A mid-engine car is a vehicle placed in the middle of its chassis. Mid-engine vehicles make up less than 10% of all the automobiles produced worldwide.
The benefits of a mid-engine car are better weight distribution and handling. Weight is centered right over the driven wheels, increasing traction and reducing the tendency to oversteer or understeer when accelerating or braking.
A mid-engine design can also allow for a lower center of gravity, increasing stability and more incredible cornering speeds.
The disadvantages include reduced cargo space and a higher purchase price because of more complex engineering and design.
Today, many cars have their engines at the front or rear of the vehicle; however, some sports cars and exotic cars are manufactured with a machine in the middle.
A mid-engine car is a vehicle placed between the rear and front axles. Mid-engine cars are usually rear-wheel drive and often have a transmission at both ends of the machine.
The mid-engine layout facilitates weight distribution and balances the car’s overall weight, making it easier to drive.
A car that handles well will also be rapid and responsive, especially in low or medium-speed corners.
It can steer easily and quickly, making it more stable when braking into bends or roundabouts.
Generally, a car with good handling will seem lighter on its wheels than other cars, making it feel more agile and less tiring to drive, even though it may be heavier than a similar-sized car with a front engine.
History of Mid-Engine Car
If you’re a car enthusiast, the idea of a mid-engine car may conjure images of exotic Italian supercars you’ve never had a chance to drive.
But mid-engine cars have been around for a lot longer than that. In the 1950s and ’60s, Porsche made all-mid-engine race cars. In the 1920s and ’30s, Bugatti made front mid-engine race cars.
If you look at any list of the most successful racing cars of all time, you’ll see that they were almost all mid-engine.
What happened? Why don’t we drive these things on our roads today? The answer is safety.
It’s easy to keep a front-engine or rear-engine car stable: keep the two tires on the outside of the turn spinning faster than the two tires on the inside.
It’s so easy that since Henry Ford first tried it over 100 years ago, we’ve never considered doing it any other way for road cars.
Newton had just invented calculus, and they adapted it to make engines more efficient.
The most direct way to save fuel would be to replace the low-efficiency steam engine with a higher-efficiency internal combustion engine.
However, the internal combustion engine was much more complicated than the steam engine, so they did things that would have been inconceivable in an age without calculus.
They removed some wheels and put them on a single crank axle; you could get much higher efficiency that way.
It had so much lower friction that four wheels could be reduced to two; differential gears weren’t even needed.
In fact, according to one legendary engineer, this was the real reason that Henry Ford switched from four wheels to two: “There is no reason for having four wheels at all.”
However, this layout had problems, which can be traced back to Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks.
The biggest problem is the weight distribution; heavier components are towards the back of a rear-engine car, making it more.
But in a mid-engine car, only two wheels (the ones at the back) touch the ground, so there’s no way to use them to steer in turn without lifting one end or another off the road entirely.
How is a Mid-engine Car Different From Other Cars With Engines?
In a mid-engine car, the engine is in the middle of the vehicle. In a front-engine car, the engine is in front. What’s the difference?
In a mid-engine car, most of the engine’s weight is behind the driver, so it feels like you’re sitting in the back of the machine rather than in front of it.
That gives you more traction for turning and helps keep you from fishtailing when you accelerate.
Because turning and stopping is easier, a mid-engine car feels incredibly agile and responsive to your commands.
The same effect makes mid-engine cars more prone to oversteer than other cars with engines.
If you turn into a curve too sharply, they will understeer – they’ll tend to go straight rather than hanging with your input.
But if you turn too sharply out of a curve (a phenomenon called “power oversteer”), they will oversteer – they’ll tend to spin around and go in the opposite direction.
You can see this most often on wet or icy roads; because they are more slippery, they make it easier for a driver to get into trouble by misjudging his speed or angle of turn.
A mid-engine car puts the engine in the middle rather than upfront; for those asking, What is a Mid-engine car?
Thinking of the engine as the car’s powerplant is not a bad analogy. The powerplant makes it go and is usually separate from whatever gets it places.
