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REVIEWS 1.2: COMMERCIAL BREAK
Reviews for:
@ChemaTheMexican - Garland L2A
@Edsel - Centara BVH8
@Fayeding_Spray - Walsh Commercial Vehicles Cab-Over Utility Alpha “Stovepipe”
@Prium - Fitz C90
@Restomod - Somboy Mender Ute
@LS_Swapped_Rx-7 - Mercer GPC
@MrdjaNikolen - Sardarji Sepoy 64
@ldub0775 - Centurion Motor Industries 5000 Tow Truck
(Captions read left to right)
(Front: GPC, Sepoy. Middle: Centara, WCV, Garland, Somboy, Fitz. Rear: Centurion)
The decade since the war has seen a veritable explosion of utes and vans - and an explosion of complaints too! Unless you want to spend an extra five grand on a premium, upmarket Centara van (or something truly heavy-duty like a six-wheeled Centurion!), all the major manufacturers provide the same 1100-ish kilograms of cargo capacity… At least, they do from the factory. See, all of these cars only hit these cargo limits because of the suspension being rather low. Jack your car up, swap in some lifted springs, and Bob’s your uncle. A modest 50mm lift kit should get at least another 300 kilos or so. Comparing your local car yard to the car park, you’ll think the stock cars are lowered - that’s how common lifts are!
Speaking of common, the ride quality in some of these cars leaves a lot to be desired. You have to be careful with how hard you brake - just about everything has incredibly closed-off brakes that overheat easily, and we thought the lack of weight over the rear axle made wheelspin inevitable in utes… Then, we got the Somboy Mender. A smaller, lighter, more nimble car. Sure, it has less torque than the other models, but that worked in its favour, as you could actually put the power to the ground. It was cheap too - which really saved it when the Fitz C90 came out, even smaller and similarly drivable without too much wheelspin, but having the torque to rival all the other cars - and using innovative air ducts to help reduce that brake fade. Both of these cars have less wheelspin than the “premium” Centara, too. What’s with that thing, anyway? You pay a lot more, but you get incredibly touchy brakes that’ll fade easily. Maybe they just needed to copy Fitz’s ducts.
(Somboy on the left, Fitz on the right)
Drivability is really important in this market, because of how long your average driver spends in these cars. The Garland L2A and WCV Stovepipe really struggled to compete with the Fitz and the Somboy. The Stovepipe could sell itself on its massive tray, but what’s the point when you still need to mod it to actually, you know, carry more stuff? The Garland? Well, if you bought one in the year between its launch and the Fitz, you were kicking yourself.
Know what else is important? Running costs… And here is where the Somboy really competes again. The Fitz has good fuel economy, but you’ll be enriching your local mechanic keeping it serviced and running - and if you want that wood trim to stay nice, forget about it. Meanwhile, the Garland and Walsh are easy to maintain, but their engines mean you’ll be using more fuel - a lot more fuel in the case of the Walsh. The Centara is the worst of both worlds, with expensive detailing costs due to the premium interior and the worst fuel economy of the lot. The Somboy happily goes along, not needing much money or work.
Also, we need to issue a bit of an apology. When the Garland L2A initially came out, its reliability was decent, and we reviewed that aspect well… Then, over time, the crank started wearing down. What had been “just barely able to handle the torque” became “not really able to handle the torque”, and it started breaking down a lot more.
The one downside of the Fitz and Somboy is the size. Both cars are somewhat small, which is how they manage their drivability. The Garland is larger, but has an oddly designed tray that does not make the most of the car’s space and so it only holds a little more than the others. The WCV? Well, it’s all tray, which is why the wheels spin so much.
We do hope that manufacturers don’t see the success of the Fitz and assume that the wood trim is part of the reason. The wood gets beaten up easily and quickly wears out, and it makes the car look cheap - even though the Somboy and WCV are both cheaper than it. In another market, the absolutely gorgeous space-age Garland would certainly have sold better. It’s a real shame, the best looker being the worst seller and vice versa.
(Fitz, Somboy, Garland, WCV)
Ultimately, if you needed to haul? You are picking between the torque of the Fitz, and the economy of the Somboy. If you really need tray space, you got the WCV and modded it, it wasn’t that expensive to do so thanks to the low base cost. If you wanted a premium experience, you considered the Centara - then decided on a cheaper car for work and a nicer car for life. And the Garland? It mixed the worst of all worlds, and got a reputation for crank failures.
Of course, “work car” doesn’t always mean “car for hauling stuff”. Sometimes it means “car for getting to work where there’s no roads”. Sure, the Garland L2A and Fitz C90 both performed fairly well, but the other utes - and many of the more consumer-oriented cars - weren’t as good. There’s plenty of roads those two have issues with, though. There is, of course, another option: a surplus Jeep from the war. Two companies ended up competing here. There’s the Sardaji Sepoy 64, and the Mercer GPC… You want the GPC, but the Sepoy isn’t half bad. They cost the same, they look similar due to being based on the same car, they both go the same places. The GPC has nicer seats, less wheelspin, and is easier to drive, but that’s about all the differentiation. The price difference for those nicer seats is tiny. The GPC looks a bit nicer, but it’s a work car first.
(Sepoy, GPC)
There’s one more car we want to discuss, in the conversation for Araga’s most iconic car. Remember how we mentioned springing extra for a 6x6 Centurion? Well, most small businesses didn’t, because lift kits are cheaper… But if you had the money to spend, or needed to haul, it was worth it. That’s why the CMI 5000 is THE tow truck of Araga. When your expensive sports car breaks down, or the wheelspin from your massive engine gets you stuck or makes you crash? “Get help” means “get someone with a Centurion”. Doesn’t matter what your car is, we have seen a Centurion carrying the entire weight of… a Centurion. Doesn’t matter where, either. The market for tow trucks may be limited, but CMI owns just about all of it. The 5000 Tow Truck is one of Araga’s best exports, without a doubt. It’s just too expensive to be used elsewhere.
(Centurion. Oh lawd he commin’)
OOC comments and effects on the market for commercial vehicles, utes, vans and offroaders.
- All the utes and vans were running the bare minimum ride height - which, in this era, means equal cargo capacity. This really hampered the larger cars. Sure, it’s a bigger car with a larger tray… But you can’t actually carry more, so where’s the benefit?
- The Garland makes 276.4 Nm of torque, with a crank rated to 280. If it starts to wear down and the quality drops by just one point? Crank stress time. That’s why it got dinged a little for reliability. Cars like this are going to be driven hard for their entire lifespan, and at least some wear can be expected. Running so close to the max is dangerous. Everything else was fine at -2 quality at least, some being fine down to -5.
- The Sepoy and GPC both went after a relatively inflexible market, and nailed the formula - simple cars for a simple request. They don’t do anything out of the ordinary for that sector, they’re just solid cars.
- The CMI 5000 would be niche, even if I had judged the pickup and not the tow truck. The high cost - both the highest base pre-penalty price in this and the cost of that extra axle - definitely sinks it. The tow truck was absolutely the best one to send though, because there’s a small market that simply cannot avoid that price. Tow trucks are expensive but neccessary. It doesn’t move the dial much on the market though.
Key impacts:
- People in the commercial sector are more open to modifying vehicles to meet their needs, because they had to this era. Wanna carry a lot? Gotta lift your truck.
- People in the commercial sector expect drivability and controlled wheelspin, more than grunty high-torque engines - after all, the Fitz had plenty of torque and the Somboy, thanks to being cheap both now and later, got by fine with its limited torque. There wasn’t that compelling a value proposition unless your business is small enough to mod your car, and you can mod a Fitz or Somboy too.
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