I dont agree with that but I was reading Maurice Olley's autobiographical book and was struck by how much the beam axle problems he sought to eliminate with IFS were , perhaps, peculiar to those times .
He studied precession and wheel hop in great detail at Rolls Royce but MAYBE a lot of the problem was due to the very large diameter wheels used then, the heavy tyres and the short length of the classis king pin swivels which wore quickly and then couldn't control the shimmy forces properly
Possibly with todays small wheels , lighter tyres and widely spaced ball joint pivots the precession and wheel hop problems with beam axles would be far less seriuos
What IFS did do was hugely help the stylists and packaging engineers by allowing the engine to go between the front wheels and sit low down. I do wonder if that was a big factor in Olley's development of IFS , he did work for Alfred P Sloan's GM after all.
I am not going to say the Range Rover was perfect for road ride and handling but it was pretty good thanks to Spen King's detail design so you can't say beam axles can't work on road cars when engine location is not such a benefit to IFS.
So, with modern F1 cars having virtually no suspension movement and upward sloping wishbones etc would beam axles still make sense in racecars where styling etc. is not relevant.
I know nobody has ever made beam axles work on road racing but I am stlll not sure what the really fundemental barriers are
Edited by mariner, 22 April 2012 - 21:26.