Back in the 1980s, four-wheel-steering was all the rage in Japan. Honda, Mazda, Mitsubishi, and Nissan each developed their own 4WS systems and then installed them into a plethora of cars. These systems promised low-speed agility and high-speed. General Motors wanted in on the futuristic technology, and installed a four-wheel-steering system into a Chevrolet Celebrity to test it out.
It must have been exciting to work for an automaker anywhere in the world in the 1980s. Back then, Honda’s engineers spent a decade learning how they could improve active safety. According to studies examined by Honda, if a car could react to steering inputs quickly, it should be better at avoiding a crash. Honda figured the best way to achieve this would be to turn the rear wheels to aid steering response. Development of Honda 4WS began in 1977, and engineers experimented with different ways to implement 4WS. Eventually, they landed on the idea of having the rear wheels turn opposite of the front wheels during slow turns and then have those wheels turn with the front wheels at high speeds.
The result was that engineers were able to get a car to turn much sharper in tight, low-speed maneuvering. Yet, when you turned the car at high speeds, the vehicle was more stable with four wheels turning the same direction than just the two front steer tires doing all of the work. As you’d expect, the system was rather complex.
The 1988 Honda Prelude Si 4WS would become the first production car in America to use active four-wheel-steering. However, Honda wasn’t alone in developing the technology. In fact, if you focus on the Japanese market, Honda wasn’t even the first. Back in 1983, Mazda was one of the first to tease a future of active 4WS with its MX-02 concept car. It then reached production in the 626 Turbo. Mitsubishi launched its own system in the Galant VR-4 in 1987, while Nissan had 4WS in a Skyline all the way back in 1985.
The rest of the world wasn’t ready to let Japan have all of the fun.
The General Gets Weird
While Japan was developing its four-wheel-steering systems in the 1980s, there were developments here in America and also in Europe, too. General Motors was confident enough in the technology that it told the press that Americans might be able to buy something like a Pontiac with 4WS in the 1989 model year.
It’s unclear exactly when General Motors got the active four-wheel-steering bug, but the results were profound. In the mid- to late-1980s, General Motors went on a marketing blitz, showing off the latest technology it was working on. In 1986, it rolled out the Corvette Indy, the Chuck Jordan and Tom Peters-designed supercar that looked like it was going Mach 1 while sitting still.
The highlight of the Corvette Indy, aside from its Kevlar and carbon body, was the 2.65-liter twin-turbo V8 that was rumored to punch out 600 HP. The tech was also off the charts, with a rearview camera and a CRT displaying navigation information. It was also a car of fours with four-wheel-drive, four valves per cylinder, and important here: Four-wheel-steering.
It was clear that General Motors was working on the same kind of four-wheel-steering tech that was getting popular in Japan. In 1987, GM was confident enough to show it off to the motoring press.
GM’s 4WS Test Cars
In 1987, General Motors put Popular Science‘s David Scott behind the wheel of a Pontiac Fiero. But this wasn’t just any Fiero, as it was a Fiero that had been tweaked by GM’s Saginaw Division, the folks known for GM’s steering projects. The article notes that the engineers at Saginaw had come up with an all-electric four-wheel-steer system so that GM could be better fit to fight the imports that were expected to bring the technology to America.
Here’s how Popular Science described the GM system:
The electrically driven rear-axle system is so-called steer-by-wire, with no mechanical link to the front steering box.
In the Fiero, the electronic control module takes input signals from a position sensor on the steering wheel plus feedback from a rear-wheel position sensor. The module then operates a DC motor that actuates the rear rack-and-pinion gear.
After a test drive, Scott was impressed by the car’s tight turning radius, but found that he had to be careful when backing up near a curb. At high speeds, he felt stability was much improved.
Popular Science noted that GM was so far along in its development of its 4WS that it was possible that the Pontiac Fiero could have been the first U.S. production car with four-wheel-steer. This idea was further reinforced when General Motors invited MotorWeek out to its proving grounds, where staffers got to drive a different test car with the company’s experimental four-wheel-steering system:
That’s right, one of GM’s four-wheel-steering test cars was a 1986 Chevrolet Celebrity. This was a fitting choice. What little reporting was out there about this project indicated that GM wanted to use four-wheel steering in its more sporting models, and that’s what the Celebrity was supposed to be. It’s also been said that the Pontiac 6000 was supposed to be another recipient of GM’s four-wheel-steer.
