Late 1800s , and the first four-wheel drive without a steam engine. In 1893, before the establishment of the modern automotive industry, English engineer
Bramah Joseph Diplock patented a four-wheel drive system for a
steam-powered traction engine, including
four-wheel steering and three
differentials, which was subsequently built. The development also incorporated Diplock's
Pedrail wheel system in what was one of the first four-wheel drive automobiles to display an intentional ability to travel on challenging road surfaces. It stemmed from Diplock's previous idea of developing a
road-going steam engine that would reduce the amount of damage to public roads.
Ferdinand Porsche (senior) designed and built a four-wheel-driven
electric vehicle while at the
k.u.k. Hofwagenfabrik Ludwig Lohner & Co. in Vienna in 1899, which was presented to the public at the 1900 Paris
World's Fair. Trained as an electrical engineer, the young Porsche was hired by a maker of commercial carriages, to design and lead manufacture of the first "horseless carriages" for Lohner. The
Lohner-Porsche vehicles were
serial hybrids that used electric
hub motors in the driven wheels, powered by batteries, which were in turn charged by a gasoline combustion-engine driven generator – an arrangement that Porsche divised to give Lohner's vehicles the superior reliability of electric cars of the 1890s, but fitting an internal combustion generator was both cheaper and much lighter than the enormously heavy battery-pack that would otherwise have been needed to give commercial buyers the range they wanted, not to mention the useable payload challenges. Porsche's in-wheel motor design meant that Lohner's customers could freely choose either
front or
rear-wheel drive, but in 1898, one customer requested all four wheels to have a motor, because he hoped to get a car that would give him an advantage in European – mostly unpaved – road races in his time. However, despite Porsche's ingenious hybrid drive, which basically only required two extra motors and power cables, to achieve four-wheel drive (or perhaps
All-wheel drive), the car was still clumsily heavy. Due to their unusual status, neither Diplock's on-road steam-engine, despite pioneering the center, front and rear differential
drive-train, nor the hybrid
Lohner–Porsche are often given credit as the first four-wheel driven automobiles.
1900s–1920s The world's first four-wheel drive car directly powered by an internal-combustion engine, and the first with a
front-engine, four-wheel-drive layout, was the Dutch
Spyker 60 H.P.. Commissioned for the Paris to Madrid race of 1903, it was presented that year by brothers Jacobus and Hendrik-Jan Spijker of
Amsterdam. The two-seat sports car featured permanent four-wheel drive and was also the first car equipped with a six-cylinder engine, as well as four-wheel braking. Later used as a hill-climb racer, it is now an exhibit in the
Louwman Museum (the former Nationaal Automobiel Museum) in
the Hague, the Netherlands. Designs for four-wheel drive in America first came from the
Twyford Motor Car Company. The
Reynolds-Alberta Museum has a four-wheel-drive vehicle, named "
Michigan", from 1905 in unrestored storage. The first four-wheel-drive vehicles to go into mass production were built by (what became) the American
Four Wheel Drive Auto Company (FWD) of
Wisconsin, founded in 1908. (not to be confused with the term "FWD" as an initialism for
front-wheel-drive) Along with the 1- and 2-ton
Nash Quad (see below), the 3-ton FWD Model B became a standard military four-wheel-drive truck for the U.S. Army in World War I. Some 16,000 FWD Model B trucks were built for the
British and American armies during World War I – about half by FWD and the rest by other licensed manufacturers. Only about 20% of the trucks built were four-wheel drives, but the 4x4s were more often on the front lines. About 11,500 of the
Jeffery /
Nash Quad trucks were built for similar use between 1913 and 1919. The Quad not only came with four-wheel-drive and four-wheel brakes, but also featured four-wheel steering.
Daimler-Benz also has a history in four-wheel drive. After the
Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft had built a four-wheel-driven vehicle called
Dernburg-Wagen, also equipped with
four-wheel steering, in 1907, that was used by German colonial civil servant, Bernhard Dernburg, in
Namibia; Mercedes and BMW, in 1926, introduced some rather sophisticated four-wheel drives, the G1, the G4, and G4 following. Mercedes and BMW developed this further in 1937.
1930s (Russia) The American
Marmon-Herrington Company was founded in 1931 to serve a growing market for moderately priced four-wheel-drive vehicles. Marmon-Herrington specialized in converting
Ford trucks to four-wheel drive and got off to a successful start by procuring contracts for military and commercial aircraft refueling trucks, 4×4 chassis for towing light weaponry, and an order from the Iraqi Pipeline Company for what were the largest trucks built at the time. The early Marmon-Herringtons proved to be the exception to the rule — 4WD cars and trucks developed in the 1930s were mainly built for governments, with (future) warfare applications in mind. Dodge developed its first four-wheel-drive truck in 1934 — a military ton designated K-39-X-4(USA), of which 796 units were built for the U.S. Army in several configurations.
