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Small,
light, lower power sports cars, as it avoids the extra
weight, increased transmission power loss, and packaging
problems of a long driveshaft and longitudinal engine of FR
vehicles. Yet, its conservative handling effect,
particularly understeer, and the
fact that many drivers believe FR is a more appropriate layout
for a sports car make this layout atypical to high-performance
sports cars.
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 The
RMR layout is commonly found only in
sports cars — the motor is centre-mounted in the chassis closer
to and behind the driver, and powers only the rear wheels.
High-performance sports car manufacturers, such as Ferrari and
Lamborghini prefer this layout. Many modern cars, especially
grand tourers, also use a FMR layout, with
the motor sitting between the front axle and the firewall.
Porsche is one
of the few, remaining manufacturers using the rear-engine,
rear-wheel drive layout. The motor's distributed weight across
the wheels, in a Porsche 911, provides excellent traction, but
is not ideal, as the engine's weight is not between the two
axles; the vehicle is poorly balanced, thus, many early Porsches
handled twitchily. Yet Porsche has continuously refined the
design and in recent years combined engineering modifications
and electronic driving aids to counteract inherent design
shortcomings.
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