please tell me you’re not doing a meme based challenge…
(for some reason, that’s the first one that popped out in my mind.)
So each person will be able to build something to their strengths?
I wouldn’t necessarily call the playing field that even. Our next buyer has obvious tastes. His priorities are just quite esoteric.
It could be that our submissions must all come from left field, with unconventional requirements.
Oooh!, this could be good for my experiments 
#Round Seventeen: A Client of Esoteric Priorities
Many thanks to @Dragawn for passing on his win, making this possible. Be warned, this round will be full of tensions and conflicting demands. The tl;dr version is, you’re not building to a specific budget, your budget will depend on which approach you choose to take. But I highly recommend you read the whole thing, because everything gives you an insight into why the challenge works the way it does.
##The year is:
2017
##Who am I:
Kai Kristensen, Gryphon Gear’s semi-tame racing driver
Thank you @Cen for this apt illustration
Kai’s had an interesting route into motorsports and the job he holds now. His original career path was to be a small-time auto mechanic, a job handed down through the generations of his family. It wasn’t something he was overwhelmingly passionate about, but he did have an affinity for cars and it was good enough to be content and pursue his occasional go-karting and falkrace activities, where he could really cut loose, as a hobby.
But life happened, one thing led to the next and he was offered an unusual opportunity: one that allowed him a shot at his actual dream of racing properly fast touring cars, and one that allowed him to escape his adolescent bruises and particularly the untimely death of his father. Unfortunately, personality clashes and personal demons were too much to lump on a boy not even out of his teens, especially halfway across the world by himself (at his insistence). Barely a year later, and he was down and out, with no contract, no seat, and no prospects. He took on a number of apprentice mechanic positions in a bid to avoid ending up on the streets, or worse, fleeing back home, but it was an increasingly losing battle and his dream looked set to evaporate. As frustration mounted, Kai accrued a string of increasingly serious driving-related offences, culminating in stealing cars from the already illegal street racing scene, and finally being arrested after a high speed road race scuttled his ride, resulting in loss of license and a suspended sentence.
That’s where Gryphon Gear came in: on a whim and a prayer. The terms of his employment were made up on the fly, and his arrival caused massive divisions within their small team. There was no infrastructure or plans to manage a race driver but they did need somebody to properly test the limits of the cars they were intent on building. Having to learn how to manage the logistics of a professional driver between them was an additional nightmare and the first twelve months were very rough, but against all odds and fuelled by risk and desperation, they persisted and after a few years the dividends started properly paying out, with a runner up placing in the Automation Touring Car Challenge, and most recently winning the driver championship in the Automation Motorsport World Endurance Challenge, thus playing a vital role in securing Gryphon Gear’s future as a motorsport force.
This all sounds well and good, and for the most part, it is. For its rapid growth and explosion onto the scene, GG hasn’t quite ironed out all the various personal creases, because they’re all eccentric and obsessive people, and Kai in particular hurtled headlong into life that he was nowhere near ready for without pause to stop and find out who he was. He doesn’t give himself enough credit for the life skills that he actually has (the guy can cook, plus he’s very tidy, even if his wardrobe lies somewhere along the lines of “why does anybody care about this stuff?”), so his team has taken it upon themselves to meddle with various aspects of his daily life, in some form of hands-on management, but this is still very much in a state of flux. And that’s the backdrop on which this rather strange challenge stands.
##What’s The Story:
For a couple of years now, Kai has been living in a modest but solid apartment north of Melbourne, which is nowhere near as sparsely furnished as his original shitbox slum flat (because his friends at GG took it upon themselves to furnish the apartment for him). This apartment is technically owned by the company, seeing as head of legal, Dan, effectively manages Kai’s finances. The main feature is that he gets a big double garage which is secure. The main limitation is that it’s only a double garage, which is fully occupied. There has been some preliminary talk of expanding this, but the relatively ascetic Kai has not found the motivation to proceed with such a thing, plus, it would have to be off location which defeats the entire purpose of having the garage at his apartment anyway.
