[alfavirusnz]

planetmojo, whilst there is limitations on the hp you can successfully put through wheels that both steer and transmit power and still make a "nice car" the reality is there are some extremely quick and satisfying road cars that even have a bias towards oversteer as the designed handling trait. FWD does not always equal plough on understeer or horrible steering. Unfortunately in the USA you miss and have missed some fantastic cars. The Alfasud was one with razor sharp steering and a chassis that was biased towards oversteer in a very stable communicative way. Think that because it was small engined it wasn`t effective or not a "mans car"? think again. Some very effective road and racing cars have been FWD.
I had a mildly modified `81 Alfasud Ti which I owned since new at the same time I had my`87 Ferrari Testarossa, and my GTV6 and have a favourite test route behind and around our airport. Guess which was the 2nd quickest around the route because of power to weight, it`s low mass and weight (890kg plus driver) and its agility and handling. To say this FWD chassis was not a true sporting chassis is denying reality as is to deny that a 205 GTi Peugeot or a Lancia Fulvia to name 2 other superb FWD chassis were not sporting and highly effective against almost anything.
Minis were able to compete with the GTA Juniors on the track in their day more than successfully and if you don`t think FWD makes for a good racing car have a look a some classes both classic and present day classes-a lot of the Alfa classic categories are dominated by FWD where RWD Alfas also take part-it all depends on what you are competing with, but you are correct the huge horsepower all out categories such as F1 prefer RWD. You`ve been too general and maybe influenced by those US market products.