06 Jul 01
When talk turns to post-war rear-engined cars, most people recall only the Beetle, the Porsche 911 and, possibly, the Hillman Imp, but there were many interesting European vehicles that used the layout before it started to fall out of favour on mainstream cars in the mid '60s. A rear-engined set-up had a number of advantages: for a start, the noises and smells of the engine were drawn away from the passenger compartment and, with no transmission bulge, there was more room inside. Downsides centred on perceptions about handling: rear-engined machines could be wayward at moderate speeds, let alone flat-out, while taking your foot off the accelerator mid-way round a hard-charged bend could have your car spinning like a 45.
Apart from Porsche's everlasting 911, we tend to associate rear engines with cheap, basic designs that fall over on corners. But as our list shows, not all these cars were utilitarian, crude or ill-handling: the Alpine A110 was an outstanding sports car, the Tatra uncompromisingly engineered with its four-cam, air-cooled V8. Once our roads teemed with such cars, but now only the Porsche 911 remains, lonely champion of the rear-engined cause.
