Patent ID: 6481524
Filing Date: 2002-11-19
Classification: B62D

Abstract:
A four-wheel vehicle equipped with a turning mechanism comprising:a rotatably supporting device for supporting one of front and rear pairs of left and right wheels, to which a running torque produced by a driving source is not transmitted, for rotation concerning respective axes perpendicular to the ground; an instructing device for generating a turn mode instruction in response to a manipulation; a determining device for determining whether a vehicle operating state satisfies predetermined conditions when said turn mode instruction is generated; a rotation driving device, when said determining device determines that said predetermined conditions are satisfied, for rotating the one pair of left and right wheels from straight traveling positions taken when said vehicle is running to respective angular positions along tangential directions of an arc passing said respective axes perpendicular to the ground of said one pair of left and right wheels, said arc having the center located near a center point of a rotating axle for running said vehicle of the other of the front and rear pairs of left and right wheels; and a turn driving device for applying a rotating torque to said one pair of left and right wheels at the angular positions along said tangential directions to turn the vehicle body on a neighborhood of the center point of the rotating axle for running said vehicle of the other pair of left and right wheels.