Chassis

What is a chassis? – It is the frame on which your car is built.

A little more context – What a foundation is to a building, a chassis is to an automobile.  

One more metaphor: If you compare it to a human, it is the skeleton of your little automobile.

Another part to remember in the car’s shell, basically the body of the car. This will be referenced in the following explanations of the types of chassis available.

There are 3 main categories:

Ladder–On–Frame: Here, the chassis and the body are built separately. And then the body is mounted on the chassis. So there is a lot of body roll.

(We will discuss body roll in detail in another article: But long story short – that feeling of a possibility that you may topple over when taking your car on turns at a slightly high speed – well that is body roll)

Monocoque – Here the chassis and body are one unit. It’s more aerodynamic and yes, less body roll compared to the Ladder-on-Frame chassis.

MQB (Modularer Querbaukasten) – German words which translate to ‘Modular Transverse Matrix’. This chassis was developed by the Volkswagen Group. It is a Monocoque chassis but this is what differentiates it from the above: It can be used across various car segments. SUV, Mini-SUV, Sedan and the likes.

So Ladder-On-Frame and Monocoque have a complete different chassis for each of their segments. But for Volkswagen, the MQB is a chassis that forms a base across all segments. In effect saving build cost.

So there you have it, a quick overview on chassis, until next time! Vroom vroom!