The cars in Kai’s garage could scarcely be more different:
- MY2012 Ascension Mephisto (model number 01 of 58).
The ultimate coupe and symbol of GG’s early “less engineering, more brute force” days. A street-legal certified 2000bhp powering all four oversized wheels, taking it from 0-100 in 2.5s, 0-200 in about 5.1s, 0-300s and the quarter mile in 8 seconds and onto a top speed of over 438km/h. With a fixed GT style double wing and vaned splitter, it generated ridiculous amounts of downforce and corners like a race car. Starting price of 2.25M dollars, but this one was gifted to Kai for his work and for passing the rocky probationary period in the face of a tense and hostile campaign. Kai is in actual love with this car, but is heartbroken that it’s proving much more difficult to manage than it is worth to drive it more than once a fortnight. The other problem is that right now, Kai’s love life is on the rocks (he broke up with his antipodean girlfriend a couple of years back because they couldn’t make long distance work, and ever since, he’s not been particularly inspired). Why does one’s love life matter when it comes to cars? Because now that he’s unoccupied, he’d like nothing more than to pop the hood of a car and have a tinker with it. It’s like some kind of bonding thing. But Mephisto’s internal workings are far too airtight to do such a thing without using the laser-guided machines with the special car jacks and dismantling the entire engine bay which necessitates a trip to GG’s factory every couple of times he gives it a righteous thrashing like he should. GG kind of didn’t think about any of that when they put the car together.
- MY2001 Toyota Corolla Ascent hatchback, manual.
Nicknamed “Toothless” for several reasons. The ultimate not sports car and one of the most common cars you could ever find in Australia ever. 1.8L i4 now pumping out probably quite a bit less than 100bhp powering the front wheels to get it to 100 in a blistering 11 seconds on a good day. If you’re wondering why this is even in Kai’s garage, it’s because it’s one of the most daily of daily drives you can get, and with a fuel economy of 7.7L/100km (when new), running 91RON instead of 98RON, and being a rare personal purchase of his at around 2700 Australian buckaroos, having a proper boot and being able to go on road trips and have the radio on (the Mephisto is quite… spartan), it’s just more practical. Plus, the engine bay isn’t so cramped that when bored, Kai can pop the hood and have a tinker, maybe add a crossbrace and swap the shocks, tune the motor, swap some internals… you get the idea. The other problem is that it looks pretty plain. And when something looks plain, Kai is tempted to douche it up. In this case, he was tempted to paint really shitty flame decals coming from the front wheels. And when he is tempted to do something, he just goes and does it, really. So it looks something like this:
All Hail MS Paint Airbrush tool!
To complicate matters, the crew at GG are quite fond of meddling in each other’s affairs. They hijacked Strop’s Civic and turned it into a tricked out racer and that turned out really well (not). They don’t touch Dan’s Porsche 993 911 GT2 because Dan’s scary and knows things about their pay entitlements that they don’t, and they don’t touch Hannah’s van because a) her husband Boden doesn’t fit in anything else b) the van’s vital for their work c) whoever vandalises the van will have three claw-sized holes punched through their crotch. As for Kai however, the consensus is that the Corolla’s been too douched out and needs to go. Kai’s not sure how he feels about this, because at least it’s a daily and the car can be kind of fun because driving at the limit is fun, and when your car’s limits are very low, you don’t have leave the city to do it. But Mephisto…
###Your task is to sell Kai a car that will replace either one of the cars in his garage that those nosey parkers at GG approve of enough that they don’t interfere. If Toothless goes, it has to be replaced with a car that can serve as a daily but looks and drives well enough that it won’t be vandalised in the same manner. If Mephisto goes, it’ll become a lot easier to replace Toothless, but will need to be a car surpassing Mephisto in presence, menace, and sheer driving prowess.
###The basic rules are as follows:
- Stable build or open beta. Please let me know which build your car comes from.
