Left To Right: Pillar 1500C by @karhgath , Serena Haul Pickup and Vanette by @Saturn , DCMW Neyaarat (Four X, type V) and DCMW Hiluq by @moroza , Ilaris 4x4 by @shibusu
The utility segment has an odd issue to it: A lot of the entries are just unrealistically good. Taking a look through the brochures of the time, it looks like around a gross vehicle weight of around 5 tonnes is the common maximum, with a minimum of 40% of that being the actual vehicle weight. For instance, here’s Ford.
So, if you submitted a car like the F-250 - 3500 pounds of vehicle, 3500 pounds of cargo (or 1.6 metric tonnes) for the 4500 USD that J.D. Power reports for 1977 (17,000 USD in 2012, which is roughly equal to AMU)… You’d be laughed out of the room when compared to the entries in this round, which give you gross weights well in excess of the F-350. Why is the F-250 so expensive in Auto terms? Because making that load capacity work is really expensive. They had to reinforce the frame and suspension heavily, that brochure I linked to includes boasting about all that. It ensures that when you actually load up the bed with one or two tonnes of stuff and hit a bump, you still have a car and not a broken axle or frame. That’s not the case in Automation. If you move your ride height around to change cargo weight, the cost of the car doesn’t change at all. The game also doesn’t include any tools to simulate highway performance with those massive loads, meaning that the 350 Nm of torque that Ford included with the F-250 doesn’t have much of an impact.
Why do I bring this up? Because some people did submit cars like that. Cars with perfectly reasonable cargo weights, that have the issue of just sucking compared to the competition. As a result, I’m going to be jumping around a little in this review block, taking a look at the “sensible” entries with 1-2 tonnes of cargo weight first, then the ones with wilder cargo weights second, and finally at the more light-duty entries last.
Oh, as an aside - this round includes plenty of car-based trucks. Where that’s the case, I’ll generally just judge how the car’s visuals differ from the standard-segment version, and save those visuals for later. If you wanna know why, ask on Discord.
Left: Serena Haul Pickup. Right: Serena Haul Vanette
And here is one of those cars. The Serena Haul, available as a Vanette or a pickup. It weighs 1480 kg, with stiff rear suspension providing 1550 kg of load capacity. It has a much smaller inline six than the Econoline or F-Series, with substantially less torque, only 210 Nm. It’s low for reality, but high for this mid-weight segment. That’s not what restricts the cargo capacity though, the constant-rate springs are. Only two other cars in the round used them, and neither is a simple, regular utility car. Adding it gets the Serenas up to 2570 kg, which would be far more serviceable. It also decreases utility because of how broken utility brake fade is, but I have already ranted about that.
The problem with the Serena is that, well… It’s better than the F-250, but not too much better. 44 drivability is tolerable, but the competition has at least 40 and some hit the 50s. 14.3 L/100km is great for a truck IRL, but you chose E10 to get there so your costs are pretty average - range is good though. Actually including padding and a headliner (“standard interior”) was really nice at the time, but everyone else did too so comfort is just average. The same goes for including power steering, which was merely an option in that Ford brochure but is an expected feature here. A locking differential and offroad skidtray? It’s the same there.
The end result for these car-based utilities is, well… Their stats are just underwhelming. They’re realistic, they’re sensible, and they’re not that great. You went and made the car similar to what it would be like in reality, and it’s probably a little better than it “should” be, but it’s just worse than all the competitors. What do I do there?
The Serena has a special place in this, because there’s two of them, and there’s no “Heavy Duty” Serena - well, sorta, there’s the non-car versions but they don’t count. It also comes in at the top of the allowable prices, which is still better than the F-250 et al but obviously not great in the challenge. I just don’t know how to review it. I’m going to be saying this a whole lot through the round, but the only real changes visually are at the rear, where the tailgate of the Ute and the barn doors of the Vanette force the lights out to the side and underneath them, sent to the edges to make way. It’s an important change, though.
Both Cars: Ilaris 4x4
The Ilaris is in a similar spot there. Ilaris doesn’t have a heavy duty option - they have something we’ll look at later, it’s odd. The Ilaris 4x4 carries 1340 kg and weighs 1350 kg, perfectly sane numbers in reality but low here. Drivability is a carlike 51, but some of the heavier cars have more. Comfort is in the same “It has a standard interior, it’s decent” range as the Serenas and much of the segment. The cost is 11500, most stats are just acceptable, really… But there’s one massive trick up its sleeve. It uses just 12.6 L/100km, on E70. That keeps the running costs really low, potentially under 3000. There’s not that many cars to have lower running costs, and all of them make compromises to cargo weights. That wonderful fuel economy translates to a really solid range, 384 km is a definite challenger to the E10-powered cars in the segment. It’s worse, of course, but not by much.
