The year is 2001. The market is thriving and there’s still diversity in the cars available to purchase. On one hand you have the large gasoline-drinking SUVs and on the other you have blobby econoboxes built for nothing more than efficient transportation. Manufacturers have been pushing their cars on magazines such as AutoBeam to get their places in the press solidified. With the increasingly competitive market the question begs: How do you sell what nobody wants but everyone could use?
AutoBeam’s Jun. 2001 issue aims to answer this question by rounding up their top choices in this category.
Challenge rules
Model trim/Engine variant year 2001
No limited production/race parts
Regular unleaded (86 AKI/91 RON) fuel only
Must have a 3-way catalytic converter
Drivability of 40+
Comfort of 20+
Engine/Trim reliablity both 50+
Judging points
Design/aesthetic
Fuel economy
“Fun factor” (I will be driving the cars in BeamNG, with a full wheel/pedals/h-shifter setup)
Challenge info
Submissions open immediately
Submissions will close at 1PM GMT Sunday October 27th
Sometime after the challenge is complete, there will be a bonus video released featuring the top entries.
Submitting your vehicle
Send me a private message with your .car file using the following format:
Model name: [HFF] - (Your username)
Model trim: (Brand) (Model)
Engine family: [HFF] - (Your username)
Engine variant: (Engine model)
Note: I have pretty much every non-meme and non-prewar mod installed, so mods should not
be an issue.
(Edit) And a quick screenshot/little blurb for your car posted below a-la CSR style would be appreciated as well
If I’ve forgotten anything or something needs clarifying please let me know, this is my first time running a challenge and I’ll be doing my best.
Umm all the bodies you highlighted are already unsuitable for an economy car anyways, they’re either too large, or they’re supercars/race cars. The only exception being the EV1 body
Although the big one was an oversight on my part, min-maxing players would use supercar/race car bodies anyway, and we currently don’t have any rules to prevent that (aside from “design/aesthetic” that could be used to bin some min-maxed cars, which people may salt about if they spent time on a beautiful supercar-bodied economy car).
Economy cars are generally small 3- or 5-door hatchbacks or 4-door saloons with at least 4 seats each. And shouldn’t there be a wheelbase limit for the reason stated above? A car of this category should also be affordable to buy and run - sub-$20k might be as high as we should go.
Wheelbase seems widely varied in the list of bodies that are considered “OP” above, but that’s not to say you can’t make larger economy cars (Though I’ve seen a great couple of failures of this IRL Cough GM);
The issue I had with imposing price limits comes fewfold, Automation’s “price” metric is a little bit arbitrary, I don’t have the time to sit down and check every option you could throw down on a car to get an effective max price, and it’s also a metric that will self-regulate, posting a V12 with premium everything is going to fail regardless if it gets 40mph or not, because that’s clearly not an economy car.
There is no specific type of vehicle to use, especially during this era economy-focused vehicles were highly varied, we had things like the saturn SC/SL/SW series, as @Kyuu77 mentions the MR2 was also designed to be economical, however this would be considered more of a sports car in my eyes, I wouldn’t just instabin a similar car if it showed up here.
And @LordLetto there is not a hard-imposed rule no, as of posting this only what is shown in the OP is a rule, and if something has to be changed by necessity I will post here and update the OP.
Spander decided it was time to move on to the American market! This car is a nice not too expensive economic car with a decent power. Because being economic doesn’t mean you should look bad. Cruise around with the most recent design you’ll find. Buckle up and let’s go for a ride!
