Wheel hop is also quite evident in performance modified
front wheel drive cars, and possibly a tad bit worse, especially since it's that much harder to
remedy it in that case, due to
weight transfer working directly against you.
With a
rear wheel drive car, you have all the weight transfering to the back, which puts more weight on the
axle, making it that much harder for the wheels to lose
traction. Of course, most rear wheel drive cars you see
peeling out are usually
performance vehicles, or have been modified to be such. That or the
car is going around a corner, which does lots of funky shit to the rear of the car. I won't go into the
aerodynamics of it all, but it's much easier to lose it in a corner in a rear wheel drive car.
In a
front wheel drive car, you have one more factor adding to the problem of
wheel hop: the weight is being taken OFF the
drive wheels as you accelerate. For the most part you won't end up noticing it that much, due to the fact that most front wheel drive cars on the street are small
economy designed vehicles, with power in the higher bands, as opposed to the lower
RPM range. Regardless, when one accelerates, weight transfers to the rear, taking some away from the front. Now what happens when you take weight away from the drive wheels in this factor? It means that these wheels will lose
traction.
Taking a trip to the
drag strip will demonstrate this, as you see some actual performance vehicles go at it. Notice that actual drag cars with a rear wheel drive usually have a huge
spoiler on them, in addition to said
traction bars, to add force to the rear, keeping the wheels on the ground. A front wheel drive car usually will have some sort of chin spoiler to try to add downforce, but for the most part, lots of other tricks are used.
This is not to say that front wheel drive cars don't have their value, it's just that for the most part they either don't have the low end
torque to break the wheels loose, or they are geared for track and handling rather than flat out acceleration. When going 120mph+ around corners, you can generate a lot of
downforce to maintain a somewhat reasonable
contact patch, front, rear, or
all wheel drive