All Wheel Drive ?

[Lang]

Mike

Just spent half an hour searching hundreds of ads and pictures.

FWD obviously only ever seemed to use "four wheel drive"

Both Jeffery and Nash used "quad" and "four wheel drive" in their advertising.

The expression "all wheel drive" seemed to start arising with the experimental multi-wheel vehicles of the late war to early 50's period both military and oil field machines.

I did find a mention in a Studebaker ad about their WW2 trucks. They talked about their 6x4 trucks carrying supplies then said "Our boys in the rugged conditions of the front line love our all wheel drive 6x6 workhorse"

I think these days the AWD expression is a marketing thing to differentiate sophisticated cars and light SUV's from the public perception "four wheel drive" is a rough off-road working machine.

I found some sales discussion saying something like "our SUV is "all wheel drive" for safety in wet or icy conditions, for those requiring heavy off road capability we have our strong "four wheel drive" line of vehicles.

All marketing double-speak!

Lang