When did the switch from even stud width vehicles to odd width vehicles happen in LEGO Technic?

Question

I remember that LEGO Technic vehicles when I was a kid (roughly in the 90s) always had an even width. The small ones where 4 studs wide. There was a standard steering construction that was 8 studs wide, a smaller version of width 6 and some giant vehicles that were 10 studs wide. Vehicles always where even width.

When building LEGO Technic vehicles with my own kids now (so 2020s) I noticed that most of them seem to have an odd stud width, 5 studs being most common, 7 for bigger vehicles. As longer axles still have even length this often requires an axle extension piece, which afaik didn't exist back in the 90s.

So when did this switch happen? And why? To me it seems to make various construction more awkward and require special pieces to make it work.

Answer 1

2003 was the first year with all studless odd-width sets.

Spurred on by the introduction of the studless liftarm parts in 1996 they were initially used as bodywork or implement parts (see 8480 space shuttle and 8286 3-in-1 car from 1996), but not as the chassis parts of larger vehicles (200+ part) until a few years later. The first odd-width, all-studless set I believe is 8203 Rover Discovery from 1998. Although it only had 38 pieces, all the sub-100 part vehicle sets in the following years were odd-width.

The change to studless and odd width made more complex angles and mechanisms easier to achieve in smaller spaces. With studded beams (while overall even width) they also had the pin holes aligned to have a center one usually for steering and/or to connect the fake engine.