Very interesting article, however an important and overlooked piece of history is that in the early days of automotive engineering, a strong selling point for FWD was that you could drive into a service facility and with a few bolts, replace the engine, transmission and drive train. A few minutes later you could drive away in a mechanically new vehicle.

Rear engined VWs had the same modular engine transaxle arrangement as FWD cars do today.

Best thing about FWD is the fun you can have in a wet car park with the parking brake pulled on hard.

I tried to drift with my new front wheel drive vehicle.

It would not drift. It just tooled around the corner under perfect control.

So I tried some skids. Bloody hell, the thing would not swing its tail around! It just came to a controlled stop.

I feel sorry for kids today who will never get to learn how to drift and fishtail all over the road like I did when I was growing up!

Oh well...enjoy it while you can....it won't be much longer before the world will wake up to the fact that a car is really not a sustainable mode of transportation. Fuel prices and congestion will render it a relic of the past, and those of us with children will breathe a sigh of relief that our kids won't have a 1 percent chance of being killed or maimed on the roads. But hey, there will always be "graffitti night"!

Fear not. Learn to left foot brake. It works best with a manual, but can be done with an automatic, too, but less predictably.

As you go into a turn in which you desire oversteer, you brake with your left foot and simultaneously accelerate with your right. The front wheels keep turning, and if you want, can keep a constant speed. The more throttle and brake you apply, the closer the rears are to locking. But you don't need to lock them all the way to induce impressive amounts of oversteer.

Hell on brakes, but fun.

Dynamic stability control systems do this kind of thing automatically, so that the car follows the apparent driver intent. If your car has stability control, and it is engaged, then left foot braking is not so effective.

With a proper handbrake lever like they always used to have, it is easier to use the handbrake. You get good control of the rear end, and can still control the front end using throttle and steering. Good fun!