Elimination Round Five – And Then There Were Three.
Now faced with just three cars, the GSI Warlock, the Diamond Quartz Storm, and the Bogliq Ambassador, Luke had to make his hardest decision yet.
“Three good cars. I’m down to the three best cars.”
Luke was pacing around his office, running everything through his multiple processors another time, and then another, and another, hoping some simulation somewhere he could run would change the result from a deadlock to a victory.
“The GSI Warlock is the best track performer, highest prestige, best safety, and most comfortable. It has the highest price. It is in the middle with drivability, sportiness, economy, practicality, and reliability.”
A few more steps, a turn, and a few more steps.
“The Diamond Quartz Storm is the most drivable, the sportiest, and has the highest economy. It is in the middle with comfort, prestige and safety, as well as cost and track time. However, it has the lowest practicality, and it’s the least reliable car of the three, as well as the least prestigious.”
A few more steps, a turn, and a few more steps.
“The Bogliq Ambassador is the least expensive, has the highest practicality, and the best reliability. It’s in the middle with how prestigious it is. And it’s the least drivable, sporty, comfortable, safe, and it barely passed the fuel economy test.”
He took a few more steps, then sat down and looked at the charts again.
“The Warlock uses a Sequential Double-Clutch seven speed transmission, powers all four wheels, and has an electric differential. The Quartz uses a Sequential Double-Clutch seven speed transmission, powers the rear wheels, and has an electric differential. The Ambassador uses an Automatic seven speed transmission, powers the rear wheels, and has an electric differential.”
He picked up a different set of charts, placed them on top, and looked at them.
“All of them use a V12, with Dual Overhead Cams, four valves per cylinder, and VVL. What differs is displacement and aspiration. The GSI uses a 6.0 liter engine, with twin turbochargers. The Diamond uses a 5.0 liter engine, naturally aspirated. The Bogliq uses a 6.6 liter engine, with twin turbochargers. The GSI throws down 805 horsepower. The Diamond throws around 681 horsepower. The Bogliq throws around 893 horsepower.”
Luke set down the charts and headed to the elevator.
“I know what I need to do. I need to look at the cars up-close and personal. The stats, while there’s definitive winners and losers, are only how they got here. I have to see which car I’d want to drive the most. Which car is the one I feel most comfortable with.”
He took the ride down from the 37th floor, stepping out as the elevator stopped at the parking garage, a garage that, once not so very long ago contained over 3 million dollars worth of super-high-performance cars of various shapes, sizes, and styles.
Where once had been 23 cars, only four remained. One was the Erin Tauga X 3.3, voted by Luke to be the most fun Sports Compact he’d ever driven, and bought with his spare savings, the money he had in case someone went over $200,000 but had offered what he’d written down as “Gryphon Gear with four doors and four seats.”
The other three were the cars he was trying to decide between.
“Crunching the numbers for their estimated running costs… The GSI Warlock takes $8,017 per year to keep maintained, insured, and fueled. The Diamond Quartz Storm takes $6,983 per year to keep maintained, insured, and fueled. The Bogliq Ambassador takes $7,122 per year to keep maintained, insured, and fueled.”
He looked at the three cars, then at the numbers on the spreadsheet in his data banks.
“Sadly, that puts the Warlock out. Most expensive to buy, and most expensive to keep running. Sorry, but that’s the breaks of it.”
With the Warlock down, Luke had to make a decision between the futuristic Diamond Quartz Storm, and the Bogliq Ambassador’s more classic design.
“The problem I have, honestly, is that parts break. Even my own. I’ve stripped servos, I’ve snapped my radio antenna twice, and I’ve suffered a major hydraulic leak that was a mess to fix. The Bogliq is simple. Everything in the interior, from the seats, to the radio, to the safety equipment, is standard grade stuff. The active suspension is standard grade stuff. But the Bogliq runs around on these carbon fiber wheels with these super expensive tires on it. Meanwhile, the Diamond Quartz Storm runs around on magnesium wheels with expensive tires on it, but everything in this car is above-standard-grade. Nothing in here has been built with the intent of replacing it. The Diamond takes a 22” by 255mm tire, all four corners, and the Bogliq takes a 21” by 255mm tire, all four corners. Fortunately, for this temporary exercise, I have alloy rims in those sizes, and common off-the-shelf sports tires for both. I’ll see how much a difference the tires make to the car by changing the tires on the car.”
A few minutes later, Luke had the tires switched over (I did, in fact, make new trims for this, just so I wouldn’t ruin the actual winning car).
“Both cars suffer in about the same ways. Drivability, sportiness, comfort, prestige, and economy all drop. Practicality and Reliability don’t change. Safety improves. While the Bogliq teeters dangerously close to the 20 MPG mark, it survived this. Which means, as the two cars, with their factory tires were 4.17 seconds apart on the track, they’ll both do the track again with these ‘new’ tires on them.” He called for a car hauler to bring both cars to the track, so he wouldn’t have to make multiple trips.
An hour later, Luke returned with both cars on the car hauler, and some information in hand.
“After running the cars another lap, the two are 4.94 seconds apart with crappier tires. The Bogliq has dropped from 2:09.66 to 2:12.04. The Diamond dropped from 2:05.49 to 2:07.10. But, track day isn’t everything. Otherwise, that practicality test I did earlier wouldn’t have mattered.”
Luke walked over to the far side of the parking garage, then called out, “Bring in the truck!”
A large truck was quickly brought in, along with a forklift, and two rather large pallets were unloaded.
“These are not all that heavy, but what they are is 1 centimeter cubes of lightweight plastic. I’m going to fill the cargo space as full as I can with these. It’ll take a little time, but as I can’t decide, the winner will be the car I can fit the most cubes into.”
It took quite a while for Luke to fill the trunk space of both cars with cubes, insisting that he do this himself as he could keep track better. After flipping the units from cubic centimeters to milliliters, he then did the math to get a smaller, more manageable number for each car.
“The Diamond Quartz Storm can fit 812 liters of cargo. The Bogliq Ambassador can fit 1,043 liters of cargo. Thereby, by ruling of the Trial by Cubes, the Bogliq Ambassador has won.”
Third Place: @oppositelock The GSI Warlock fought hard to get here. Be proud of it. What lost it in the end was the high price both to get in and to keep in the car. Honestly, if I wanted to change anything about this car, I’d have wanted some reverse/turn signals out back, and some fog lamps up front, and maybe a glossier red, but I’m not sure what it would have taken to drag the price down on that running costs.
Second Place: @thecarlover That was freaking hard to do, you know. If you’d have put the wheel skirts on the Diamond Quartz Storm, you’d have had it. The added stats wouldn’t have been much, but it would’ve tipped the looks department and avoided most of this.
First Place, and the honor of holding the next round goes to: @HighOctaneLove For producing a bold and brilliant design that had my attention the whole time. Maybe Luke can send the car in for a retro-fit of some signal lights?
)
about 150k$, well I could pump up all the q.sliders to max but it did not seem worthy.
