Chassis can be considered an under-appreciated part of a car. Not a lot of people know about them and even fewer people care about them. Granted we don’t have a choice in selecting what chassis we want to use on our car but knowledge about them will help you determine what potential your car has and what are its limits. Following are the Four main types of car chassis.
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Ladder Frame Chassis
One of the oldest chassis, the ladder chassis gets its name from the shape of has which simply put, is like a ladder. It has two long and heavy beams which are supported by two short beams. The main selling point of the ladder chassis was how easy it was to manufacture. During the beginning of the era of the automobile, technology was not really advanced and the simplicity of the ladder chassis made it easier to mass-produce. The chassis also makes the car assembly easier. The ladder chassis is quite heavy and thus still finds use in vehicles that need to tow heavy stuff around.
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Advantages
- Easier to assemble as parts can be easily put in.
- Construction method makes it quite tough.
- Easier to fix as parts are not permanently attached.
Disadvantages
- The ladder chassis has a weak torsional rigidity making it bad for cornering.
- Heavyweight makes it not ideal for sports cars or hatchbacks.
Backbone Chassis
It also gets its name from how it’s constructed. A rectangular cross-section cylindrical tube through the middle of the chassis that connects the top and the bottom suspension. The backbone. It’s present in cars like Skoda Rapid and DMC DeLorean. The cylindrical tube actually covers the driveshaft thus making it safer from getting damaged which can also be a disadvantage.
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Advantages
- Due to its construction, the half axle has better contact with the ground when off-roading.
- The driveshaft is covered by the chassis makes it more likely to survive off-roading.
- The structure has good torsional rigidity allowing it to withstand more twist than ladder chassis.
Disadvantages
- The driveshaft repair is complicated if it fails as the main chassis covers the entire shaft which makes it necessary to open it.
- The manufacture of backbone chassis is quite expensive which increases the cost of cars it is in.
Monocoque Chassis
A unibody structure, it too gets its name from its structural look. Monocoque being french for ‘single shell’ or a ‘single hull’. The monocoque was first used by ships and then by aeroplanes. It took quite some time to figure out that they can be used in cars as well. A monocoque is a shell around the car made by using both chassis as the frame in a single construction. This is the most commonly used chassis right now due to the number of advantages of has over the other two chassis.
Advantages
- It’s safer than both the other chassis due to its cage-like construction.
- The chassis is easy to repair as well.
- It has superior torsional rigidity.
Disadvantages
- The chassis is obviously heavy as it’s both the frame and chassis as one single entity.
- Producing it in small quantities is not financially feasible and thus it cannot be used for cars that are not mass-produced.
Tubular chassis
Tubular chassis were mainly used in race cars due to the unrivalled safety they provide. These were an upgrade from the ladder chassis as they were three dimensional and were stronger than ladder chassis. They employed the use of a strong structure below the doors to get more overall strength. Tubular chassis are rarely used on passenger cars.
Advantages
- Better rigidity compared to other chassis in the same weight.
- Offers the best weight/rigidity ratio allowing the car to be lightweight while being strong.
- Best choice for race cars due to lightweight and better rigidity than other chassis.
Disadvantages
- Tubular chassis are complex structures and cannot be made using autonomous methods.
- Tubular chassis are time-consuming to build and cannot be mass-produced.
- Not feasible to be used on passenger cars.
- The structure raises the door which makes it difficult to access the cabin.
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This covers the three major types of car chassis. As you might have noticed all three have a different role to play and are useful for different types of driving styles. You can’t exactly compare them and decide which type is better because they are all individually good in what they do.
