ARM 14 – I'M TOO SEXY (...by far)
GENERAL ARM RULES
ARM General Rules and Guidelines (note, currently still WIP)
THE CLIENT
THE CAR
1957 Porsche 356A T2
The one thing Fred was able to save from his marriage is his Porsche. It is a rust-bucket; all body panels are rusted through, there are holes in the floor, and it doesn’t move. Something about clogged carbs or something. No wonder the missus didn’t want it. It’s been sitting in the garage for years as Fred meant to work on it himself, but he never got around to it. Despite his ex’s nagging, he never relented to sell the “junk”. It just took up garage space and was another sour point in the marriage. Although Fred lost a lot in the divorce, he has the car and some money left, and wants to put it to good use…
A FEW WORDS FROM FRED
The car is all stock, you see, but I don’t particularly care about that. It’s all too far gone probably anyway. I do like the basic looks of the car, and would like to retain much of it - just modernized. Or I don’t know, if you think you can make it into something truly special, I might be open to that too!
I have dreams of cruising down the coast with the top down (oh, if you can chop the roof off, that’d be awesome!) and picking up some ladies. I want the car to be comfortable, easy to drive, ooze luxury and prestige, and have a bit of grunt. Occasionally I do enjoy some track driving too. I’m not any good at it, but I try! (hehe)
If you think you can help me with this project, please don’t hesitate to reach out. Looking forward to hearing from you!
-Fred
HOW THIS WORKS
ARM14_-YOURNAMEHERE-_Porsche_356A_T2.car|attachment (46.8 KB)
- Import the car into Automation.
- Clone both the CAR MODEL and ENGINE FAMILY (now it’s a single button):
- Open the cloned car model.
- Forward year on both car model and engine family to 2020*.
*Alternatively, you can start with a new engine project altogether; see costs below. - Set the names according to this standard:
Engine Family: ARM14 – [forum name]
Engine Variant: [engine name]
Car Model: ARM14 – [forum name]
Car Trim: [car name]
- Start modding.
- When finished, export car and PM your cloned and modded .car file back to me.
- Sit back and wait for results.
Note: the car is mostly vanilla. It uses a mod paint (Grief - the rust material mod by Maxbombe). The rear wheel cover is removed (Gizmo’s Dog-Tape Nega released by Borisu). And there is a Porsche emblem on the front (European Manufacturer Emblems by Aumakua). That should be all the mod stuff, the car is otherwise vanilla. If you want to stick to just vanilla, that should not be a problem - none of these are essential.
RULES
- Body morphs are free to change.
- Do NOT change chassis type.
- May galvanize the original chassis at face value, otherwise don’t change chassis material.
- Engine placement may be changed for $2000 (this takes a bit of engineering and extra labour).*
- As the body has basically rusted away, you may change panel material for face-value cost.
- You may change to the soft-top for $5000 (labour intensive to reinforce the chassis for this conversion - but might be worth it).*
- You are allowed body mouldings and 2D/3D fixtures to alter body shape. However, if you change the body significantly (i.e. something that resembles a full body swap), you will incur the same $5000 cost as if you swapped for a different trim body. When in doubt, feel free to ask before submission and I’ll tell you if yours will incur this cost or not. Use common sense - if you have negataped a solid-body coupe into an open-top convertible, then you have incurred this cost…
- You may change the engine block for $5000. Suitable engines are hard to come by nowadays, and it takes much labour to make them fit in the chassis.
- You may change the engine head and valvetrain, and anything in the variant tabs for face value.
- Do NOT exceed a final cost of $50,000 (Approximate Cost shown in Detail Stats plus any of the above added costs). Make sure to factor in the above costs, if any. This is a hard cap!*
- Make sure that Fred can lap the ATT under 3:00 minutes. This is a soft cap, but Fred would really not like to be the slowest at the track! Use the calculator at the link below.
- Do NOT have more than two aero fixtures on the car; they are restricted to one at the front and one at the rear, must be visible and attached to the car. So all the usual cheese-prevention rules are in place.
- Do make sure to use unleaded fuel, any octane up to 98 RON is fine.
- Do have two full seats at least.
- Do have a 3-way catalytic converter of any kind.
- Do not have more than 50 loudness.
- The car does need to be road legal, so make sure you have front and rear lights, turn signals, brake lights, mirrors etc.
- An interior is not mandatory, but making something nice will boost your score significantly. Read: not having an interior will still get you a full review, just like in previous ARM rounds hosted by me, but winning is near impossible.
- No obvious Min/Max.
