Hm, do you think a body like the first gen Lexus SC would fare well as a base for a competitor to the Scarlet?
@Rk38 Nice! You’d have thought that a Communist regime wouldn’t know shit about naming a sports car but it actually sounds really good!
@ramthecowy Certainly the entry level trim. Those kinds of cars tend to be softer so the Lex trim would probably be in the same league as those.
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Nah but you can have sportier trims based off the body. And it is a mod I’ve planned to do, so it checks out 
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Mods eh? Keep me updated!
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#Overstaying His Welcome - The Nedala Story
Time for another story from the Erin history books, this time looking at a problematic car that would bring the company to its knees. Read the whole thing or look at the pretty pictures, I don’t mind, though any feedback/thoughts on the cars would be most appreciated 
#1972 Erin Nedala (Mk 1)
One of the defining characteristic’s of Erin’s 70s period was their slightly exuberant approach to making cars. They didn’t have a formalised set of vehicles designed to compete in specific markets against certain competitors; rather, they just made cars as they liked.
A great example of this was the Nedala. Having begun life as a GT coupe, it morphed into a kind of luxury GT-saloon, a car between defined types. Marco Erin had requested a high-end luxury vehicle “of some sorts”, and this was how his designers had responded. Launched in 1972, the Nedala was pretty unique in its area of the market - bigger and slower than actual GT rivals, but also sportier and more precise than rival luxury saloons. It bridged the gap between these two markets.
Available in just one trim, the GTL, and powered by a choice of an i6 or the same 3.6l V8 from the Tegale, it offered just about everything one could desire from a luxury car. Despite the plush interior and excellent comfort, it was hardly a slouch - 0-60 in 8.2 seconds was competitive for such a car, although the soft suspension did compromise on the handling.
Aside from that, however, there wasn’t much else to this car. Erin didn’t seem to have a purpose for it (it wasn’t even particularly innovative), taking the form of a car they’d just made for the hell of it. That wasn’t to suggest that it didn’t have love and passion put into it - it was built in an entirely new factory for one thing. Sales however, were mixed, particularly in the climate of the Seventies oil crises. Exports to America were a major part of this cars sales, as US buyers looked for a luxury car that didn’t do 8 mpg.
The car sort of just loomed in the background until 1977, when a replacement for it started to be discussed. At this point, however, everything would go berserk, and this once unassuming part of the Erin range would become the most significant for all the wrong reasons.
#Decision time
1977 was the last great year for Erin before their massive economic failure, and many have attributed it to the Mk 2 Nedala. A conflict arose at the Q3 meeting of that year that put CEO Marco Erin into a tricky position - a clash between his chief design team and his board of directors. This was made worse by the fact that tensions between these two groups had been frosty due to their different interests.
The board wanted a replacement for the Nedala, and wanted it to be turned into a luxury limousine much like the Jaguar XJ. His chief designers, however, disagreed; Howard Forgely, the man who had styled most of Erin’s cars for the past 17 years, suggested a proper GT car would be a much better move, given that the Nedala had never been a big seller and the limousine market didn’t feel appropriate for Erin, and this was backed by Marco’s main advisor Arnold Clark
The arguments got heated; should Marco trust the people who had stood by him and his father ever since they were first employed, or his board of directors, who had experience in the financial world and had slowly been corporatising the company since they’d arrived?
He chose the latter, and the replacement for the Nedala was turned into a luxury saloon.
#1978 Erin Nedala (Mk 2)
If this car were a song, it’d be Station to Station by David Bowie.
When the Mk 2 Nedala launched in September 1978, it was heralded as a major achievement for the company. Highly advanced luxury technologies, stunning abstract design and an incredibly fast top-end trim. Amazingy too was how the Board of Directors had managed to develop the entire car without almost a single word of influence from the Designers; Marco had entrusted them to pull this car off.
Inside, they had packed the car with such features as electric seats, air con, rear window curtains, a champagne cooler, in-car telephone, optional custom interior design, specialist lighting and the most expensive audio system ever fitted into a car, courtesy of Marantz. The comfort was even better, as coupled to all of these features was a brilliant suspension setup that could absorb bumps with exceptional ease.
The styling also set a new standard for Erin. Forgeley had reluctanctly styled the car after a lot of arguing with Marco, and had turned this massive 5.5m long aircraft carrier of a car into an understated beauty. It would be the only Erin to feature such abstract design.
