QFC42 - Retirement Plan
The brief
Northern Canada, Fall 2023
Active and fit retiree Peter wants a rugged utility vehicle to fit his outdoorsy, travelling and manual labor lifestyle he shares with his wife. It needs to be able to tow a utility trailer, fit/tow a camper and must last for years through many hardships. Also need to handle the changing conditions of wintery Northern Canada, but also the Rockies and Nevada desert during road trips. He is used to a pickup truck, but other options exists. He does not want something commercial, and will use this vehicle semi-daily for long periods of time.
The long story
Peter lives in northern Canada in a suburban rural area, but also spends a third of the year at his rustic remote cabin he built himself, winter and summer alike.
He’s been married for 40 years and is now retired but still is very active, doing yearly cross-country trips across Canada and the US in a camper. He also does a ton of manual chores for friends and family, takes cares of the cabin and the woods, build furniture and lives his fullest outdoor.
He needs a new ride that can either fit a 2-person camper or tow a camper trailer, and is able to lug supplies and materials around. While he has a 12-foot utility trailer for that purpose, he’d like to not always have to bring the trailer everywhere and fit a minimum in the vehicle itself.
While not looking for an offroader, he’s often driving in harsh conditions and needs to handle northern Canadian winter around his remote cabin.
This won’t be a daily car as they have a (much) smaller compact car already, but it will get used a lot nonetheless for different construction projects, maintenance work around the cabin, traveling, hardware store runs, etc.
Peter is used to a pickup truck but is ready for a change if it is an interesting alternative - and while they are not looking for luxury, he and his wife are not getting any younger.
What they need
- A semi-daily utility vehicle. Peter might not do the grocery and small errands in it, but it will be used multiple times per week and for long distances.
- They also have a small 10 year old compact for weekly errands that does not even have 100,000 km on it. They plan to keep it until it dies.
- Every 3-4 weeks they will leave and go to their remote cabin for a few weeks, winter or summer. It is remote, the path to the cabin is unusable during winter but they can get to it by driving on the lake.
- In those trips they bring lots of supplies, landscaping/arborist tools, his trusty Kubota RTV, and a myriad of maintenance items.
- He only does one or two multi-week cross-country trips a year, so while an important part of his life, it is not the main part of it.
- He needs to be able to tow (or fit on the bed) a small to medium 2-person camper.
- He also has a utility trailer that can transport his Kubota but also transport gravel, soil and such.
– For the above, I want to avoid specific towing values as we are not using the towing stats in Automation. However I posted more details in the thread below if you are interested. - Weather is never great in northern Canada, it is critical to be able to navigate that changing landscape, but Peter will not be doing offroading for fun, so dedicated offroader are not the primary market, but if they can handle the rest as much as he needs, Peter will consider it
- They are used to very little in terms of luxury and comfort, so purely a luxury vehicle is not what they think of at first, but if they can get a bit of it at the price they are looking for, they won’t avoid it.
- While they are older, they are probably more fit and healthy that the average 30 years old, so they are incredibly active (jogging, biking, trekking, swimming…). They are not snowbirds either.
Hard Rules
Trim year: 2020
Family, Model or Variant Year: any
Bodies: Full size SUV, large/high crossover, light duty pickup truck and even a van could work. While a Porsche 911 could tow a small trailer, this is not what Peter is looking for, neither is an offroad wagon or purely an MPV. A Cayenne or G Wagon maybe.
I do not care about the body year, using older 80s bodies can fit this very well with modern features. No legacy body mods.
Also he needs a vehicle for a variety of other tasks, so integrated camper truck/motorhome and the like are NOT what he’s looking for. He also does not want a commercial or heavy duty vehicle either, it needs to be a semi-daily vehicle.
Road Legality: Standard US/Canada road legal stuff - wipers, lights, third brake light and DRL, side markers, fuel filler, US or Canadian rear plate.
Wheelbase: Max 3.8m/150in (rounded). No lower limits, but Peter is not expecting a tiny vehicle.
Max width: Should not be an issue, and I am afraid to post this, but 2.44m/96in is the max width
Tech Pool: +5 default everywhere
Max Budget: 37,000 AMU
Max Loudness: 55
Minimum quality: -5
Fuel: Unleaded 87 AKI/91 RON preferred, 91 AKI/95 RON allowed
WES: Minimum 11
Tyres: non-race Radial ending in 5
Seats: Minimum 2 full seats in front. 4/5 seats preferred but not required - always useful. Beware, a 2-seater SUV will be seen as not so coherent. Also removing seats does not always free up cargo space, so MPV bodies are usually not a good choice.