There were a few different ways to implement active four-wheel steering back then. Honda’s setup was mechanical. A shaft transmitted steering angle to a planetary gearbox, which actuated the tie rods on the rear wheels.
Nissan’s early High Capacity Actively Controlled Steering (HICAS) system worked by using a computer to control hydraulic pistons. During cornering, the pistons compressed the rear subframe bushings, allowing the rear wheels to “turn” 0.5 degrees.
Mazda used an electro-mechanical system that arrived at the same result as Honda’s mechanical system, and Mitsubishi’s 4WS system worked via the Galant VR-4’s rear suspension links. GM’s research seemingly explored all of these options and came up with its own advanced system.
As MotorWeek noted, engineers installed a steering rack on the rear of the Celebrity, which was powered by an electric motor. That motor was told what to do based on inputs interpreted by a computer, which took in data about vehicle speed and steering angle. If the vehicle was moving slowly and turning, the rear wheels turned opposite of the front wheels. If the vehicle was moving faster than a certain speed threshold and turning, the rear wheels turned with the front wheels.
At the time, MotorWeek said that GM had numerous 4WS test vehicles on roads and was working on four different implementations of the system, ranging from entirely mechanical setups to completely electronic systems. The goal was to figure out which version worked best for production. If it worked out, buyers might have seen the technology as early as 1989 for a price of $1,000 ($2,634 today) on top of whatever you bought back then.
MotorWeek noted that while GM was working on putting the system into sporty cars, it also wanted to tout the practical benefits of having four-wheel-steer in large vehicles like wagons and big sedans. GM also continued to pump out hot concepts with four-wheel-steering, too, like the 1987 Pontiac Pursuit. I’ve also found four-wheel-steer patents dating back to the late 1980s that were assigned to GM.
You Can’t Buy A Celebrity With 4WS
It’s not said what happened to this early GM four-wheel-steering development, but it might not have mattered, anyway. As Autoweek notes, cars with 4WS didn’t see a strong response from the public or from the press in America and Europe. Though wild to see the rear wheels of a car steering, the differences in handling were so subtle that buyers in both America and Europe were not convinced they needed the additional complexity of 4WS.
The option did remain popular in Japan, where normal everyday family cars got options for four-wheel-steer. The dream never really died in America, either. While GM didn’t produce a Pontiac Fiero or a 6000 with four-wheel-steer, it did put Delphi Automotive-developed Quadrasteer into pickup trucks. That stuck around long enough for people to realize they really didn’t want to pay up to an additional $7,000 for a sharper-turning truck.
Today, four-wheel-steering is still out there, but more often on performance cars or as party tricks in vehicles like the GMC Hummer EV and the Tesla Cybertruck.
Yet, it’s still funny to think that back in the 1980s, General Motors was seemingly just as obsessed with four-wheel-steering as Japan was. In a weird alternate reality, Americans got Pontiac Fieros and Chevy Celebrities with four-wheel-steer. That’s a reality I’d like to check out, if only for a day.
Top graphic images:Maryland Public Television/MotorWeek; Facebook Marketplace
The General Motors, a body of that era are fantastic cars in my opinion. As a kid with a license in the mid to late 90s, they were cheap and all over the place and pretty dang reliable. I remember seeing a lot of of them with the rear end, all kinked up because a rear end collision at low speed didn’t even dented the bumper, but it would cave in the rear structure, but they still drove nicely
I’m all four it.
I owned an 89 Prelude Si with 4WS for years, it was even Barbados Yellow (Y49)!
So… here’s the thing. Almost all 4WS systems suck, because they’re unreliable. The electric one Chevy was playing with? Guaranteed it would be garbage. Honda’s later efforts with electro/hydraulic setups? Also stupid.
Honda perfected it with the 88-91 Prelude, and it was so SO SIMPLE. The steering rack had an output shaft that went to the back to a trick differential looking gearbox/steering box.
When you FIRST started turning the wheel, the rear wheels would turn WITH the front wheels.
When you turned it a bit more, the rear wheels would go back to straight ahead.
And when you turned it a LOT, the rear wheels turned opposite the front wheels.
