Andre Citroen pioneered the use of Front Wheel Drive in the 30's with his light fifteen sedan. I owned a 1955 version of this car (three speed manual with the gear shift coming out of the dashboard), the road holding of this car had to be experienced to be believed when compared with similar RWD family sedan's of that era. I followed the Light Fifteen with a Citroen DS19, again this car was so technically advanced, with its presserised brake system with just a brake button on the floor (later licensed to Rolls Royce for their Silver Shadow), Hydraulic suspension linked from wheel to wheel etc etc. Again front wheel drive.
The next vehicles to really market front wheel drive was the BMC mini designed by Alec Issigonis back in the early 60's, this was followed by the enormously succesful Mini Cooper and Mini Cooper S. BMC folowed the mini with larger FWD cars such as the 1100 and Princess 1300.
The basic reason for Front Wheel Drive (or as Andre Citroen called it "traction avant") was for greatly increased road holding ability and to give greater traction in adverse conditions (not the brainchild of some advertising executive, it does work), the additional advantage of a totally flat floor in the rear seems to have got lost on many modern FWD vehicles, the Citroens were totally flat in the rear providing comfortable seating for 3 accross.
In summary FWD is not a modern creation, it has been around for 60+ years and is very well proven.
John Scales (1996 850R)