doesn't make sense to list every RWD that's ever power-slid around a corner, but it's a trope anyway.

Sure, it could be a trope, but if there's only one example, it falls under Too Rare To Trope.

There's not only one example. The trope is using RWD cars for Rule of Cool, not pretending FWD cars are RWD. That's just one noteworthy manifestation.

Rule of Cool is when something defies logic but is cool. If a RWD car is portrayed as RWD, that does not defy logic and is not Rule of Cool.

It's still just a collection of stuff regarding RWD.

edited 7th Jul '12 5:42:28 PM by Feather7603

It is when RWD cars are fairly rare in real life but conveniently present whenever there's a chase to be had in the movies. Is anyone complaining that Heroes Prefer Swords isn't a trope because William Shakespeares Romeo And Juliet is the only movie to have ever pretend that guns were swords?

edited 7th Jul '12 5:53:41 PM by AceOfSevens

Right, a lack of aversions isn't an argument against Heroes Prefer Swords. No Trope Is Too Common. A lack of examples is an argument against Fake RWD For Coolness. It is Too Rare To Trope.

But RWD Is More Common In Fiction? Who knows? The vast majority of the time, we have no idea whether a car in fiction is FWD or RWD because there's no way to tell. But if you want to track scenes where a car's rear wheels spin as the engine revs, sure, that's a trope. Engines Rev Wheels Spin. That page could mention as a sidenote how it's generally the rear wheels that spin.

edited 7th Jul '12 6:07:23 PM by Routerie

That and RWD cars are hardly "fairly rare." Many of the most popular cars in history have been RWD. Rear Wheel Drive simply existing in a movie is not a trope.

Up until a couple decades ago, sure. Cars on the market now are overwhelmingly FWD.

It's just the RWD minority that gets the majority of the attention...

Well, that's due to Small Reference Pools, more or less. More about what's cool and popular than commonly known, though.

Definitely cut worthy. You'll notice, in fact, that most things where the name is formulated as "All X Are Y" is just a complaint, not a trope.

Why wouldn't it be a trope if RWD were way more common in fiction than in real life?