The 1998 Charge Elysee Custom sedan
The american dream is back
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this is a “tame” luxury version of this vehicle . stensen is rather geared towards niche markets and creating
excitement and demand for their products in different markets/segments than it is towards meeting existing demand. thus, the Vichingo will always be on the sporty side.
I’m having some serious trouble to increase Trim Reliability . . .
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Most reliability is engine based, chassis reliability comes from simplicity. Try running double wishbone instead of multilink, trade drivability (or sport, can’t remember how the game counts it) for reliability. For the engine, pushrod is more reliable than OHC, which is more reliable than DOHC, but at the cost of performance/efficiency.
Wow, thanks for leaving the discussion for entries open for a good, solid 12 hours. I’m sure that was plenty of time for everybody who cared to give their imput. I’m sure grandma cares so much about Handling and performance, after all, those are the two most distinguishing features cars for the elderly are known for! With such an accurate ruleset, I’ll certainly be glad to submit something befitting this round…
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Seems decent enough a brief to me.
It needs to feel powerful yet easy to drive for a pensioner. Because she’s convinced that matters. Not some cheap Japanese or European low powered import, but a proper car (though not necessarily American) that has some grunt behind it. No because she’s caring about performance, but because she’s used to good cars being that during her life time.
Easy to drive =/= handling well. A Toyota Prius is easy to drive, would you say it has particularly good handling?
He’s hosted quite a few CSRs by this point and clearly has some strange bias or belief that every person on God’s blue earth needs a car that is capable of carving up the back roads and this is just the newest example of it. Or maybe he doesn’t, and this round just has a ton of kinks that weren’t worked out. Like how the buyer would prefer a 3 row vehicle but is absolutely unwilling to look at SUVs, and MPVs. And she wants a three row car. Absolute genius, that. Maybe these kinks could have been worked out had he left the rules discussion open for more than 12 friggin hours.
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An old lady in 1999 not wanting huge truck (the only SUVs around then) seems fair. Clients are particular.
Handling is not sportiness, which you seem to imply. Or at least, I don’t understand it as such. A Toyota Prius would still be fairly drivable (if not meeting the other requirements of the lady in the OP).
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Fair enough but MPVs? Vans? And she’s insistent on a three row? Seems more to me like somebody’s projecting out of a hate for those kinds of vehicles, and if you examine his previous CSRs this is a common theme.
Handling isn’t sportiness? The ability to corner well at decent to high speeds? When the literal text says she wants handling to inspire confidence, a line akin to wanting a driver’s car? And she doesn’t want soft suspension when that is quite LITERALLY the single most defining characteristic of an old person’s car? If you say this client is that particular, the only image I can place in my mind is a granny dressed like Evil Kenevil looking for a serious sports car. Which, fair if that’s what he’s going for, but it just seems to come back to the idea that he thinks literally everybody is looking for a serious driver's car men XDDDD as we’ve seen in his previous rounds where he continues to forgo reality just to get enthusiasts cars because that’s his own personal preference, which, fair enough. I’m going to submit something to satisfy that desire then.
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For most people driving, it is not. You simply don’t drive at high speeds in the real world. Handling is feeling comfortable with the car.
As for “conan projecting his hate”. Errr… ok… I see these types of cars matter deeply to you. That’s… particular. Not sure, what the point is. But, good. Great.
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Ermmm what?
I’ve pointed out that Handling is a higher criteria than fuel economy in the way that you can make the fuel economy completely horrible while you cannot make the handling completely horrible. And I have pointed out that 10 degrees of roll angle is about the cut off level which seems extremely excessive already. This allows for a ludicrous amount of softness.
And you’re probably confusing me with someone who clearly has a bias towards sportiness.
As for third row preference, you’re half right. But it’s not the third row but the twin bench seating that I gives preference to. (in accordance to stereotypical old people’s car) If you want to give third row it’s available with the station wagon body. I don’t see any issue how it is a bias against any type of vehicle.
You do have a point in that I don’t need to ban SUV, MPV and Trucks. But more than 10 entries in I don’t think that’s changable now. (unless it is) The reason I did that is only because to limit the scope of the challenge itself. Not that I think many people would be going for SUV, MPV or Trucks anyway. I do apologise for this.
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Thanks…
Helped a lot…
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Maybe allow MPV since that’s both a minivan (car based) and full size van (truck based). Too late now obviously, but I see his point there. Outside that, the body type restriction seems period accurate, wagons were basically gone in the US by the 90’s (dammit). I agree with Miros though, he is defiantly lumping drivability with sport. You can have a very driver friendly car making 80HP, and a 0-60 over 15s. At the same time, all the sport in the world is useless if the car is hard to drive. I think the rules are generally fine, we could all nit pick something I’m sure, but the CSR works.
I’m gonna be “THAT DAMN MURRICAN” in the room and point out that his rule set absolutely makes sense in the context of a well-to-do Floridian retiree. Old people in Florida simply do not drive minivans if they have any money at all. It would be a completely different thing if you were talking a granola-eating hippie grandma from NorCal or Oregon, but not Florida. Pre-2001, that is literally the land of the Caddy-Lincoln land yacht. It is where the wealthy flock to retire and die.
And yes, it’s true that a lot of them (who would have been young adults for WW2, based on the timeframe of this CSR) love their big V8 engines. This is more out of habitually driving old American pushrod iron for 50 some odd years, where 5 liters MIGHT have gotten you 150 horses… it was the only way to get up to speed and not become roadkill on US Interstate highways. Grandma’s not trying to hotrod… she’s trying to stay alive, and probably doesn’t grasp that the technology has advanced enough to easily double the power in the car.
(And yes, that’s also about the same time that we saw a HUGE uptick in old people driving cars through the front of strip malls… because the cars were now powerful enough that the curbs couldn’t stop or deflect them enough when grandpa mixed up the gas and brake.)
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Crown Victoria’s, Lincoln’s, Caddies are still popular. I serviced a bunch of Crown Vic’s and Lincoln LSs when I worked at a Ford Dealer.
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As another American, and former south Georgia resident, I will corroborate this story. The staggering majority of retirees in Florida were snow birds (yankees than winter in Florida) and just stayed when they got too old for the semi-annual commute. Many of them were close to the UAW in some way, and drove classic American tanks into the golden years. I know lots of non-Florida old folks that drive sensible cars. But Florida is… a very special place. The CSR as accurate enough to be a fair parody.
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