Now watch me whip, Now watch me nae nae, Now watch me whip, whip, Watch me nae nae…
---- A Whip For Grandma ----
The Brief:
2006 - Norrland, Sweden
It’s 2006, an elderly woman named Bergitta has just turned 80 and as a birthday present her grandchildren are planning to buy her a new car to replace her quite old and quite shabby '72 Volvo 144.
Birgitta lives alone on a small farm roughly 15 minutes from the local town. She is definitely NOT a car person and only really sees it as a tool, and like any tool it should be easy to use, versatile and cheap. As you can imagine, Birgitta finds it rather boring to drive and really only uses a car to do the weekly shop and to go to church.
Her grandchildren, Lisa, Jakob and Andreas have pooled some of their savings together and without too much research done, they’ve decided $18,000 should be plenty to find something suitable, with this in mind, the three grandkids start doing their research.
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All entries must be made on the stable version of Automation
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Trim and variant year - 2006
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Model and family year - Free
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No legacy or open wheel bodies allowed
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Regular 91 RON/87 AKI Maximum
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Any kind of 3-way catalytic converter required
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Must pass WES 9 emissions
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NO race parts allowed, including semi-slicks (If unsure, please consult with me)
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Car must be road legal (Healights, taillights, wiper ETC)
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Interiors not required and not judged
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Must have a standard size EU plate mounted on the front and rear
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Car must have a minimum of 4 seats, 2 full seats in the front, +2 allowed in the rear
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Car must have at least ABS
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Standard 00s safety minimum
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Maximum cost - $18,000
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Advanced settings: Wheel width, wheel diameter, tyre width, tyre diameter, and camber are banned. Rest of the settings are allowed with some moderation and common sense, i.e dont make the car into something it isn’t, like turning a fiat panda into a limo.
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Netgative quality allowed within reason (consult with me if unsure)
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50 million combined techpool maximum. NO NEGATIVE TECHPOOL!
The combined techpool are these underlined costs added together, so in this example it would be 39.1 + 10.3. So this car has a combined techpool of 49.4M
Priorities:
Design
Even though Birgitta isn’t a car enthusiast, she should definitely NOT be embarrassed about being seen in it, so she would appreciate it if the car didn’t look like a dog’s egg. Equally, her grandchildren shouldn’t be embarrassed when they tell other people what car they bought. It doesn’t have to be a complex design, but it should look good.
Realism
While there are many ways to approach this, none of them necessarily wrong, I do want something that could feasibly exist. So when making your car please look to the real world on what’s realistic for this segment and PLEASE use some common sense. For example, while fitting your car with a full luxury interior or a fully active suspension will make your comfort and drivability stats real good, it’s FAAAAR from what’s realistic for this segment. Small inconsistencies are of course fine, but if you abuse autojank or make something really unrealistic I will take action with either penalties or putting you in the bin. If you are unsure you are of course free to ask me either via DM, discord or in this thread and I’ll happily answer.
Comfort
Birgitta is old and her body is not what it used to be. Therefore she definitely wants something that won’t turn her into a pile of dust every time she drives it. So something with a nice and softly tuned suspension and comfortable seating is a must. Of course an S-class isn’t expected but if the car is no more comfortable than a church pew she might be forced to take her antique bicycle and that’s no good.
Drivability
Because of her age and because she doesn’t enjoy driving, Birgitta wants a hassle free and easy driving experience. Something that’s easy to park and easy to handle in town. The car should also be old people friendly, if the car has a heavy steering or is lacking driver aids she might find it hard to use the car, or even worse, crash.
OOC - For this I wont only be looking at your cars drivability stats, but also your engineering choices and how much sense they have for a car in this segment. For example having a super long wheel base doesn’t really make the car easy to park. So read the brief and the priorities so you actually understand what I want. A well thought out design will be awarded a score bonus.
To clarify a bit more. The roads around her are generally in okay shape and while yes there is both snow and ice present sometimes, a car in this segment should be able to handle this just fine if you have some common sense while engineering. Due to her age as well, if the weather becomes to dangerous she wouldn’t want to leave the house anyway, so no need to think about off road aspects. What I want you to think about is for example “how easy is this to park?”, “does it have good visability?”, “Is it easy to get in and out of?”. Stuff likes this that would make it easy to use for someone old.
Reliability
If the car breaks down and is in the shop all the time, what’s even the point of having it, right? Brigitta wants something that always just starts and will just keep going without too many issues.
Purchase Price
$18,000 is the absolute maximum the grandchildren want to spend and they all think it would be nice to have some money left, so cars under their budget will be looked upon favorably. That being said, if there is a car that fully outclasses the competition by a mile in every way except price, then it might be hard to argue to not choose that.
Service cost
While Birgitta does have a very good pension and a lot of money saved up, she doesn’t wanna spend it all servicing her car so a cheap service cost is definitely something to consider.
Fuel Economy
Because of her not planning on using the car too much, fuel costs aren’t really something she will worry about. But if two cars are really close, this might make or break it.
Safety
Of course Birgitta doesn’t want to drive around in a deathtrap but she also isn’t looking for something that’s class leading in safety.
Inspiration
Submission and deadline:
Submissions open until 5th of September 23:59 CET
Submissions open until 7th of September 23:59 CET
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Rule delib is initially 1 week (17th of august - 24th of august), It will be shortend/lengthend as needed -
An ad for your entry MUST be posted in this thread 24 hours after submission close at the latest. Failure to do so will result in a bin.
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Naming convention:
Model and Family: AWFG - [Your forums username]
Trim and Variant: Free -
Submissions MUST be DMed to me on the forums to be valid.
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NO RESUBS!
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If you’ve had import issues before, send screenshots of stats, TP etc when submitting, if you don’t then I will judge whatever the file gives me.
Final notes:
This is my first time hosting so please excuse any hiccups or mistakes from my side and I’ll try my best to fix any issues that arise. If you have any critique or problems with rules, how the challenge is run, ETC I’m fully open to listen, but I would appreciate it if you don’t try and run the challenge for me.
Changelog:
- (17-08-2025) Corrected maximum fuel quality from 95RON to 91RON
- (17-08-2025) Added more inspiration
- (17-08-2025) Added more Clarity for what is expected under “Drivability”
- (17-08-2025) Added dates to Changelog
- (17-08-2025) Added rules regarding ATS
- (18-08-2025) Added Rules regarding negative tp and quality
- (20-08-2025) Added more inspiration
- (21-08-2025) Opened submissons
- (21-08 2025) Corrected typo on when the deadline is
- (23-08-2025) Added timezone to deadline
), but the snow up here can be nasty. On the other hand, cars in this segment would generally be good enough. You won’t really benefit at all by building a supercar with zero offroad here so maybe there’s no meaning in counting with it.