Why in the World Does Porsche Use a Mid-Engine Configuration?

If you take a look across the performance landscape, you would think that automakers are really getting their stuff together with how efficient things tend to be these days, figuring out what the best possible way to make their cars go fast is. However, contrary to that idea, you’ll notice that even in this day and age, everybody is doing things in different ways still. Whether it be displacement selection or forced induction or even the placement of the engine, it actually doesn’t seem like very many automakers are on the same page as we have a diversity of really different options out there, leading us to question how close anyone really is to that ideal formula for performance.

If you look at an automaker like Porsche, you will notice that their cars are sporting an engine setup unlike very many other brands that you will see on the road every day. Instead of mounting the engines up front, they instead make use of a mid-engine setup, placing the engine behind the driver. It’s certainly not something that’s unheard of as there are plenty of cars that implement it but it certainly might confuse a couple of people who are new to the world of performance automobiles. Heck, even people who are familiar with these combinations probably are left to wonder what the actual benefits are.

Does the location of the majority of the weight in the car help out with acceleration or braking? You have to think that having the engine closer to the rear wheels which, in turn, are the drive wheels most of the time in a Porsche, would also provide some sort of traction benefit. If you follow along with Engineering Explained down in the video below, you get the rundown on what the science backs up and what’s nothing more than talk in relation to if it’s really all that worth it to have a mid-engine setup like this.