- No restriction to body, but you’re going to want to use a car, not a van, truck etc. Just saying
- No restriction to number of seats, but in general, Kai doesn’t actually need more than 2, and definitely doesn’t want more than 5
- Tech year is anything up to and including 2017
- Model and Trim year, and Engine and Family year do not have to match. If your car is unique or a restomod, additional appreciation, difficulty and costs with maintenance and upkeep will be duly noted, thus giving you a slight disadvantage against stock production models
- Engine noise level must be <50
- Fuel type can be up to 98RON, but a daily car should use either 91RON or 95RON.
- I won’t say strictly no automatics, but yeah, that’s one way to quickly get cut.
- No semi-slicks on the daily. It is not a summer or track car. If you want to replace the hypercar, well, you can, but we still prefer sports tyres
- Total emissions must be <300
- Safety must be at least 40.0
- For anything other than an all-out Mephisto replacing race car, really should have at least standard entertainment, or, for older models, at least a decent FM radio
- Screw the factory settings, they’re not working. PM me how many models a year you’ll build, and the asking price.
- No naming convention required as long as it doesn’t just say “Car Model 1”.
###Values are considered subjectively along a spectrum from Toothless to Mephisto:
- Engineering time and production units, the composite of which will be called “tinkerability”.
- Comfort (the more daily the car, the higher it should be. Toothless is around 35, Mephisto is more like 12)
- Fuel economy. Toothless gets about 8L/100km, Mephisto is more like 20.
- Running costs. For more explanation see below.
- Sportiness, or “fun factor”. If replacing Toothless this value does not matter that much, but more is still better. If trying to beat Mephisto, you better shoot for at least 75.
- Drivability, not that important as Kai is a professional race driver, but anything less than 20 is patently unsuitable to daily
###Here’s a few hints, all very important:
- Design is important. Regardless of where the car lies on the spectrum from eco-box to hypercar, it has to have a certain sex appeal. Kai has a slightly esoteric taste when it comes to “sex appeal” but let’s just say first impressions count. Kai wants something that pops right out, that has drama, a visceral punch that makes his loins feel funny and his face flush and suddenly need some time alone. Have a look at Appendix C to see what works and what doesn’t across all classes.
That is to say, we must transcend from ‘form follows function’, to ‘form evokes vision’. All this language is pretty intuitive and emotion driven. I hope that by now you have well realised that Kai is not a rational person, he is driven by impulses. To be absolutely clear, I’m not asking you to chuck a hundred thousand fixtures on the car. The lines they convey and the impression they give as a whole is the most important thing. You may have to go out of your way to use an unusual body or break the body’s natural line to achieve something stunning. Imagine the car as a person. If you feel a sudden desire to make passionate love to it, you’re hopefully on the right track. Hell, you don’t have to imagine the car is a person. You could just want to have sex with the car itself. Or any other animate or inanimate being/object. I won’t judge. Just don’t put sugar in the tank, that’s bad for the car 
Because if you deliver something too plain, Kai will vandalise it. Strop can gauge how likely this is with great accuracy, and the rest of the team will be dissuaded from supporting the purchase.
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You’ll have a much easier time replacing Toothless than you will the Mephisto. Unless you want to try beating GG at their own game, and I know some of you will.
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Budget is conditionally unlimited. If the GG crew approve of the car, they’ll pay for it, and this effectively means there is no budget. If they don’t and Kai wants it, Kai will pay for it. Kai’s discretionary income is limited by the fact most of his money is currently, stemming from an agreement Kai made with Dan when first entering the company. This agreement is being progressively relaxed, but Kai’s still not quite solvent enough to afford a hypercar or a supercar with his own cash (let’s say he only has 50k to spend, and he’s going to be quite loath to blow much of it, so I do not suggest you deliberately attempt this route), unless it’s going to make him so happy (or unhappy if he can’t get it) that the guys at GG have no choice but to relent. You’d think we were matchmaking for Kai’s life partner or something, and GG are all the prospective in-laws.
