Why does the front end of a car “lift up” while accelerating?
In: Physics
If you want, you can think of this as an action-reaction thing. When Newton wrote that he was talking about forces, but it’s also true that every applied moment/torque produces an equal and opposite moment/torque.
Picture a car, facing to the right. (I was going to say pretend it’s a rear wheel drive, but this is a 2020 Mustang so we don’t have to pretend.)
https://www.fleet.ford.ca/is/image/content/dam/vdm_ford/live/en_ca/ford/nameplate/mustang/2020/collections/dm/20_frd_mst_rpro_gtp_twor.tif?croppathe=1_21x9&wid=1440
When it accelerates, the drivetrain applies a clockwise torque to the wheels. The reaction is that the wheels apply a counterclockwise torque to the drivetrain, and the car that’s attached to it.
For reasonable accelerations, the reaction torque is pretty mild and all it does is slightly reduce the downforce on the front wheels. But if your car is a beast, that torque can be enough to actually lift the front wheels off the ground.
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