- Do make sure to forward the year on everything to 2020.
- Do make sure that you have adhered to the naming conventions above.
- And again, please please please make sure everything is cloned properly.
- Do post an ad with at least one picture of the car on this thread.
- Last but not least, you are allowed to send me three questions relating to this build challenge to up to 48 hrs before the submission deadline. Do always allow for 48 hrs response time! One of the questions may include a pre-render of the car, and I’ll give helpful hints (no, I will not tell you to rebuild the whole damn thing from scratch if I don’t like it, but will provide guidance how to make it better within the already established design language). I will answer questions within reason. Hopefully helpful hint re questions: from previous experience, not all questions are made equal. Think hard about what you actually want to ask and how you want to ask it. It’s best to be specific, and make sure it’s a question about this car/build, not some generality (you might get a different answer to the question “what is your favourite colour” than “from these three options, which colour do you like most for this car”.
*Note regarding final cost and lap times: Fred is not a good driver (understatement of the century). He needs a very drivable car to make any kind of decent lap time. Sportiness does help his conficence, and he is willing to push a sporty feeling car a bit more, but without drivability he’s hopeless. Here is a handy calculator for you to see if your car would lap the ATT under 3 minutes in Fred’s hands. There is also a calculator for final cost. You may want to make your own copy before use: ARM14 calculators - Google Sheets
*Note regarding advanced trim settings and 3D modelling functional parts of the vehicle (e.g., swapping wheels/suspensions/engines with fixtures): I will allow moderate use of this. Keep things reasonable and realistic. If your car ends up looking completely different that what the engineering implies, expect a ding on the head from me. This means: if your engineering implies a low sporty pushrod suspension, but you make the car look like a monster truck, you can expect Fred to laugh at your false advertising attempt.
FAILING ANY OF THESE REQUIREMENTS WILL LEAD TO AN INSTABIN. PLEASE DOUBLE-CHECK YOUR SUBMISSION BEFORE SUBMITTING!
JUDGING CRITERIA
DRIVABILITY: Fred is not a good driver. The original car is quite the handful. It’s not a huge problem cruising down the boulevard, but Fred wants to take the car on the track a few times a year. He only feels confident pushing a responsive and forgiving car. And if he does manage to pick up a new lady, then he might want to open it up a bit on the twisties to show off, but he doesn’t want to end up wrapped around a tree and become the headline of tomorrow’s papers.
COMFORT: Speaks for itself… Fred wants to be comfortable.
PRESTIGE: No discerning lady would want to enter an obvious heap of rust. Not to mention, Fred is pretty vain. So the car must exude an aura of luxury and prestige.
AESTHETICS: Ok, the 356 is a classic. Fred doesn’t want to mess too much with the original looks of the car, but he does want it to look nice and unique. Modern meets classic is the key here. Unless you can pull something truly spectacular out of the hat - in that case, go nuts! Fred might just like it enough to forgive it not looking like the original at all.
SPORTINESS: Although not Fred’s main use for the car, the 356 is a sports car in the end. He wants it to have a bit of pep, and a bit of manly grunt without being overbearing. A sporty car would also give Fred a bit of confidence to push it a little once in a while, which should help Fred’s track time (although nowhere near as much as drivability).
RELIABILITY: The Porsche has been in Fred’s garage for far too many years already. The less it will have to spend there again, the better!
UPFRONT AND MAINTENANCE COSTS: Despite how Fred wants himself portrayed, he lost a lot in the divorce and is anything but rich. The more money he can save, the better.
SAFETY: Obviously Fred wants to do some mildly dangerous things with the car, so safety needs to be good enough to keep him alive if something does go wrong. He does understand that it is a small and old car, so he doesn’t expect wonders in this category… but still.
FUEL ECONOMY: Same consideration as the purchase and service costs above. Fred does have a gas-sipping daily driver, so fuel prices aren’t a huge concern for this weekend-only car, but the cheaper the better.
OTHER STATS: Use common sense, and don’t make it worse than the original! They all can be used as tiebreakers, and some might tie in more to the brief than others and be desirable. Pay attention.
Edit: clarification re criteria based on a question asked on Discord. The criteria will be heavily weighted toward the corresponding automation stats, but will also take other things into account. I won’t list them all, but a few examples include: for drivability I will also look at the steering graphs and torque curve; for sportiness I will take Fred’s lap time and the car’s exhaust notes into account… you get the idea.
Rules will be open for debate until 23:59 (11:59 PM) EST April 24.
Submission deadline is 23:59 (11:59 PM) EST May 8.
