Question of the Week: What’s a Great Car That Would’ve Been Better with AWD?—WINNER’S UPDATE: A Practical Look
WINNER’S ANNOUNCEMENT:
We’re back to announce the winner for our Question of the Week, where our victor will accept a $25 credit for a hat or T-shirt from the BaT Gear Store and the acclaim of their peers.
Our question this week: What’s a great car that would’ve been better with AWD?
We read through the 100-plus comment thread, where many of you made the case for some great cars. This week we’re choosing the comment that most stood out to us (Editorial Privilege!) and awarding the prize to BaT member @StudebakersandSaabs, who nominated the Volkswagen Corrado SLC:
Image: Car and Driver
Andrew Frankel, co-founder of The Intercooler Magazine (which we’ve just officially partnered with—check it out!), reminisced about his time with a Corrado VR6 in a 2025 article and described it thusly: “putting that big motor in such a small space and then asking it to drive the front wheels could have spelled dynamic disaster,” and “[i]nstead it wrought a miracle.”
Now imagine it with AWD from the git! Congratulations, StudebakersandSaabs! Be sure to check your email to claim the prize.
There were plenty of other great nominations to be mentioned this week, starting with one of our favorites:
“Don’t laugh. 2005 Honda Odyssey, probably one of the best all around buggies I have ever owned. AWD would have been icing on the cake.”
“@Carunch – The 2005 Odyssey was available with AWD in Japan. Maybe one will be offered on BaT someday and you can grab it!”
We’re not ones to yuck anyone’s yum! In fact, we’ve got plenty of minivan backers around these parts, and indeed, there was an AWD version of the third-generation Honda Odyssey—RB2, to be exact.
“The Volvo C30.
Awesome little hot hatch, with a manual… AWD would have brought it home!”
Image: Volvo
“1999-2002 Saab 9-3 Viggen. Too much power for the FWD chassis it was burdened with. Its reputation for torque steer is legendary.”
Image: Car and Driver
BaT user @Nicolas on a hot hatch:
I’m not going to name any RWD cars because of principles. I’m also not going to go “any and all FWD cars” because that’s too easy. I’ll dive into the pond of FWD cars commonly used for rallying that do not have an AWD variant. So we’re talking about cars like the Escort Mk3, the later Mazda 323…but there’s one that stands out to me.
It’s the 1988-1993 Corsa A GSi (Vauxhall Nova GSi). It already looks like a baby Delta Integrale. It’s lightweight, a joy to toss around, only held back by lazy rear wheels. Bonus points: due to platform similarities, it was rather straightforward to AWD transform using parts from other cars. The factory just never got around to it. Likely because they had the Calibra in their lineup, but that was not the question at hand. So the Corsa A GSi is the answer!
“Saab 9000 Turbo. Saabs were already quirky machines from a snow-filled country, and AWD would have been a boon all around. Better at dealing with slippery conditions, no more torque-steer complaints, and the 9000 was already the luxury Autobahn slayer of Saab’s lineup, so AWD would have been one more feather in the cap for the top trim of the top car.”
The story goes that Saab began developing an AWD system for the 9000 during the 1980s as a riposte to Audi’s Quattro, using an electronically controlled limited-slip differential developed by Sigvard “Sigge” Johansson. Unfortunately, the concept was shelved by GM in favor of Opel’s Calibra 4×4, which had already been in development. One prototype was built, however, as shown above.
“Many of these will be heretical to sporting drivers but adding all wheel drive to the original 930 would have completely changed the narrative around the car.”
Image: Car and Driver
“Volvo 245. Already a near perfect wagon with great ride height, got almost anywhere already. With AWD it would have gotten out, too.”
“Omni GLHS.”
Image: Car and Driver
“Definitely the Mazda Speed 3”
BaT member @Jarods7920 built and sold his AWD MazdaSpeed3 conversion on the site in 2022, using bits from a CX-7 and a Volvo S40. His technical comment was just as impressive.
“I wonder how an AWD Panther platform product would have done.”
Some of us stay up at night wondering about that too.
And we’ll wrap up with a comment from @bodhi1601 on surviving his childhood in the 1960s:
The 1964 Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser Station Wagon. Unless the “antispin” differential was specifically ordered, this car, on ice and snow, was essentially a one-wheel-drive vehicle. Fine for summer highway driving, but growing up just outside of Boston in the 1960s, it was the kids’ job during the winter to shove this monstrously overweight car up our ice-covered, sloping driveway with a well-meaning adult at the wheel frantically spinning one rear wheel, kicking up ice and gravel while yelling encouragement to the kids at the back bumper. Fortunately, there were four of us pushing, and the car only occasionally rolled back on us. Jeez, we could have used Four Wheel Drive. It’s a wonder we survived childhood in the ’60s.
Image: Hot Rod
Thanks again to everyone who participated! Congratulations once again to our winner, StudebakersandSaabs. We’ll be back with a new Question of the Week soon!
ORIGINAL POST:
Welcome to the BaT Question of the Week! For those unfamiliar, here are the rules: we ask an automotive-themed question, and the author of our favorite answer from the comments is awarded a $25 credit to the BaT Gear Store.
This week, we’re asking: What’s a great car that would’ve been better with AWD?
Today, it’s not too difficult to find a new automobile offered with four driven wheels—more like front-biased drive systems with the occasional kick out back, but we digress. Since the 1980s, AWD has earned a special place in the hearts of many for performance and inclement-weather prowess, and once in a while, we catch ourselves wondering whether some already-great rides could have been even better with all-wheel drive.
We certainly have our own conjectures, but we’ll cut right to it:
What’s a great car that would’ve been better with AWD?
Tell us your suggestions in the comments, and give a thumbs-up to any nominations that grab your attention. We’ll announce the winner on Tuesday.
“The Volkswagen Corrado, especially the SLC, would have been improved with AWD.
Virtually all the parts existed in VW parts bin to do it, it’d be a mashup of Rallye Golf and Syncro Passat to complete the driveline, but everything did exist to make that a reality.
It’s not a COMMON swap, but a few Syncro Corrados have been made by enthusiasts over the years, and it’s a pretty OE-looking conversion.”
9
StudebakersandSaabs commented on Question of the Week: What's a Great Car That Would've Been Better with AWD?—WINNER’S UPDATE