For cars that Kai doesn’t immediately swoon over, the markup value will be an additional key factor in how likely he is to “douche it up” (lower values are bad). So if you go too cheap, you’ll end up with just another Toothless, which is GG’s idea of a worst case scenario.
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Must look good in red, black, or grey. Exact hue at your discretion. Use any other colour at your own risk. I’m not saying that Kai wouldn’t drive around in a lime green car, it’s just, it better make a damn good case for being that colour.
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Kai is unfairly biased against American cars, particularly American luxobarges and muscle cars. None of @KLinardo’s favourites need apply. You’re welcome to submit an FR sports sedan or coupe, of course, but they better be light, nimble and a joy to drive. You’re also welcome to submit cars from the USA, but they better have independent suspension and not be overweight.
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Too much space is a waste. Kai also doesn’t have much use for a van, people mover, flatbed truck, or five seats. Two seats is currently enough, and stuff he brings with him on any trip could really fit in the footwell of the passenger seat, so he’s not even that fussed about having a boot/trunk. Also, he lives in Melbourne, and Melbourne has some smaller than average streets, so again, anything larger than a medium family sedan will be a burden unless your excuse is “sorry, but I had to fit this 10L v12 that makes this car faster than Mephisto”. Did I mention that even without active aero, passive suspension and only a geared diff, the 2012 Mephisto’s easily good for 6:46 on Green Hell?
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Tinkerability. The ability to tinker with the car is a huge plus for reasons described above. The importance of this is inversely proportional to how likely it is the car will be more than a match for Mephisto, but that’s a very big gamble. I’ll be using a composite of engineering time and production units to determine just how ‘tinkerable’ a car is. The engineering times for Toothless is about 96 for the engine and 185 for the entire car, and it takes up about 90 production units (which is tiny). On Toothless, Kai can modify whatever the hell he wants from the confines of his garage. The engineering times for Mephisto are closer to 1000 for the engine and 1900 for the entire car, and it takes about 500 production units. Without going to GG’s factory, Kai can polish the fixtures, tighten a few nuts and bolts on the turbo manifold, change the air filters and change the fluid for the wipers, air conditioning, intercooler and the oil, and that’s it, unless he wants to mangle his fingers trying.
What this means is that effectively, the higher the engineering times and production units are for the car and engine, the less Kai can tinker with it using his own generic tools in his own garage. If you’re going above, say, 300 and 600 for engine and car respectively and/or more than 250 production units overall, Kai’s going to be dissatisfied with the amount of tinkering he can do, and it better be a damn fun car to drive on a daily basis to make up for it. Conversely, if you make a wholly analog car, that’s great for the purist experience but it does need to be not totally shithouse. In addition to the number, I’ll be paying attention to each and every one of your design choices to see which parts will be the hardest to fiddle with, since, for example, having 600 units engineering time because your active aero is set to +15 is not a problem because the only disadvantage from that is not being able to change the wing manually, and that’s only important at non-daily-driving levels. But having a downforce tray set to +15 is going to make a difference, because that means it’ll be impossible to remove from underneath the car, which restricts self-maintenance.
The amount of space one has left in the car engine bay (signified by whether the arrows for the engine dimensions are turning yellow or orange) is a present, but very minor consideration since we don’t get to choose the placement of the engine and this unfairly penalises FF format cars with MacPherson struts.
A comprehensive list of what affects and does not affect “tinkerability” will follow as appendix A.
-
Running costs do matter somewhat. While GG is probably paying for the car, they’re not paying for upkeep. Tinkering is free. Fuel, insurance, tyres and replacement parts are not. Make sure the car is not more expensive to keep than it is a joy to drive and look at. (For reference, a cheap car might have running costs of 1100-1700 or so depending on age, and a hypercar anywhere from 5000 onwards). Obviously the higher the costs the less daily-able it is, unless it is just that good to drive.
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A reminder that you are allowed to use any model/trim/family/variant year up to and including 2017. They don’t have to match. Restomods with old bodies and new engines etc. are welcome, but note that the car still has to be up to road legal purposes because there’s restrictions when your car has to be registered under a club or historical permit because it’s horribly toxic, a death trap or whatever.