Timken supplied front axles and transfer cases, added to militarized a civilian truck. The Timken
transfer case was the first
part-time design, that allowed the driver to engage or disengage four-wheel drive using a lever inside the cab. In spite of the limited 1930s U.S. military budgets, the '34 truck was liked well-enough that a more modern ton truck was developed, and 1,700 RF-40-X-4(USA) trucks were produced in 1938, and 292 TF-40-X-4(USA) in 1939. The 1937 Mercedes-Benz G5 and BMW 325 4×4 featured full-time four-wheel drive, four-wheel steering, three locking differentials, and fully independent suspension. They were produced because of a government demand for a four-wheel-drive passenger vehicle. The modern Geländewagen such as the
Mercedes-Benz G-Class still feature some of the attributes, with the exception of fully independent suspension, since it can compromise ground clearance. The
Unimog is also a result of Mercedes 4x4 technology. The first Russian-produced four-wheel-drive vehicle, also in part for civilian use, was the
GAZ-61, developed in the
Soviet Union in 1938. "Civilian use" may be a bit of a misnomer, as most, if not all, were used by the Soviet government and military (as command cars), but the GAZ-61-73 version is the first four-wheel-drive vehicle with a normal closed
sedan body. Elements of the chassis were used in subsequent military vehicles such as the 1940
GAZ-64 and the 1943
GAZ-67, as well as the postwar
GAZ-69, and the properly civilian GAZ-M-72, based on the
rear-wheel drive GAZ-20 "Victory" and built from 1955 to 1958. Soviet civilian life did not allow the proliferation of civilian products such as the
Jeep in North America, but through the 1960s, the technology of Soviet 4×4 vehicles stayed on par with British, German, and American models, even exceeding it in some aspects, and for military purposes just as actively developed, produced, and used.
World War II – a leap in AWD proliferation Until "go-anywhere" vehicles were needed for the military on a large scale, four-wheel drive and
all-wheel-drive vehicles had not found their place. The
World War II Jeep, originally developed by
American Bantam, but mass-produced by
Willys and Ford, became the best-known four-wheel-drive vehicle in the world during the war. The American
Dodge WC series and
Chevrolet G506 4x4 variants were also produced by the hundreds of thousands, as well as the
Canadian Military Pattern trucks, of which 4x4s were by far the most prevalent of their various driveline configurations. All told, North America built about million 4x4 driven vehicles during the war, Availability of certain critical components, such transfer cases and especially
constant-velocity joints affected development. Though not used much on commercial vehicles, all-wheel drive vehicles all needed these; and they would use two or three times the number of driven axles, meaning more gears to cut for all the differentials. Produced up to the war by a few specialized firms with limited capacity, from spring 1942, Ford, Dodge, and Chevrolet joined in fabricating these in a quantity more than a 100-fold greater than in 1939. Although Russia had their own jeep-like vehicle (the GAZ-64) up and running in 1940, a year earlier than the American jeep, in the early years of the war, they relied significantly on
Lend-Lease vehicles, provided by the western allies. In 1943, they launched a further-developed version: the
GAZ-67. By contrast, the
Axis powers' closest equivalent to the jeep, the
VW Kübelwagen, of which only some 50,000 were built, though being equipped with
portal gear hubs, only had rear-wheel drive.
1945–1960s Willys introduced the model
CJ-2A in 1945, the first full-production four-wheel-drive vehicle for sale in the general marketplace. Due to the ubiquitous World War II Jeep's success, its rugged utilitarianism set the pattern for many four-wheel-drive vehicles to come. Dodge also started production of the civilian 4WD
Power Wagon trucks, for the 1946 model year. Both the Willys and the Dodge were developed directly from their WW II predecessors. Equally boxy to the Jeep, and also inline-four powered, the
Land Rover appeared at the Amsterdam Motor Show in 1948. Originally conceived as a stop-gap product for the struggling Rover car company, despite chronic underinvestment, it succeeded far better than their passenger cars. Inspired by a
Willys MB – the ubiquitous WWII "jeep" – that was frequently run off-road on the farm belonging to chief engineer
Maurice Wilks, Land Rover developed the more refined yet still off-road capable luxury 4WD
Range Rover in the 1970s. With the acquisition of the "Jeep" name in 1950, Willys had cornered the brand. Its successor,
Kaiser Jeep, introduced a revolutionary 4WD wagon called the
Wagoneer in 1963. Not only was it technically innovative, with
independent front suspension and the first
automatic transmission coupled to 4WD, but also it was equipped and finished as a regular passenger automobile. In effect, it was the ancestor of the modern
SUV. The luxury
AMC or
Buick V8-powered Super Wagoneer produced from 1966 to 1969 raised the bar even higher.
