I was browsing through some historic race cars on wikipedia and saw that the famous Porsche 935 Moby Dick has no differential at all. Why would this be used? Wouldn’t it seriously impair handling and tire wear?
In: Engineering
I can’t tell you why that Porsche has no diff, but I know that many of the race cars that have no diff are missing it specifically in order to make drifting easier and more controllable. Sprint cars, for example, have no diff.
I can speculate on likely reasons why the Porsche might be missing a diff. I know that limited-slip differential technology was pretty lacking back then, and so perhaps a solid axle was a better choice, to negate tire spin on the inside wheel.
If a car with an ordinary diff sends a lot of power to the drivewheels, the tire with the least traction is likely to spin, and then the other wheel gets little to no power at all. A solid axle negates that problem; both wheels get the same amount of power, and in order to break loose, you need to break *both* wheels loose, which is much harder. Obviously limited-slip diffs do an even better job, and modern traction control systems are even better again, but older cars or cars in classes with limited tech or budget might still use a solid axle.
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