Far more impressive though was the performance. Two trims were available, one an ‘entry level’ one powered by an enlarged version of the V8 in the previous one, increased to 4.0l and now featured mechanical fuel injection. The top end trim, called the GT-12, was the real star of the show; it had a 5.0l V12 under the bonnet that produced 404 hp, allowing this thing to accelerate to 60 in just 6.5 seconds and top out at 150 mph. In it’s short span of existence, then, it spent much of that time being one of the fastest 4 door cars in the world.
But Erin had been incredibly arrogant. Or rather the Board of Directors, who’d forced the Mk 2’s birth, had been arrogant. They had no idea what this market was looking for, and the simple fact was that most customers in this region couldn’t care less how feature packed the Nedala was when the entry level trim of this car cost almost as much as a top-of-the-range Jaguar XJ. Spend a little more, and you could have had the prestigious XJ12, which was very nearly as fast.
That wasn’t the worst bit with of the price however; that issue was to be found in the GT-12 trim, which cost the equivalent of £180,000. There wasn’t a market in the world where people were going to spend that much money on a car like this.
Unsurprisingly, this car flopped. The first few months of sales were good, but come 1979, and everything fell apart. Erin ended up with around 160 GT-12s sitting around their warehouses with no one wanting to buy them before production of that trim was stopped in January. By this point, the conflict between the Board and the Designers was making the news, seriously damaging Erin’s image as Marco appeared to do nothing. It’s no surprise then that, when Erin slashed the price of the GT-12 to just 60% of the original asking price, meaning they would make a loss on every one they sold, journalists started criticizing the company heavily.
Even then, they barely shifted. Worse still, the Mk 2 Comprida, launched the year before, was now flopping due to the car not even looking like other Erin’s and not really being a fully finished car. The Q1 earnings reports were dire, showing massive lack of sales across the board, and nothing that Marco tried could seem to resolve this. Further cuts to the Nedala’s price tag only led to the company gaining a bad reputation.
He was forced to make some very serious decisions in August of that year, and chose to cut production of the Nedala and Comprida. They would be followed later in the year by the Tegale and Civera. Harold Forgely and Arnold Clark resigned along with the whole of the chief design team in September of that year, leaving Marco with no other allies nor advisers in his company. In his anger, Marco also dissolved the Board of Directors, who were fired for making such a massive cock-up with this car. It made losses in the region of £150 million, which was simply too much to bare for the mid-sized car maker to bear.
Yet, the Mk 2’s story was more of a tragedy than anything else. The car itself was sublime, and many of its features have become luxury vehicle standards in the years since. It was also phenomenal to drive, and remains just about the most comfortable car Erin has ever made.
But it also came to represent everything that was wrong with Erin in the late 70s. The Board of Directors, who’d wanted to turn Erin into a more common European brand with rivals to German makers had taken the heart away from the company, who’d built themselves on their experimentation, simply choosing to make a car because they wanted to.
The Mk 1 Nedala was the embodiment of this spirit - it only ever sold because of its unusualness, not because it was a good car. The Mk 2, however advanced, showed that if Erin wanted to be corporate, it had to be in their heart and not just in their actions.
893 Nedala’s sold in the end, of which just 172 were GT-12’s.
You can continue the story here.
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#2017 Erin X-iMOTiOn Crosstrek
Cheers to @Rk38 for the “crosstrek” bit
Yep, that’s right. The economic conditions these days are tough. The automotive markets are changing. Desperate times call for desperate measures. After iffy Q1 sales reports in our lower-mid market range, the time has come to take action.
That action comes in the form of the first ever crossover from Erin. Meet the X-iMOTiOn Crosstrek!
Designed to compete with premium mini-suv offerings and offset our own mid-range estate’s like the Merna Touring and Tauga Touring, this is the start of a whole new era for the company to say the least. For now, the X-iMOTiOn Crosstrek will go on sale with a range of i4 and i6 engines, but a sportier X Tuned version will be making an appearance within the next 12 months.
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#Of course Erin isn’t making a crossover. Ever. Never. Not even for an April Fool’s Day joke.
That car didn’t even progress past the ‘Drive Type’ selection panel 
However, this is a good time to announce some changes that will be coming to Erin when the UE4 update is released.
Firstly, the story is going to be updated a bit.
Bits and bob in the lore will change and adapt, and I intend to put more focus on Erin’s engineering innovations. They will likely get their own posts and will basically be more fleshed out. Proper details on the history of Erin engines will also be included.
To help this, a new thread will be made.
This current thread will become the ‘Erin Historical’ thread, concerning everything that isn’t related to the current range, while the new thread will be specifically for new cars. This means I’ll be able to go lore-crazy in this thread and then present the whole Erin line-up in one neat little package in the other.
Thirdly, we’re ditching the current trim naming scheme.
