[Trevor]

Hi Harvey,

Not to worry as this was quite a difficult concept to put into words I agree and the reason for the diagram.

I have kept my old 1972 FF1 Subaru on the basis of it being the best basically engineered car I have come across. It has an ideal set up for front drive. There is no front wheel off set and no torque steer. This is achieved as a result of inboard front brakes which allow for an extreme dish in the wheels so that the steering axis can align with the for and aft centre line of the tyre contact patch. This gets over much of the torque steer problem as you have described and also reduces steering effort as well as unsprung weight. It does mean that the drive assembly also has to take a considerable reverse load on braking but this has proven to be no disadvantage although unusual in a " cooking model " car.

The FF1 has lots of other down to earth design features which indicate absolute common sense as the main consideration of the designers. All driving and front suspension stresses are isolated and concentrated within a tubular front sub frame. This can be unbolted from the body section and removed as an assembly which pretty well incorporates all the cars important wearing components. Removal can be achieved in less than an hour.

In point of fact the car sort of trundles along behind a traction unit ! Quite quickly too. 107 genuine MPH is even now not bad for a 1200 c. c. full sedan with vast luggage space.

It would be very easy to go one step further to facilitate a set up allowing one to drive in for repairs and in 15 minutes drive out again with a rental mechanicals in place. What a set up that would be for fleet vehicles etc. Working on the removed assembly would be a piece of piss as the saying goes. How about that for changing some of the hard to get at stuff on the SVX ! We can but dream.

How do you get a license to shoot a pistol in OZ , for the fourth fffing time ? What is the oil ?

Regards, Trevor.