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Comment by stephenhuey | Hacker News Reader

> Automakers began to abandon the rear-engined layout in the 1970s, with only a handful of cars still available in the 1980s. This was due to the fact that rear-engined, rear-wheel-drive cars were prone to oversteer, which caused vehicle instability.

https://www.topspeed.com/cars/car-news/10-rear-engined-cars-...

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not to mention how awful they are in slippery (ice/snow) conditions, which is related to exactly what you mentioned with oversteer

Engines are only ~100kg usually. And a full fuel tank is also about 100kg.

So the fuel tank and engine could be swapped without affecting weight distribution.

Sorry, you're way off there. My ancient car has a gigantic 90 litre fuel tank. At 720g / litre, that's 64.8kg. And that really is a huge tank - most cars are more like 40-60 litres.

The engine, meanwhile, well it depends what you count as "the engine". If we take it to mean "everything in the engine bay" - radiators, filters, pumps, etc. - you're going to be looking at several times that. Hell, even a battery is like 20kg.

What about everything else around the engine? You wouldn’t just move the engine to the rear but keep the transmission and the alternator and etc in the front.

Engines are only ~100kg usually

220lbs? Only the lightest ones. Let's also not forget the transmission/transaxle too.

https://www.gomog.com/allmorgan/engineweights.html

The fuel tank is partially empty most of the time when we drive, and many drivers never refill to the top of the tank, or don't put more fuel until the tank is almost empty. Those 100Kg could be on average 30 or 40Kg.

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