Alternative History Competition 01 - Performance Second Coming (OPEN - Closes 30th November)

Community Challenges & Competitions
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I’ve had this idea in the back of my head since before Al-Rilma was announced, and I think it could be interesting if it became a different style of recurring challenge. Also, I’m rather undecided on some of the rules (the ones with the (?) next to them), so please offer suggestions for the ruleset

BACKGROUND

In this alternative version of late 70s automotive history, there is no such thing as a fuel crisis or environmental reform. Premium fuels remains cheap, and demand for faster and more powerful machines is ever present. Engines are still able to breathe freely and devour copious amounts of fossil fuels in the quest for automakers to continue to one-up each other as to who has the biggest power numbers, post the fastest acceleration times and tear up both the private tracks and the public roads.

CHALLENGE

The year is 1978, and in the wake of the coming decade competition is heating up within the domestic market for the next milestones of automotive performance, and engines are growing ever more powerful as the technology surrounding them continues to advanced. With state of the art electronics able to harness the raw potential of fuel management more effectively, and the development of forced induction from the aviation space trickling down to the consumers of the automotive fields, this era stands to be a golden age for the burgeoning ‘supercar’ segment.

To that end, newer and better cars are needed to sate that demand. Styles are evolving and customers are already pining for the latest and greatest machines. Performance figures have already being pushed buy the tried and true equipment; large displacement, multi barrel carburetted leviathans that strain against their shackles as soon as they are awaken. Do the manufactures try to refine these beasts and squeeze what more power they can manage, do they turn to the futuristic wizardry of the modern but still yet unknown world that is the cutting edge, or try to straddle somewhere in between the two worlds? That is what is about to be discovered…

RULES

  • Must be running Al-Rilma
  • Model and Family Years: open
  • Trim and Variant Years: 1978
  • Wheelbase Limits: 2.65 2.55 to 2.95m (~104 100 to ~116 inches)
  • Default Techpool (+5 everywhere)
  • Up to 98 RON Leaded Fuel only (?), and no WES requirement
  • No ‘race’ parts (including Race Crossply and Race Radials)
  • 2/3 Door Sedan/Coupe/Hatchback bodies only (in Automation)
  • Minimum of 2 full size front seats
  • Maximum Approximate Cost: 30,000$ 35,000$ (?)
  • No catalytic converters required, but max loudness of 70 (?)
  • Maximum boost level or capacity for Forced Induction engines (?) No restriction on Forced Induction engines
  • Limit on number of aero fixtures on front and rear or no positive downforce (?) Limit of one visible aero fixtures on front and rear of car, no invisible aero fixtures
  • Naming Convention: Models/Families: AHC01 - (username), Trims/Variants: free
  • Note: No requirement for any real world equivalent for safety equipment (eg: 5 MPH Crash Bumpers)
  • No ‘Legacy Car Bodies’ mod, all other mods allowed

Not a strict rule perse, but I am looking for power output of around 550hp, as I feel that it is a reasonable assumption as to where these horsepower wars would have gotten to by the time of the late 70s if allowed to continue. No penalties if it over or under shoots it however.

PRIORITIES

HIGHEST

  • Performance: This will be based on power figure, acceleration, quarter mile and 1 kilometre times.

  • Design: As much as the performance is the selling point of these cars, how they appear will matter just as much for the customers showing off to friends and strangers. This can either mean sleek and stunning, or brutish and imposing

  • Prestige: Goes hand in hand with the first two, so making sure that these vehicles are strong status symbols is a must for the market

MODERATE

  • Drivability: As much as these machines will be the creme de la creme for power numbers, these are still vehicles that are intended to be sold to the public, for better or for worse

  • Sportiness/Comfort: Depending on the intended projection for this car, whether its aimed to be more out and out performance machine or personal luxury car

LOWEST

  • Safety: Obviously the last thing any car brand wants is the reputation of being a complete deathtrap, just mostly one…

  • Reliability: What good is a showboat-y car if you can’t be able to drive it around and show off? It doesn’t need to work 100% of the time, just when you need to gloat…

TIE-BREAKERS

If there are any cars that will be more difficult to separate scoring wise, these points will be taken into consideration when making final judgment on cars, including:

  • Service Cost
  • Practicality
  • Fuel Economy
  • Judge’s personal opinions

FINAL NOTES

Obviously this is not going to be entirely realistic of a challenge, but I still think that trying to include some styling and engineering cues from the era would be the best course. With more freedom to not have to make the cars follow the more stringent rules with fuel efficiency and environment concerns I thought it could be interesting to see a sort of “what if” scenario. But, due to it being an alternate history that means that what may have been logical to develop within our own current history doesn’t relate as much to this alternate so I do encourage some discussion and/or friendly debate.

Originally my ideas were just limited to muscle cars but I am trying to leave the rule set open enough so that anyone who wished to participated could make something other than an American/Gasmean muscle car in this universe. So I do welcome any more ‘exotic’ interpretations that will result from this, with whatever real world inspirations you may come across.