It was brilliant! On the freeway/high speeds, you aren’t turning very much, so the car just felt FLAT. The best way to describe it was, did you ever play that old arcade game, SpyHunter? It was like that, the car just slipped from lane to lane.
But parking lots? Oh man, it felt like the back end of the car was buttered. I took mine autocrossing a few times, and it felt like a controlled drift in tight turns, but it wasn’t drifting, it was just turning the back end!
There are 3G preludes running around with 250k+ miles without ANY issues on this system. AFAIK the only reason it was discontinued was they got away from double wishbone suspension, and went back to macpherson (BOOOOO).
4WS sounds like a nice idea… until you consider how it can cost you as a car ages.
So instead of one steering rack, you have two. Double the tie rods. Double the bits that will enable power steering to the rear (probably). Plus, for added fun and complexity, whatever bits needed to make the two steering ends work in tandem.
Plus, those rear steering bits aren’t produced in high volumes… which is to say as the car ages, the parts are likely either expensive or become unobtanium… In which case it becomes the responsibility of the owner to find a shop that can rebuild them.. and the cost and downtime associated with that. Read this thread as an example of what I’m talking about:
https://www.reddit.com/r/hondaprelude/comments/10ru62f/replacement_steering_rack_for_4ws_3rd_gen/
No thanks… I’m not interested in any vehicle with 4WS. The benefits don’t outweigh the costs or potential costs.
It’s just like air suspensions (which I also don’t want for similar reasons)… only worse.
Sidenote: Yes I’m aware that on heavy duty trucks, air suspensions are common and durable. But those systems are not like the systems you find in vehicles sold to consumers.
That’s an outlier. There are TONS of old preludes without issues. And it sounds like his front rack is just leaking… so he should probably just get it rebuilt. It won’t cost anymore than a normal rack, because seals are seals.
The completely mechanical system used in the 3G Lude was one of the most reliable 4WS systems ever developed.
I’m not doubting that Honda made a reliable system. But like it or not, even the most reliable system will need service/repair eventually.
And like it or not, replacements are expensive… OR he has to find a shop that can rebuild it for less… and have the car out of service while the shop rebuilds it.
And that’s fine if it’s just a weekend fun car. But it’s more of a problem if it’s a daily driver you need to depend on.
Idk man, other than tie rod ends and seals on the rack, there’s not much wear. The rear steering box itself, I haven’t heard of any failures at all. This is drastically different from the electro/hydraulic systems, which have so many failure points.
Well I’m glad to hear you’ve had a good reliable experience with yours.
My ’88 Honda Prelude Si 4WS was remarkable both for its reliability and for its sublime handling. Fun Mustang anecdote: I was exiting Interstate 4 in Orlando at a challenging velocity with a jackass Mustang GT hot on my bumper for no justified reason. Happily, this was where my car shined as it was a decreasing radius 270-degree roundabout. About 180 degrees into the turn, I watched in my rearview mirror as he oversteered off the road in a truly epic wave of mud, launching sideways into the rain-drenched grassy median. The funny thing was, that’s how I always drove my Prelude whether or not someone was trying to push my buttons. I’ve owned a lot of great sports cars before and after but none ever had the same level of intimate feedback for the road.
Yeah, I’d still own mine if there had been better aftermarket, but that B20 (that isn’t really a B series) sucks. 130hp? And only 20-22mpg? Man, I can take bad MPG if it has like 300hp, but for such little power that thing sure drank fuel like a pig.
The chassis and styling were both badass tho. Loved the seats too! Adjustable bolsters!
Helps that I owned mine during the cheap fuel days of the late 90s / early 00s. And yes, occasionally I wished for more herspers, but not often enough to ruin the fun.
“…it’s more sporting models…” “…what the Celebrity was supposed to be.” I can’t think of a less sporting vehicle from that timeframe. Even the Eurosport didn’t help.
And don’t forget the Renault 4Control. This you can get today, where you are eligible for Renaults 😉
So cool GM tried a 4WS Fiero! First time I had the rear subframe out on one of those, first thing I thought was how easy it would be to put a steering rack in there. It’s the front end of a Citation, they just ran the tie rods to the frame instead of a rack.
It would have been a really cool option, and after having had a bunch of the larger cars of the era from GM, like my 92 Bonneville, which have rear tie rods (that don’t actually do a whole lot obviously) and theoretically enough space in the rear underneath to make the 4ws system fit, it’s like they baked the basic structure in just in case it took off. It would have been cool to drive a big SSEi with 4ws, or an AWD 6000 STE. It would help cut the gigantic turning circle of the H body down, that’s for sure.
