# Questions About the Cord Atomobile (USA, ca. 1930s)

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-the-cord-atomobile-usa-ca-1930s/615986>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 16, 2012, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-the-cord-atomobile-usa-ca-1930s/615986 "2012-03-16T17:54:31Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2012, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-the-cord-atomobile-usa-ca-1930s/615986/1 "2012-03-16T17:54:31Z")

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The Cord was a prestige car of its day-and it was one of the first US built cars to offer front wheel drive. From what I understand, the FWD system used in the car was pretty primative-it used the old style Cardan universal joints, on the front axles.  
In modern FWD cars, the jonts used are of the “constant velocity/Rzeppa” type-the old Cardan joints have a big problem-when the steering angle changes, the wheels vary in velocity.  
This would be most noticable while parking or turning the car-you would get a jerking/pulsing motion, and most likely a lot of tire wear. On the highway, as long as you were going in a straight line, you would be OK-but turns at speed could be pretty scarey.  
My qestion: was FWD abandoned (larely) for this reason? There doesn’t seem to have been another S FWD car till the Oldsmobile Toronado (mid 1960’s).

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**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2012, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-the-cord-atomobile-usa-ca-1930s/615986/2 "2012-03-16T19:03:40Z")

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Not _everyone_ abandoned FWD. Citroen used a very similar set up in the Traction Avant starting in 1934 and it apparently worked well enough since they sold tons of them and kept building them for more than two decades. I couldn’t tell you why Cord’s clunky U-joint front end was problematic but Citroen’s wasn’t, but it was apparently quite possible to make a perfectly serviceable FWD car using the old non-CV joints.

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**Author:** ![Dog80](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/6bbea6/32.png) [@Dog80](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dog80)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2012, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-the-cord-atomobile-usa-ca-1930s/615986/3 "2012-03-16T19:07:27Z")

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Cannot answer the question directly, but there are [double cardan joints](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constant-velocity_joint#Double_Cardan) that eliminate the speed variation problems. When one joint accelerates the other one decelerates by the same amount so the speed between input and output is always constant.

Double cardan joints are still used on the front wheels of heavy duty AWD trucks because they are simpler than CV joints and can handle more torque