Vehicle having steerable rear wheels

摘要

A passenger vehicle has at least one pair of steerable rear wheels in addition to steerable front wheels, the rear wheels being adapted to provide additional steering to supplement the steering of the front wheels by angular movement of the rear wheels away from a straight ahead position, further comprises a vehicle body having a front and a rear, and a rear suspension assembly comprising left and right suspension subassemblies (1,2); front road wheels; and rear road wheels, each of the rear suspension assemblies (1,2) respectively carrying at least one of the rear road wheels. Each subassembly (1,2) comprises an actuator (70,72) connected at one point to a first part (60) of the suspension subassembly (1,2) that supports the wheel and at a second part to a second part (50) of the suspension subassembly (1,2). The first part comprises a steering knuckle (60), the second part comprises a trailing arm or semi trailing arm (50), and the actuator (70,72) is operable under the control of a control means to generate relative movement between the first suspension part (60) and second suspension part (50) so as to provide steering of the rear wheels relative to the vehicle body through an angle of at least 5 degrees to each side of a straight ahead position. The vehicle may be constructed by modifying an existing non-rear wheel steering vehicle. A passenger vehicle with rear wheel steering is also disclosed in which the steering can be locked at speeds above a threshold operational level for a stability control program fitted to the vehicle.