This is what i liked about gm so much with what they did through the 60s to really the mid 90s, they had some balls to try weird stuff, some didnt stick, some didnt work, others just plain weird, but they at least tried. Hell, even to the mid aughts, they kept making some weird and different stuff.
Could one imagine the lunacy, of a 4ws fiero with the l67 setup? Front end couldve been electric fwd assist too, then chevrolet, let alone everyone else wouldve had a reason to crap their pants at how fast and sporty it could have been.
I had to re-read that a few times. My family had a Celebrity. “Sporty”? Nope. “Sporting”, as in English “By Jove! That’s not very sporting.”? Quite possibly.
It was “supposed to be”, but it wasn’t. The Celebrity had a “Semi-floating” rear axle. Code for basically a solid rear axle. It also had all the body rigidity of a disposable aluminum basting pan. Slap in the Iron Duke and you had “Meh” on a grand scale. The 2.8L at least didn’t suck and was the best part.
Same – my first car was a hand me down Celebrity wagon from my parents when I got my license and they got a minivan. Mine had the V6 but there certainly wasn’t anything sporty about it.
The best thing about it was that with halfway decent tires the thing would basically drive through anything I attempted in rural eastern Iowa. Looking back I definitely followed my friend in his XJ Cherokee though more fields and creek crossings than I probably should have.
The 2.8 v6 sounded way better than it had any right to. It was plenty torquey for the fwd applications, and the celebrity got the 4 speed auto instead of the 3 speed, which made it much better to drive.
The engine was about the only thing that stood the test of time. The seats fell apart, AC failed often, transmission needed a few solenoid replacements, body panels rusted and the brakes were wishful thinking when you needed them the most. That engine though. It never leaked oil or coolant or lost compression over the 120K miles we had the car.
I had the 2.8L V6 in one of my later cars. 1989 Camaro RS. Wasn’t fast and I estimate (odo broke early on) it had around 100K miles of hard use before it was replaced due to oil consumption. Cool thing was that the 2.8L parts bolted onto a ’93 3.4L long block. Drove it another 30K miles before I tasted Japanese and never went back.
Pretty much the only engine issue I remember was the mechanical fuel pump failed in such a way that it pumped +/- 10% of the gas into the engine oil and 90% to the carb for about 2 tanks at about 90k miles. About 105k our mechanic had it opened up for something and said it was the cleanest 100k+ mile engine he had ever seen. It had about 140K on it when I sold it off to a coworker at a summer job and picked up a Volvo 740 turbo.
I have developed an appreciation for the FWD A-bodies, and this article makes me respect them more. Sure it wasn’t perfect but it was a transitional sort of car that remediated the X-cars faults, mostly. They were roomy, comfortable, on the roads forever, and didn’t the Buick have the 3.8 available for a minute? GM should have put the Cimarron on hold for a couple years and put it on the A instead of the J. They could have made a legit new kind of Cadillac in either old-school brougham-tastic or sporty, grand touring variants, with a lot of tech if you wanted it.
I had an X-body Citation and, if you didn’t look at the body shape and if I would have had a 2.8L V6, it would have been better than the Celebrity. The Citation was more versatile and stood up better to country roads than the Celebrity.
In no way am I saying the Citation would have been considered good, but the suspension was a little stiffer and the seat backs didn’t entirely collapse backwards over time. Neither one had brakes worth a damn.
At least the Celebrity wasn’t a male chastity belt on wheels.
Didn’t the rear seat fold down to have a hatchback cargo area? Sounds like you weren’t using the car right.
The Citation did have fold down back seats. Celebrity didn’t. I could still put 8′ lumber through the rear windows though on the Celebrity.
And Yes. I didn’t use the car right most of the time, much to the displeasure of my parents.
In my formative years, we had a brown notchback and a blue x11 hatch. The blue one was cooler, but my dad said the brown was better to drrive since it was more solid. We kept the x11 longer, until the rust took it. Then a celebrity that was kept until it disintegrated and a corsica that my dad couldn’t get rid of soon enough. Then a lumina ls with the 3.4 dohc. So much mediocrity (except when that 3.4 was on the cam)
The Autoweek clip looks like the scene in ET when they were chasing him and the boys in those classic Ford Fairmont cop cars and guys in 80s suits.