Why? Because it’s getting dull. And because a few months back, when I was desiging the Merna Mk 1 and Mk 2, I remembered how cool older trim names used to be. So, it’s goodbye “Vox 3.5” or whatever, and hello “350LS” and “140SE” etc.
Fourthly, the current Erin line-up will be remade and reworked
Just to bring all the cars up to date with the current design style and to ensure they fit the engineering lore. The whole “aluminium body” stuff is going to replaced by “partial aluminium body” for the sake of realness, while trims are also going to be redesigned and everything is going to be generally updated. Each car will then get a proper full release with stats and whatnot. It’s going to be beautiful.
And yeah, that’s about it. Just thought I’d shared this with you guys because it’s as good a time as ever for an announcement. And happy April Fools Day
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Hmmph. I liked the Vox name 
But the rest sounds good 
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Wow, that’s a nice CUV can’t wait for the X-iMotion Crosstrek X Tuned version. Maybe that’ll finally give me an excuse to create an ST-R version of my CUVs. 
But still looking forward to the Maesima MQX-4 vs Erin X-iMotion Crosstrek comparison review 
But I’d agree with @szafirowy01 I rather liked the Vox trim name they seemed quite unique compared to the older style ways.
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Ekhm… Balthazar Kilimanjaro RS? 
######Or, being immodest and aiming at something more expensive… Zavir Avventura Sportivo - yes, it will be a thing, and will have well over 400hp :>
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That’s true and well, I may have in fact already created…Umm I mean ‘tested’ ST-R versions of a certain CUVs. So they are definitely on the cards.
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@ramthecowy @szafirowy01 Interesting! I guess I’ve just become a bit bored of it? They still exist in the old universe though…
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As far as April Fool’s Day jokes go the X-iMOTiOn is up there with the very best; that said, if Erin actually had to enter the crossover market, it would have been exactly what they would build - sharp looking and great to drive (for a crossover, anyway), as Erins have always been.
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#1996 Erin Scarlet (Mk 3)
It’s the big one! The one Erin fans cite as being the best car the company has ever made - the Scarlet Mk 3.
Overview
With the Scarlet now clearly looking like a car that would be one of Erin’s defining marques for all time, the need for a seriously good third iteration of it was great. Erin let nothing get in the way of making this car phenemonal - an all new chassis, the very latest innovations from the X Department and no expense spared in refining this thing into the greatest drivers car ever made by the company.
The result was a premium sports coupe that could rival most supercars in terms of performance, was elegant enough to fit in on the French Riveria and gave any lucky owner one of the best driving experiences you could ask for.
Design and Styling
The Mk 3 was a departure from previous generations, with curvier and narrower front end features, no more pop-up headlights, a shorter bonnet and completely unique tail light design. It was modern, fresh and tasteful, with just enough menace to hint at the power that was under the bonnet but very welcoming too.
Differences between the Lex and X trims were more prominent here than on any other version of the Scarlet, with the latter featuring a bulged bonnet, side vents at the front and rear and flared wheel arches.
Engineering
Specialist steel alloy chassis, composite body panels and even aluminium were used to make up the monocoque chassis. Sadly, increased safety regulations forced the car to be heavier than before, but Erin were able to accommodate for this well. Major advancements were made with the suspension, where semi-active dampers were utilised.
Computers also found there way into the new engine management system, which could adjust performance based on need. The Mk 3 certainly had an edge of advancement to it, but it never got in the way of the car; at the end of the day, Erin had still designed this as a two door performance coupe.
Power and Performance
A brand new version of the 3.8l V8 was designed for the X trim, with adjusted bore and stroke to make a more rounded unit. It now featured independent throttle bodies, race-derived injection system and a bespoke performance exhaust, and knocked out 394 hp, almost 100 more than the previous generation. The Lex trim got a fully reworked 3.3l V6 which produced 270 hp.
Both manual and automatic gearboxes were available, the latter being the first 6 Speed unit that Erin had ever made. On the X trim, 0-60 took just 4.6 seconds and it topped out at 183 mph. While noticeably heavier than the previous generation, this encouraged a slightly softer suspension setup that created a rounded driving experience that was sharp and exciting enough to be pushed to the limit but didn’t twitch quite like the previous generation.
Results
Upon release, the Mk 3 Scarlet received major acclaim and was widely praised as being one the best cars Erin had ever made. Its feel on the road was quickly picked up as being its best feature; although very capable on a track, it was most at home on a B road. Indeed, much of the marketing campaign was filmed in the Yorkshire Dales to reflect this.
