I realized this morning that all of the hybrid gas/electric vehicles I know about are all front-wheel-drive vehicles. While FWD cars are good vehicles (we are leasing a Honda Accord, remember ?), it doesn’t make a drivetrain swap very simple when attempting to stuff it in a rear-wheel-drive vehicle, such as the Town Car.

I ordered the official Ford publications on the Escape Hybrid, but only discovered this morning that on the Ford system, the electric traction motor is integrated with the transmission, so you must use it together, which may cause some issues. The Escape doesn’t use a conventional driveshaft with u-joints, instead it uses a Torque Tube, which only has 1 u-joint instead of two, but I just realized this may work anyway, just that more of the transmission tailshaft area is exposed more then conventionally. Then te other issue is what to do with the front axles. There is so much room in the Town Cars’s engine compartment, I might be able to make use of the front transaxle. I’ll be reading more, that’s for sure.