The difference between having your engine in the front and back affects how a car handles.
Putting the engine in the front makes for a more balanced vehicle; putting it in the back makes it more maneuverable.
In airplanes, where you put your engine makes a big difference. You want your powerplant near your center of gravity, where your cockpit is.
In an airplane, you always try to get as much mass as possible behind that center of gravity.
A long freight train, for example, has many cars and few engines, which are far behind the center of gravity.
In cars, we want our engines to be far behind our centers of gravity, too—but we also wish to do them upfront.
We want them close to our weight so that they can help us get around turns by pushing us into them.
Advantages of a Mid-Engine Car
The main advantage of placing the engine in the middle is weight distribution.
When you drive forward, part of the car’s weight will be on its front and rear wheels.
If you put the engine at the front of a front-engine car, the weight will be distributed over the front wheels, which means they’ll have to do all the work.
So, either your car will have powerful front wheels, or it will have to be smaller and lighter if it has weaker ones.
The opposite is true for a mid-engine car. The center of gravity (the technical name for “the place where the car would balance if you put it on top of a pencil”) will be somewhere between the two axles rather than precisely over one of them.
And since it’s easier to balance something with two supports than one, a mid-engine car can be smaller, lower, or both.
We’ve already seen an example: compare pictures of a Porsche 911 or an Elan with a Toyota Corolla or Honda Accord.
The 911 and Elan are mid-engine, while the Corolla and Accord are front-engine.
A mid-engine car carries all its weight in a narrow central area, which makes it stable and responsive. You can turn it on a dime. It also weighs the drive wheels and handles better than a front-heavy car.
Another advantage is that it reduces the risk of rollover accidents by about 35 percent. It does this by increasing the weight distribution and decreasing the center of gravity of a vehicle.
Another advantage is avoiding expensive repairs from high mileage or collision damage when you have this type of car.
Mid-engine cars also tend to be highly agile on straightaways and curves. They achieve this through short wheelbases and long overhangs.
A mid-engine car has less body roll when cornering, and it’s easier to take corners faster. Because of this, they are often more spectacular to drive.
A lower mid-engine provides better visibility, fewer blind spots, and a better feeling of control. It also creates less turbulence in the back and reduces drag.
Why Have a Mid-engine Design
The most popular of these cars is the Porsche 911. The engine is mounted in the middle of the vehicle to give better handling and balance.
It also means less weight over the front or back wheels, providing better traction and grip.
It would be best if you considered purchasing a mid-engine car because of the following reasons:
- Better handling
- Better traction
- Feels more balanced when driving
- It is more practical because it doesn’t have a large boot at the back.
- It can be made into a 2+2, where two people sit in the rear behind the driver.
When turning a corner, a mid-engine car feels more balanced than a front-engine or rear-engine vehicle, which feels like it will tip over.
A mid-engine car is more nimble and more accessible to drive around bends and corners than a front or rear-engine vehicle.
There is less weight over one wheel or either side of the car, so it’s easier to turn, steer, and take corners.
This makes mid-engine cars suitable for racing, although this depends on who has built them.
Conclusion
If you’re a car enthusiast who enjoys driving fast vehicles, you’ve probably heard of the term “mid-engine” before. Maybe even dreamt of having one.
What exactly is a mid-engine car, then? Honestly, it sounds more relaxed than it is.
The phrase can mean many things, but it just means that the engine is mounted between the driver and passengers.
Those who aren’t substantial car fans think this may sound like boring cars and nothing special.
The reality is that these are some of the best cars ever made. Being slightly more affordable than a front-engine or rear-engine car also makes them ideal for drifting and racing.
You see, back in the day, it was an arms race to produce the fastest cars with massive engines in the front or back.
However, some people want something different, so they started moving their engines to the middle to give better weight distribution because some things aren’t about how much power you have but how you use it.
If you have a mid-engine car, your vehicle will be lighter since you don’t need as heavy components on either end of your vehicle as much, if anywhere at all, depending on your setup, potentially making it handle better.
