Vehicle wheel suspension

Claim 1

Wheel suspension for the sprung mass of a vehicle which includes a transversely opposite pair of road wheels, comprising, a pair of transverse control arms each carrying one of said wheels and swingably mounted at one side of the sprung mass on a generally longitudinally extending axis thereof, a primary suspension spring comprising an elastic beam extending transversely of the sprung mass proximate said control arms but spaced longitudinally of the sprung mass therefrom and having end portions projecting outboard of generally vertical planes containing the swing axes of said control arms, a pair of torsion rods extending on axes generally parallel but outboard said control arms swing axes and each connected at one end to a respective control arm and affixed at the other to an end of said beam, said rods being operative to carry to said beam forces deflecting said control arms relative the sprung mass, whereby the beam is adapted to bend under such forces about a spaced pair of nodal points located substantially inboard of said interconnection locations, and reaction mount means between each of the torsion rods and respective ones of the control arms operative to exert on the torsion rods intermediate their ends reaction forces counter to force couples developed by the elastic beam during asymmetric deflection of the control arms.