###APPENDIX A: Engineering choices and their effect on “tinkerability”
For the most part the degree is reflected by the tool-tip on engineering time, but there are a number of differences as Kai is a mechanic, not a panel-beater or software engineer.
- Body: none
- Chassis frame: none
- Chassis material: negligible
- Chassis layout: significant for access. Front and rear are easiest. Mid transverse is slightly hard. Mid long is harder again (note this does affect running costs and engineering times hence how it works.)
- Suspension type: significant
- Panel material: negligible except extreme caution in using fiberglass, it is very liable to damage and Kai is no fabricator.
- Drivetrain layout: moderately significant
- Engine bottom and top end material, cylinders and format: negligible
- Bore and stroke: slightly significant depending on how tight the fit in the engine bay is
- Valve train type and layout: slightly to moderately significant, depending on tech level
- Cam setup: none
- Turbo: see 9.
- Fuel injection: slightly significant depending on tech level
- Exhaust: negligible unless using race tubular, which takes up a lot of room and hampers access
- Gearbox: significant. manual is easier to tinker with, but has to be wholly analog. Kai is less likely to go so far as to strip the gearbox casing and tinker with the gears, as that’s a lot of work. The clutch is fair game.
- LSD: significant, electric LSDs can’t be tinkered with
- Wheels: none, only significant in running costs.
- Brakes: none, as long as the wheels come off, the brakes are easy
- Undertray: significant, depending on tech level. The higher it is, the trickier it is to remove. Also, downforce > fully clad >> semi clad
- Active wing: none
- cooling flaps: none
- Interior: none
- Suspension: The more active components, the less tinkerable it is. Active sports/comfort suspension can’t be touched outside a shop.
###APPENDIX B: Flowchart and spectrum of considerations
Once your car is certified legal according to the rules, refer to this flowchart. If you are not familiar with them, you may wish to look up what a “nomogram” is.
###APPENDIX C: List of real life cars by sector and Kai’s views on them
####Hot Hatch
Looks: Quite handsomely aggressive
Performs: Quite enough poke for something of this class
Likes: Decent va-va-voom for something that’s mostly liveable
Irks: Hot hatches are becoming really over-engineered, and what the heck is this drift mode for plebs???
Looks: It’s ok I guess
Performs: Eager and tight. Good for some fun, but not quite as good considering it’s a bit harsh on the road.
Likes: Best balance of handling and drivability across different conditions in a hot hatch
Irks: No major ones really
Looks: Nope.
…and that’s as far as we got, which is a shame, because Strop quite likes it
####Compact Sports
Looks: It looks like a bug.
Performs: Lacking on the straights, makes up for it in the corners. Great Ocean Road here we come!
Likes: It may be mid-engine but I can get into that engine bay no problem!
Irks: I can’t hear the tunes over ALL THE REST OF THE NOISE, is there even a radio??? Also damn, why are the costs and upkeep so out of proportion with the performance? Not as convincing in red, black or grey as it does in this gaudy shade of yellow. Do you know where I come from, we have a game where we punch each other if we see a yellow car?
Looks: The NA, NB and NC’s younger, sexier sibling. A good thing because the older ones are a bit too cutesy to take seriously
Performs: It was never really about performance so much as the experience. At least I’m less likely to lose my license again.
Likes: A tinkerer’s dream. Revives the road trip dream
Irks: As always the temptation to give it a lot more donk is strong, which means the GG guys might steal it, but if they do that I’ll just sulk and refuse to drive for the rest of the year.
Looks: The concept was cooler 
The rear end is underwhelming. This car was built to mod. Chop, drop, stance and giant wings. And decals. Fire decals.
At this point GG decides it wouldn’t pay for the car if Kai’s going to do that due to ensuing douchebaggery. However, in this case, Kai can afford the car, and due to its immense tinkerability and liveability, just might buy it, so it would remain in contention.
