LOL, thats pretty funny. It is interesting, today we think of a FWD V8 as ridiculous but back in the 90s there were a bunch of them.

 

^^^^My Dad had a 1966 Toronado. It was the most evil handling car I've ever driven The brakes were terrible When driven on the FW, you had to anticipate an exit to get the darn thing slowed down

Lou

 

Same with the 1980s.....FWD was a very popular selling feature back then

 

My dads 95 STS had 300 hp through the front wheels, it had some torque steer but nothing crazy.

 

Having a retro-magazine day Sunday.

 

they deserved to go out of business for that awful 1990s ad copy. I remember reading those poorly worded, smug ads in Car and Driver as they came out.

 

I remember Aurora being very expensive and I believe it shared platform of the FWD Cadillac STS of that era.

The RWD Lincoln LS from that period (which shared platform with Jag Stype) was by far the best American sport sedan at that time and was MotorTrend car of the year i believe. They were very cool.

 

The Lincoln LS was a nice car and under appreciated at the time. Every now and then I'll see one on the road and they've aged pretty well.

 

I distinctly remember the Consumer Reports write-up on the LS. They said, at the time, that it was probably the highest-rated American-badged car they had ever tested, although the Jaguar S-Type, which was a derivative of the same platform, had what I thought was a nicer interior and both-styling.

Perhaps the LS's biggest drawback was offering the V6 with a 5-speed manual transmission, and then not doing the same for the V8 version. Lincoln marketed the V8 version of the LS directly at the BMW 540i...which did come with a 3-pedal manual transmission....but refused to produce the V8 LS with one.

 

Long term reliability was an issue with those cars.
Mostly electrical stuff.

 

The Aurora wasnt expensive, they were actually a pretty good value.

 

I'm not a big fan of the Aurora, but one of the things that it deserves credit for (also along with some Cadillac and Ford Taurus SHO models) is that they are among the relatively few vehicles that successfully used a transverse-V8 engine/FWD layout...and even more credit for keeping the inevitable torque-steer manageable.

 

I don’t care enough to look it up, but I wonder if they were able to get the CV axles to be equal length in order to mitigate torque steer.

 

I really don't understand what your issue was with the Aurora. I suspect it has more to do with old school Oldsmobiles and the Aurora replacing them than it has anything to do with the Aurora itself.

Lincoln also used a transverse FWD/V8 layout. More companies did than you realize.

 

I didn't hate the car....and I've seen lots worse from GM. But you're at least partly correct. The 88/98 and Cutlass essentially made Olds into the successful division it became....and the Aurora, IMO, was an attempt to make those sedans into a four-door coupe. The division was never the same after it was introduced, and, unfortunately, did not survive its downfall.

I will give Olds (and, presumably, the Aurora) credit for one thing during that period.....the adoption of Saturn's no-haggle pricing was an excellent idea (that's one of the things that made Saturn successful in the 1990s)...but, for Olds, it was too little, too late.

Yes, that's correct.....forgot about that one. But, I think, it was the FWD Lincoln Continental (the same one your Father once owned)...which was essentially the Taurus SHO V8 platform that I mentioned....and vice-versa.