That is a ton of rear steering angle, no wonder the journalists were like wtf. Our car has a maximum of 5 degrees (by compressing the bushings) in the back and it’s more than enough.
And rear steer by wire? Once again GM is decades ahead of the competition with a ready to go solution and fumbles it.
Seeing how the back end of a Fiero is basically the front end of a Citation with the rack removed, retrofitting four-wheel steering into one shouldn’t be too difficult if that is your thing.
That was an inspired piece of lazy-cheap engineering by GM.
It’s what they’re good at. Maybe AMC was better?
Ah yes the Celebrity, king of ironic car names.
Sounds downright Eurosporty!
GM didn’t bother with the system because they realized a Celebrity crabbing down the interstate was something that would naturally occur anyway.
On a long enough timeline, everything evolves into crab.
Take all the smiles.
Underrated comment. Great Radiolab ep.
COTD
I remember around the turn of the century seeing a test fleet of GMC Quadrasteer trucks towing 5th wheel trailers near my work in San Diego. I didn’t know it was 4WS at the time but I did notice something weird with the rear axle due to the required clearance lights. Super cool story bro.
I had one in last fall for brake lines. Like every other quadrasteer, the system no longer works. The fender flares and clearance lights for a non-dually are definitely a give away. The excessive rear width was for the tires to clear the normal bed, and also helped marginally with trailer stability. The system also was used on Suburban and LWB Yukons, although production was much smaller than the pickups.
I saw two different Quadrasteer trucks last year with the system still functioning. It was so notable that I actually took a photo of one of them as proof.
I saw a QS Suburban a few years back for sale. The system was broken and it was priced accordingly.
I think the cars that need 4WS most are the Suburbans and trucks. I rented a Escalade IQ this weekend and the rear steering in parking lots made it way more manageable than anything of similar girth.
I wouldn’t really call the CT’s rear steering a party trick in the same vein as the crab walking Hummer, I drove one, and the rear steering is pretty neat in tight turns. The rest of it sucks royal of course, but rear steering is very cool.
Honestly I’m kinda surprised we haven’t seen a FWD car with a passive rear wheel steering system.
Focus did that.
I think VW’s did too?
Lots of cars have exploited elastokinematics for passive RWS.
The 2003+ Saab 9-3 did this through its Reaxs system.
https://www.saabplanet.com/saab-reaxs-unique-passive-rear-wheel-steering/
Japanese went heavy into 4ws for a while. I think almost half of Nissian models at one point offered it at least in Japan with some export models. Every time I see an 80s or early 90s GM I can’t help but think “we really drove around in those” not a style I miss. But those 2.8s weren’t to bad
YOU forgot Subaru sold the SVX with 4ws. Even before the 25 year rule it was show and display eligible.
In the US, the Mitsu 3000GT VR-4, Galant VR-4, and I believe the Nissan 240SX and Honda Prelude all have 4 wheel models in the late 80s early 90s. One generation only, though, and that was it. That was the golden years for the Japanese, right before their economy faded and that had to be partly to blame.
Didn’t know about the gallant vr4, thanks.
Sorry about the capslock thing, not actually upset, just a mistake i can’t edit
I think it’s funnier that way, but I would also want to clear up my intent.
YOU know what you did!
I knew about the Prelude and some others, had no clue GM stuck it into a Celebrity.
That Vette is sweeeettttt.
Reminds me a bit of the Olds Aerotech concept. I had the matchbox car as a kid and was in love. But I also thoroughly enjoyed “The Wraith” with Charlie Sheen, so what do I know. https://www.autoevolution.com/news/the-story-of-the-oldsmobile-aerotech-the-275-mph-supercar-you-never-knew-existed-197103.html
Oh snap, I did! Admittedly, the list of Japanese vehicles with 4WS was shortened. My original draft was accidentally a deep dive into Japanese 4WS and I almost completely forgot about GM. Maybe I should give the Japanese efforts their own piece one day because that era was so fun!
I once lost a $20 bet on what cars had 4WS, as I was fully unaware Mitsubishi marketed it too. Later I won that $20 back on a bet that Mercedes never sold a V12 in the W126 chassis.
You win some, you lose some.