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I'm talking about all wheel drive, all the time. One front and the rear wheel are directly coupled, the other front is independently driven, but through a limited slip. The ratios are all identical, unless I slightly overdrive the rear, common in 4WD vehicles. The limited slip will prevent the steering & handling from getting too squirrely.The 3 separate wheels are all seeking traction on 3 different parts of road surface. That is an advantage over trying to get traction on 2 parts of road surface, just like a 2WD limited slip has advatage over a single leg differential 1WD. Even in slushy ruts or wallows where front wheels both lose traction the single centered driven rear would be on higher & drier ground, getting traction. Many 3WD do very well, even offroad, with only the single rear wheel driven.My front drive will be the nearly stock Dodge Omni setup, but limited slip to give traction to both front wheels. The rear will be driven off one front. Disc brakes on all 4, with those made for a car weighing 3 times as much, so killer brakes.I am building for several reasons, first because I want to. Also it is cheapest to register and insure, as a motorcycle, plus I beat all SMOG regs, very important here in California. I can easily build the whole machine for way under $1,000. A stock Omni can knock down 41-44 mpg easy, at around 3,000lbs or so. I figure on something like 75+mpg with 1/3 the vehicle weight & good aerodynamics.It will be a multi-use vehicle for most any road surface and moderate offroad, and should be good in snow, sand and mud. It will have extreme acceleration, crazy top speed if I wanted, very aggressive handling, excellent for the steep & twisty mountain roads here. It could pull my small popup trailer for long trips, with incredible mileage. It will seat 2, look good, handle great with incredible acceleration, handle most any terrain and all with far more than good mileage and be exciting to drive. Complete parts cars are readily available for $200-$300. The tranny I'm using is a direct boltup to the VW 4 cylinder diesel. I've got a spare turbo and can intercool it and have strong power & torque, and bring the mpg's up around 100mpg if I drop in a diesel.I can't see any reason NOT to build it
Okay, let's see here: the single rear drive was used on all the early 3 wheelers in England, such as Morgan. In trials & rally events a 4 wheeled vehicle couldn't come close to the performance, this was for over 30 years.
The only REAL good way to connect different tires like this would be to drive each with a CVT. Or at least the rear with a CVT. Then it could adjust some.