The innovations made with this car would find there way on to the Berlose X-AllDrive, also from that year, and the two cars quickly became seen as a ‘power couple’ of the automotive world. Indeed, this connection is believed to have increased sales of both cars, and was hugely influential on future Erin cars.
Where the Mk 3 took really precedence though was on the race track, more specifically in the FIA GT Championship. Here, along with the ErinSport GT95, it embroiled itself in the hotly contested GT1 battle of the 90s, and heightened its fierce rivalry with the 911. Around the world, it would also compete in the GTR Euro Series and various IMSA Series too. And, of course, it raced at Le Mans every year of its production.
Prices and Specs
Lex Trim - Engine: 3.3l V6
$27860
~$45500 today
X Trim - Engine: 3.8l V8
$36450
~$59600 today
End of the Scarlet and its return
But, it would sadly all come to an end. By the end of the 90s, Erin was moving in a new direction, and the highly inefficient Scarlet didn’t quite fit in to the new focus on economy and wider-market cars. Further to this, the new GT01 had become the main focus for Erin[color=turquoise]Sport[/color], reducing the need for another GT racer. So, in 2002, the Scarlet ended production without replacement.
That was where the story ended, until 2013 when it was announced that Erin had a new Scarlet in development. And, in 2016, it finally arrived. Some have speculated that the real reason the company ended the Scarlet in 2002 was because they couldn’t make a follow-up that was as good, though the only people who truly know that are the company executives, more specifically former CEO Marco Erin, none of whom have ever given a definitive answer.
Boom! At last, a proper post for this car. Comments, critique, complaints, constraints, constitutions, constituents, constabularies and Confucianism theories are all welcome! And as before, please post/link any rivals to this car
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Not quite a true rival, but the 1996 Storm Knight GT-4T could possibly get close enough to give the Scarlet a good scare.
The amount of time between versions has changed it up a bit, but while it’s more expensive now (at $27,160 @40% markup) than it used to be, the stats it boasts have also gone up.
0-60 in 5.3 seconds, 159 MPH top speed. 2.6 liters of MP-EFI driven Inline 4.
As said, not quite true competition, but, much like any of the Erin/Storm rivalry, they compete in different ways.
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Zavir on the other hand obviously has sth competing nearly directly… There’s of course the Nova Volante III, but meh, that would be too obvious (and I don’t even have a prototype of it). Let’s use sth fitting better 
Now I only need to change the engine for something that doesn’t produce about 500 hp 
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Kudos making that body somehow work. I was going to make a Assoluto version of a 456 GT but the body wasn’t co-operative.
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@Madrias Nice! Glad to see you think there is a bit of a Storm/Erin rivalry, and I especially like it that the competitor car in this case has an i4 under the bonnet.
@szafirowy01 Must be big engine for 500 hp in the mid 90s!
@Deskyx Cheers 
did take a fair bit of work but I got there in the end. Also, big up the Ferrari 456, seriously underappreciated!
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It’d be a very light rivalry, granted, but a mild rivalry is still a rivalry. We typically build in opposing circles, with Erin keeping to what they do best, and Storm trying to cover all markets, at least from what I’ve seen.
As for the Knight having an I4, yeah, it’s pretty much never gotten anything else but an I4. If anything, that’s half the defining feature right there of the car, an above-average-sized I4. Sure, the '96 Knight is a 2.6, but it set the precedent, and that’s all that mattered.
Of course, once the Unreal Update happens, well, that’s when the proverbial other shoe will drop, and we’ll see how well I can do with my alternate company and their lore. Though from preliminary testing, Sinistra cars seem competitive with their Storm counterparts, despite being company-lore-forced as RWD only, so if I can refine that, there’s bound to be rivals between Erin and Sinistra.
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I am quite sure that the 2000 Albury Crusader III would have made an excellent rival to the Mk 3 Scarlet. In addition to being lighter than the Scarlet X (thanks to its all-aluminum structure), this 100% Australian-made and developed supercar (still built in Albury, NSW, just like its predecessors) also had more power - its all-new, all-alloy V8 displaced 6.2 litres and cranked out more than 400 horsepower, plus a shedload of torque. Unsurprisingly, its straight-line performance was superior to that of the Scarlet X as a result.
To add insult to injury, a convertible version of the Crusader III was also offered, while the Scarlet was only available as a coupe. And when you factor in a 30% markup, both versions of the Crusader still came in at under $30k, significantly undercutting the Scarlet.
In short, the Crusader III delivered much of the performance and style of a 550 Maranello at a far lower price. In fact, it was so good that a few engineers at Albury were actually disappointed that Erin had thrown in the towel after a long 16-year rivalry, just two years after the Crusader was redesigned.
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