####JDM Tuner
Looks: Bubble butt! Who doesn’t love a bubble butt… car?
Performance: For 1994, pretty good
Likes: It’s sexy. It’s sporty. It’s still plenty liveable.
Irks: Not sure how to twiddle with a rotary, but that’s not going to stop me! Almost impossible to get these certified and road legal. Actually impossible to find one stock. I will see your douche and raise you my own!
Looks: ooooooooooh
Performance: these were all subject to the Gentleman’s agreement, so it’s slowness is not really that relevant
Likes: Who doesn’t love a liveable supercar? It has automatic climate control and a proper sound system! Not that I need that, but still, it’s cool.
Irks: Awfully expensive for what you actually get once you strip off the legend. Getting into the engine bay is harder than advertised, but still remains remarkably ‘tinkerable’.
Looks: The proportions, check. the rear light array, check. The front… looks derpface.
Performance: just give me another 30 hours undoing the mess in this engine bay the last owner left and I’ll get back to you. OH GOD THIS THING IS A PIG IN THE CORNERS brb overhauling the suspension
Likes: Controversial! Ridiculous! Turbo! Unicorn levels of rare! A tinkerer’s dream/nightmare!
Irks: Spends more time in the garage with bits hanging out of it, therefore an investment before it becomes a daily. Replacement parts for some of the more involved internals are also unicorn levels of rare.
Looks: A bit too derpface. A nose and overhang longer than Strop’s face looks ridiculo- OW!
Review aborted
####Classic/Legends
Looks: Needs more monocle to go with my three piece and top hat. My grandad would love it. If driving around in fancy cars looking to pick up actually worked, I could do it in this car.
Performance: Who gives a fuck? THE DOORS OPEN UPWARDS.
Likes: Everything except the headlights. TIL that Kai does not like bug-eyed headlights.
Irks: Would need a club permit to drive. Impossible to daily these days. I’ll overlook the fact it’s a Mercedes.
Looks: This makes me wish all cars were purpose-built homologations for rally, and I hate rallying.
Performance: Am I even allowed to drive this on the road?
Looks: I know this was voted the world’s most beautiful car and all, but don’t you see how at certain angles it has a terrible case of duckface?
I said earlier that there was no specified budget. I was mistaken. Valued at over 20M AUD, this car is most certainly out of range of anything GG would fork out.
Looks: It’s quite good. Does look a bit shocked though. For an American Muscle, it’s quite… acceptable (not least because it has an English chassis that weighs a fraction of the American ones).
Performance: It’s a total death trap, I love it. That Ford block is wasted elsewhere.
####European Sports
Looks: It’s not the most exciting, but it’s far from the worst I’ve seen. M2 is a better size for Australian roads than M4
Performance: Brisk and tidy. I’m not a huge fan of BMW but this is very workable, as long as I’m not paying for the initial purchase
Likes: Easy to live with and drive as a daily, easy to put the foot down
Irks: Servicing definitely on the expensive side in Australia, fancy engine engineering is fancy, tinkering with it will void the warranty.
Looks: Unique, yes… but I was never a huge fan of the 911.
Performance: Quite good, but enough to justify the hype? GG adds: and the price?
Likes: A good driver’s car. Only rear-engined sports car that’s made it this far.
Irks: Porsche started out with a crazy formula and then spent the next several decades gradually compromising it. A bit of a turnoff.
Looks: Nice, but for the spooked headlights (that old chestnut). Kai likes the Zender version bodywork better
Performance: It’s fun, but why is this slower than all the hot hatches we looked at earlier???
Likes etc.: See the Elise, above.
####Supercar
Looks: More like a super slug. Boring.
Kai loses interest .
Looks: This needs spicing up. He’s going to paint flames and dragon wings on the roof. The object lesson is, don’t make the car boring looking. If it’s boring enough, no amount of supercar will save it.
Performance: Feels every bit that it is fast
Likes: As an analog modern supercar, this combines both great tinkerability and performance
Irks: Tinkering with the car is all well and good but not if it’s because the internals shredded themselves while driving normally!!!