INSPIRATIONS

Normally the inspiration sections would have photos of similar cars for the segment, but due to the fact that this is technically going to be a challenge where we don’t have anything that exactly matches during the era. Therefore, I’ve chosen to include some links to cars that the entrants could have likely evolved from.

Also, while I haven’t added any thus far, I would imagine any early to mid 70s concept cars would be good visual inspirations. If anyone has any particular stylish ones they think will be good inspirations I would like to see them shared here as well and I can add them to the post.

DEADLINE

The deadline has now been set for 30th of November, 11:59pm UTC, and you may resubmit as you see fit, but please make sure to go over the rules before you submit and use as much of the allotted submission time to perfect your alternative universe cars.

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Love the idea of this already.

Perhaps the option of using either 98 leaded or 91 Unleaded instead?

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My thinking with the leaded 98 is that because there is no need for emission regulations, that the manufacturers would choose to continue using it. I also thought about the idea of requiring 110 Avgas but I don’t know about it.

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Fair enough, also is there any sort of.. naming scheme?

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For Models/Families: AHC01 - (username)
For Trims/Variants: free

6

Those are perfectly appropriate for the alternate timeline you’re giving us, where downsizing hadn’t even entered the public consciousness.

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One more thing I’d like to clarify, is there a ban/limit on ATS?

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Only for making it look like not a car. Just being somewhat reasonable with its use.

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I’ve had the idea for a challenge series just like this for years now but just haven’t gotten around to doing it, I thank you for creating this

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I really like this alt-history concept and can see it being deployed in multiple different directions for varying eras and divergences from actual market trends. (2010s minivan/people carrier challenge anyone?)

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I went a little to wild on my test car, would it be cool if I autisticed out and made an ad that starts with the concept and makes a story about the changes that led to the production model? or should I just make a share car post in my own section showing my work? sorry I’m kind of stimmy and rambling

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I would prefer if the thread was left open to discussion mostly at this stage. If this would be for the car ad once submissions are open then you can add the lore to your post.

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Would a balls-to-the-wall GT akin to a V8 Vantage work?

well, as long as it’s under the price limit

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As long as it follows the rules, then it should be all kosher (once the rule set has been finalised)

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I would suggest adding specific rules for body style and including additional stats in the scoring. For example, I would think that purchase price would matter, and running costs including gas and service costs would still matter to some degree even in this scenario. I tend to try to include every stat category at some level in the scoring, at the very least as something to weigh as a tiebreaker and to discourage lopsided designs that take advantage of the fact that some category is not scored at all. It can also make it unnecessary or less necessary to set limits by rule. For example, if you include comfort as a lower priority scoring category, it would lessen the need for a loudness cap because something extremely noisy would drive down comfort.

With fuel types, I feel like it generally makes sense to set an “up to” rule on octane (I guess 98 makes sense in this scenario), since I don’t think there is any advantage to using a lower octane fuel, so requiring only one specific fuel type can result in some very pointless bins.

I don’t see what the purpose of all boost limit would be, since there are other engineering tradeoffs. Again, having additional lower priority scoring categories might help with the balancing without imposing a specific rule.

I would vote one front and one rear aero fixture, since it seems to me that’s what would generally exist on muscle cars in the real world, unless I am missing something (and high performance machines are certainly not my lane of car knowledge).

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That is fair. I had been making test mules using 2 door coupes so I’ll be looking for 2 door coupe and sedans. I’m not as sure about the fuel prices since the idea is that fuel is still cheap and plentiful so fuel economy is not as big of an issue, but maybe service costs will still matter.

I did have Comfort and Sportiness as an interchangeable priority so that if a car was intending to be more sporty or luxurious so as not to be overly punishing if someone wanted to do an out and out track machine vs. an ostentatious highway cruiser. But, I can also look through and see what more minor stats can be used as tiebreakers if required.

While I have had the big scary words about people being binned, I usually work in the background with people to try to prevent full bins to happen. But I can revise this to be an “up to” 98 RON so to mitigate it.

This one I was the least confident about implementing if only cause I didn’t think it made sense, but I kept it to see opinions regarding any and all restriction for forced induction engines to offer more competitiveness verses naturally aspirated entries. I’ll probably scrap it and try to use things like service costs and reliability in it’s place.

I think limiting to one fixture per end is the better option, so I think I’ll make it reflect that decision.

I’ll have to make a couple more test mules to look into these changes before I implement them on the original post.

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I dont see a due date, do you have an approximated due date for this challenge so i can schedule?

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Currently I am still working on the ruleset. Once I have it finalised and everyone is happy with it, I plan to have a 4 to 6 week submission period from when the rules are finalised.

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UPDATE:

I’ve tweaked some rules, added some more rules, and added an additional Priorities category. Please make sure to refer to the original post.

Changes include:

  • Additional ruling for body styles, seat count, and mod use
  • Tweaks to rules for Pricing, Forced Induction and Aero Fixtures
  • Tie-Breakers priorities for… tie breaking.

If there are any additional suggestions or changes anyone would recommend, I would be happy to hear them.

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So the new budget is now $35000 instead of 30?

Also seeing that it says approximate cost, does that mean a 35,100 for example, is allowed aswell?

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