4 ms·

This is a very American point of view. German and Japanese cars are very modular; you can take certain parts from a 3 series and use them in a 7 series, and vic

by jbob2000 11y ago

This is a very American point of view. German and Japanese cars are very modular; you can take certain parts from a 3 series and use them in a 7 series, and vice-versa. The transmission in the Toyota 86 is straight out of a Lexus IS.

ghaff 11y ago
It's not really a nationality-based thing (although Toyota and VW do have the largest volumes on a single platform). There's been a significant shift toward modular automobile platforms in general. Some numbers I saw recently indicated that almost half of passenger cars were based on the top 20 platforms.
vetinari 11y ago
For some brands, there are retrofit fans, who take parts from newer models and put them into older, to get features that were never offered when their cars were made.
JohnBooty 11y ago
This is actually true for American cars as well. I used "Ford Fusion" and "Ford F-150" in my example because one's a family sedan and one's a big pickup truck. I bet the Fusion shares more than a few parts with the Focus. At the very least, each American manufacturer shares engines and transmissions across its various models. 80s and 90s American car interiors were sort of quietly hilarious. They shared common parts like crazy. You'd see the same gearshift, steering wheel, and so forth on various models. Maybe that's why it was a really ugly era in automotive interiors; their designs were constrained by all the common parts.
burger_moon 11y ago
And the transmissions from e36 and e39 (early-mid 2000s) are built by GM. There is actually a lot of cross platform and cross manufacturer parts rattling around in our vehicles. Honda is a great example of modular components. Taking a d-series and swapping it with a b-16/18/20 and even k-series with just a change in motor mounts/axles/ecu. It takes an afternoon to swap it over. Of course as you get further into the aftermarket realm things like bolt-in conversions for swapping 2jz into 90s mustangs becomes possible. Fabbing up some brackets isn't that hard, conversely, desoldering a cpu or dealing with non-modular computer components is a much more daunting task to me. The parts are too small and fragile.

ghaff 11y ago

It's not really a nationality-based thing (although Toyota and VW do have the largest volumes on a single platform). There's been a significant shift toward modular automobile platforms in general. Some numbers I saw recently indicated that almost half of passenger cars were based on the top 20 platforms.

vetinari 11y ago

For some brands, there are retrofit fans, who take parts from newer models and put them into older, to get features that were never offered when their cars were made.

JohnBooty 11y ago

This is actually true for American cars as well. I used "Ford Fusion" and "Ford F-150" in my example because one's a family sedan and one's a big pickup truck. I bet the Fusion shares more than a few parts with the Focus. At the very least, each American manufacturer shares engines and transmissions across its various models. 80s and 90s American car interiors were sort of quietly hilarious. They shared common parts like crazy. You'd see the same gearshift, steering wheel, and so forth on various models. Maybe that's why it was a really ugly era in automotive interiors; their designs were constrained by all the common parts.

burger_moon 11y ago

And the transmissions from e36 and e39 (early-mid 2000s) are built by GM. There is actually a lot of cross platform and cross manufacturer parts rattling around in our vehicles. Honda is a great example of modular components. Taking a d-series and swapping it with a b-16/18/20 and even k-series with just a change in motor mounts/axles/ecu. It takes an afternoon to swap it over. Of course as you get further into the aftermarket realm things like bolt-in conversions for swapping 2jz into 90s mustangs becomes possible. Fabbing up some brackets isn't that hard, conversely, desoldering a cpu or dealing with non-modular computer components is a much more daunting task to me. The parts are too small and fragile.