Advanced Trim Setting: Reasonable. Not looking for a monster truck. Avoid things that can be changed in the designer as much as possible.
Interior not required or scored, but will be commented on.
No race parts or semi-slick if I really have to spell it out. No V16 allowed.
About suspensions: Around that time, independent rear suspensions started appearing on some larger full size SUVs and would make their way to some truck later on. I will not require a rear live axle on pickup trucks for example, but the scoring should be balanced based on this.
Creativity: I will accept fake-diesel, dualies, and such. Want to model a camper? Sure go ahead. It will mostly affect Design & Coherence below (and not always in a positive way). The car must still be legal, but note that otherwise I will rate other priorities on the actually stats, not pretend stats. Also a 6-wheel might not be what Peter is looking for, or he might be impressed… Who knows?
Priorities
Env Resistance - With harsh winter and a wide variety of driving conditions across the US and Canada, the vehicle must not turn to dust after a few years.
Safety - You do not want to feel in danger on cross-country road trips.
Reliability - Same thing, breaking down far from home is not great. It is gonna get used and abused.
Load Capacity - While not 100% accurate, it is used to balance other stats and suspension choices.
Practicality - A practical car for roadtrips is useful here, so 4 door crew cab, or even on a extended cab, or a 5-door SUV is a great bonus.
Comfort - The higher the better, long drives are hard and they are not getting any younger.
Cargo Volume - Also a balancing act stat.
Design and Cohesiveness - This is not about realism as much as making sense. It is also more about looking the part than being beautiful, but low quality effort will still rate lower here even if it’s not a beauty contest. Creativity can give you a slight bonus, but this is still a QFC. Weird, unrealistic engineering could impact this as well.
Drivability - Long drives must not be a chore, but he’s not expecting a self driving car either so diminish return the higher you get, but must not be terrible either.
Offroad - Winter and harsh driving conditions from Alaska to the Rockies and the desert means you need enough to not be stranded, but only up to a point - it is not an offroader, too much is not gonna help here.
Fuel Economy - Peter does not expect super good fuel econ, and too good here won’t help that much, but it must also not be terrible. It’s not getting any cheaper.
Size - While they are not ones to usually use underground parking in the city or park parallel on the street, it might happen - they are not always towing something or in the great outdoors. Something too big might not always be the best option here. Same for something too small, they aren’t looking for a SWB Suzuky Jimny.
Sportiness, Torque & Highway Performance - While towing and going up a steep hill on the highway, you do not want to have to always stay on the right lane with your hazards on. We’re not looking for raw performance here tho, enough to not be a drag.
Value, cost, SVC - They have no kids, are retired and have tons of savings, so Peter is not looking to cheapen out, but it could impact his decision between two choices if it comes down to it.
Utility - Weird to see this so low, but if you follow the above you should have a pretty good utility already.
(0-star)
Prestige - Not very important here at all, you can disregard completely.
Towing Capacity - Still broken and unreliable unfortunately. Will be proxied through other priorities.
Inspirations
They are not necessarily all fitting in the budget but are there for the type of vehicle they are and designs.
That is NOT what Peter is looking for, avoid
Small offroad crossover/wagon, they do not usually tow much and are very low
A truck with removable/configurable dump/flat/deck/box bed - too commercial. Bed needs to be integrated in the design.
Integrated camper are out - end of day he needs a usable semi-daily vehicle.
Changelog
- Clarified that Peter is not looking for integrated camper truck, motorhome or commercial vehicle.
- Updated start of submissions to Tuesday March 12th.
- Updated inspiration with secondary options and what NOT to proposed to Peter
- Added a section with bullet point clarifications on needs
- Added minimum quality of -5 requirement
- Added mention about seats, cargo and explicitly excluded MPV bodies.
- Swapped Size and Utility priority - Size is more important now (not too big but also not too small)
- Clarified Design & Coherence priority
- Condensed the brief and kept the old one as the long form
- Updated max budget to 37,000 AMU and swapped Design&Coherence with Load Capacity in priorities
Submission guideline
Model and family names: QFC42 - your forum username
Trim and variant names: free
Submissions will open on Tuesday, March 12th, 2024
Deadline: Sunday March 24th, 2024 at 23:59 EDT (UTC-4). Beware of Daylight Saving Time.
All submissions must be sent through Discourse (not Discord) via forum DM.
You must post an ad on this thread showing at least one picture of your entry within 24 hours of the submission deadline.
No resubmissions will be accepted, except in the case of rule violations and game updates.