Looks: Some say it’s not actually a supercar, but it definitely looks the part!
Performance: Some wax lyrical about how it’s unreal fast, but part of this is because it’s a bit of a bus to begin with.
Likes: AWD means it’s a traffic light warrior
Irks: Like piloting a modern fighter jet- so much electronics I can hardly tinker anything. Not that civilised as a daily. Using cheap substitutes in your engineering results in expensive replacements in your maintenance.
####Hypercar
Looks: Most of it is a work of art. The rear, however, less so.
Performance: It’s a hypercar. These are the models GG aspires to beat.
Likes: It can almost keep up with a GG car. It’s somehow still street legal.
Irks: Definitely can’t tinker with this one at all. Also can’t even own this one because not a loyal Ferrari customer.
Looks: The front end looks derp. The rear end… if I could find the exhaust outlets I would probably burn my dick. This does not sound like a good thing, but trust me, it is.
Performance: I’m told that it was awesome.
Irks: Can’t buy this one, shame.
####Racecar
Looks: Can we get more LED lights on everything ever? I’ll even wear one of those Tron suits!
#Deadline: Friday, 15th July, midnight AEST (i.e. GMT +10)
#Round is now open! Send all models via PM as well as usual posting!
9 Likes
fuck that’s long, brb. reading.
edit: okay. done
but
Hell, you don’t have to imagine the car is a person. You could
just want to have sex with the car itself. Or any other animate or
inanimate being/object. I won’t judge
WHY?!?!
also, though long, it’s a really interesting read. nice going @strop 
Woah, wall of text alert! Not bad though, after reading through the whole thing it makes sense to me. Definitely like the idea of having a choice between a daily driver or an insane hypercar. I also like the idea of incorporating engineering time, that statistic is very underused in most of the competitions we have currently. This is going to be an interesting challenge.
I definitely want more clarification on the engineering time for specific parts, exactly what will be affected and what won’t.
Now this is a real grade-AAA challenge… But this one will bring enormous rewards to whoever gets it right, and will be deeply satisfying to anyone who can build insane hypercars or extremely mild economy cars without going over budget.
I saw what you did there, you’re testing some ideas for the hyper car shout-out… Or so it seems.
I have a question, can I make the esthetical stuff and some else the tuning?
I might take you up on that offer I have some ideas myself, but you can send me what you make and I’ll see if it fits 
1 Like
to be honest im kinda confused how im gonna approach with all the long list of rules and preference plus im gonna be busy with family business and BRC plus there no price limit and only factory setting
i might take this but im not gonna play on supercar game because i dont have too much time to tinker
This doesn’t make sense, since both downforce tray and active aero fall under the aerodynamics quality slider. Are we supposed to specify where the quality goes towards?
Also, currently the aerodynamics slider doesn’t affect engineering time. Lol.
i really wanna submit the phyton fighter again here. but it’s just in the middle of ‘not enough tinkering’ and ‘not super enough’, though it is a super hatchback.
@sillyworld i could take you up on your offer. but what car are you targeting though?
Just for reference, I built a test car to replace Mephisto (not yet finalized for submission) in the current stable release (build 160420) which takes far less engineering time and production units (both for the engine and the entire car) than Mephisto does. Moreover, it meets all of your requirements and has a genuinely bold, titillating shape that draws onlookers wherever it goes - very quickly, since it has over 1,200 bhp - all sent to the rear wheels. And it’s red - a deep yet strong metallic red to be exact. Did I mention that its comfort score is >40, its sportiness is 84 exactly, it is 25% more economical than Mephisto, the engine easily fits in its compartment, and its drivability score is well over 20 despite the massive surge in torque early on in the rev range? One final point: it certainly isn’t American, despite my patriotic sentiment.
i’ve got a car ripe and ready, but i’ll hold fire until a little later
Am I allowed to play?
Well someone had to do it, didn’t they…
everyone is welcome but only one roundmaster per round/thread so feel free to sent your entry