Jensen applied the Formula
Ferguson (FF) full-time all-wheel-drive system to 318 units of their
Jensen FF built from 1966 to 1971, marking the first time 4WD was used in a production
GT sports car. While most 4WD systems split torque evenly, the Jensen split torque roughly 40% front, 60% rear by gearing the front and rear at different ratios.
1970s–1990s American Motors Corporation (AMC) acquired Kaiser's Jeep Division in 1970 and quickly upgraded and expanded the entire line of off-road 4WD vehicles. With its added roadworthiness, the top-range full-sized Grand Wagoneer continued to compete with traditional
luxury cars. Partially hand-built, it was relatively unchanged during its production through 1991, even after
Chrysler's buyout of AMC.
Subaru introduced the category-expanding
Leone in 1972, an inexpensive compact
station wagon with a light-duty, part-time four-wheel-drive system that could not be engaged on dry pavement. In September, AMC introduced
Quadra Trac full-time AWD for the 1973 model year Jeep Cherokee and Wagoneer. Due to full-time AWD, which relieved the driver of getting out to
lock hubs and having to manually select between 2WD and 4WD modes, it dominated all other makes in FIA rally competition. Gene Henderson and Ken Pogue won the
Press-on-Regardless Rally FIA championship with a Quadra Trac-equipped Jeep in 1972. , world's first 4WD in a production GT sports car wagon, the most popular model in the line American Motors introduced the innovative
Eagle for the 1980 model year. These were the first American mass-production cars to use the complete front-engine, four-wheel-drive system. The AMC Eagle was offered as a
sedan,
coupe, and station wagon with permanent automatic all-wheel drive passenger models. The new Eagles combined Jeep technology with an existing and proven AMC passenger
automobile platform. They ushered a whole new product category of "sport-utility" or
crossover SUV. AMC's Eagles came with the comfort and high-level appointments expected of regular passenger models and used the off-road technology for an extra margin of safety and traction. The Eagle's thick
viscous fluid center differential provided a quiet and smooth transfer of power that was directed proportionally to the axle with the greatest traction. This was a true full-time system operating only in four-wheel drive without undue wear on suspension or driveline components. No low range was used in the transfer case. This became the forerunner of the designs that followed from other manufacturers. The automobile press at the time tested the traction of the Eagles and described it as far superior to the Subaru's and that it could beat many so-called off-road vehicles.
Four Wheeler magazine concluded that the AMC Eagle was "The beginning of a new generation of cars." The Eagles were popular (particularly in the
snowbelt), had towing capacity, and came in several equipment levels including sport and luxury trims. Two additional models were added in 1981, the subcompact SX/4 and Kammback. A manual transmission and a front axle-disconnect feature were also made available for greater fuel economy. During 1981 and 1982, a unique
convertible was added to the line. The Eagle's
monocoque body was reinforced for the conversion and had a steel
targa bar with a removable fiberglass roof section. The Eagle station wagon remained in production for one model year after Chrysler acquired AMC in 1987. Total AMC Eagle production was almost 200,000 vehicles.
Audi also introduced a permanently all-wheel-driven road-going car, the
Audi Quattro, in 1980. Audi's chassis engineer,
Jörg Bensinger, had noticed in winter tests in Finland that a vehicle used by the
West German Army, the
Volkswagen Iltis, could beat any high-performance Audi. He proposed developing a four-wheel-drive car that would also be used for
rallying to improve Audi's conservative image. The Audi
quattro system became a feature on production cars. In 1987,
Toyota also developed a car built for competition in rally campaigns. A limited number of road-going
FIA Homologation Special Vehicle Celica GT-Four (known as
Toyota Celica All-Trac Turbo in North America) were produced. The
All-Trac system was later available on serial production
Toyota Camry,
Toyota Corolla, and
Toyota Previa models. Some of the earliest
mid-engined four-wheel-drive cars were the various road-legal rally cars made for
Group B homologation, such as the
Ford RS200 made from 1984 to 1986. In 1989, niche maker
Panther Westwinds created a mid-engined four-wheel drive, the
Panther Solo 2.
2000–present In the United States, as of late 2013, AWD vehicles comprised 32% of new light vehicle sales, up 5% since 2008. This is in large part due to the popularity of the
crossover. Car manufacturers have inundated consumers with marketing proclaiming AWD as a safety feature, although the advantage of AWD over FWD occurs in accelerating, not braking or steering. Tests have shown that though AWD gives improved acceleration in wintery conditions, it does not help with braking. In 2008, Nissan introduced the
GT-R featuring a rear-mounted
transaxle. The AWD system requires two
drive shafts, one main shaft from the engine to the transaxle and differential and a second drive shaft from the transaxle to the front wheels. ==Uses==