Of course, all of that fuel economy comes at a price. The car runs a small inline 4, which I would criticise over insufficient torque if it wasn’t for the segment being down overall. Reliability is a little bit down compared to the others on the market, but 80 isn’t awful, really. There’s not really a lot to say about an average utility vehicle, and I’ll be discussing that later. Utility judging just kinda sucks with this many entries, I guess, entries get lost in the shuffle. The Ilaris is the one car-based utility to not be submitted alongside an accompanying car though, so let’s look at the visuals. It’s considerably more ornamented than the rest of the car-like utilities, with insets on the grille and Ilaris’s trademark headlight covers. There’s a trim line up the hood, and it’s one of the few cars to have lights on the tailgate - not illegal or questionable, and a definite differentiating factor. The car is technically a convertible, but this is really due to a questionable choice in the creation of the body which was used.
Left two: DCMW Neyaarat (Four X, type V). Right Two: DCMW Hiluq
The DCMW Hiluq is uhh… Potentially the boldest name choice I have seen in a while. It’s one slight sound away from the Toyota Hilux, a perennial best-seller here in Australia. It’s also bold with its approach to the rules, with an extreme amount of 3D work going into making a body that’s meant to be a car-based ute like a Commodore or Falcon look like a dedicated ute platform. It’s not a dedicated ute platform, which is how DCMW sorta kinda gets away with submitting three utility vehicles, because the rules technically didn’t outlaw this sort of thing. They should have, and they will next time, but you were really pushing things this round. The same can be said about the rear lights - a thin annulus like this with just 1cm of thickness wouldn’t be realistically possible to illuminate at the time, but your rear lights have the sufficient area so they’re legal.
So, how does this car turned ute fare as a car? If I put it in the standard segment where it was submitted, it fares horribly. It does a lot of things that drag car stats down, like having all-solid suspension, offroad-first tyres and the like. That’s why it’s here, because it would never be bought as a car. It would have been legal there, at the very least, with a purchase price just barely legal before the utility tax break. As a utility vehicle, however… It’s incredibly hard to separate from one of the other DCMWs, the Neyaarat (Four X, Type V). The Neyaarat carries about 20% more, 1.8 tonnes beating the Hiluq’s 1.5 tonnes - but DCMW is one of the brands that has a trim with an unrealistic maximum cargo weight. The Neyaarat’s a touch easier to drive, but it costs a little more to run and a decent amount more to buy. The Hiluq handles a little better offroad, the Neyaarat has more advanced rustproofing. The Neyaarat does boast higher comfort, safety and torque, so it’s got that going for it… But the comfort in the Hiluq is fine, and both entries use a partial monocoque to have decent safety, with the Hiluq being a nice 69 to the Neyaarat’s 78. The Neyaarat has the best range of any utility entry, but the Hiluq is just 9 km less.
In a sense, it’s impressive how close these stats are, because the engineering stuff is actually substantially different. One is a pickup, the other is a van. The two have substantially differing wheelbases, different model years, different distributions of quality. One even gets an extra gear. There’s a lot of very real differences under the skin, but if I was told I have to pick one… Well, do I need a truck or a van?
There are a couple of comments specific to the Neyaarat but not the Hiluq. First, I’m not sure how a partial monocoque works with a one-box van design. A ute, sure - especially with such a clear separation between cab and bed - but this van? I’m dubious. Second of all, the service costs are probably a touch lower than they should be. It’s only about 50 bucks more than the Hiluq, but I’m not entirely sure this cabover design would really be easy to service, the engine is in such an awkward spot. Of course, being a cabover does mean efficient use of space, with plenty of cargo room, but… We’ll mention that later. Overall, these are minor things, and sorta more issues with the game itself than anything else.
Visually, the Hiluq gives you a large bash bar, and blue paint that cannot be in high supply during the war. You also get square mirrors, larger flares and some dubious lights placed below the tailgate, plus a rear bumper you can step up on. It’s very much more truck-like, but they’re very similar. I think the biggest reason it looks like a truck is the way the body has been lifted up off of the chassis a bunch using ATS, which I’ll need to check the rules for next round. Either way, the truck and the regular car are clearly related. The Neyaarat, however? A different headlight orientation, a different grille and facia, top-mounted windshield wipers, a vertical rear light cluster rather than three horizontal units, drab green paint you can probably find in a military surplus store… Just as the engineering is different, the aesthetics are too. They both look pretty good though, similar results overall.
All cars: Pillar 1500C
So, the DCMW was a car with realistic (on paper) capacity from a brand that made a car with unrealistic capacity. The Pillar 1500C fits that bill too, but it’s admittedly borderline. 2190 kg is nothing to sneeze at in reality, that’s F-350 levels. Technically possible to make, but with just 130 Nm of torque, at this price point? No. Just no, it can’t happen. What if we imagined it with a more realistic cargo capacity, or moved past it?
Well, the first thing we get is reliability that genuinely challenges DCMW. DCMW boasts that all of its vehicles have over 90 reliability, and they’re sorta the only ones to accomplish that, but only just - the Pillar 1500C has 89.8, only 2 points down from DCMW and just as nice as it. Fuel economy is marginally better than the Hiluq - thanks to that unrealistically small engine - which makes annual costs marginally lower than the Hiluq. The lower footprint hurts range a bit, but that’s about it - being a van means more of the length is available for cargo than the utes in the segment, and the only real competitor in proportions is the cabover Neyaarat which already has a major advantage. Drivability is the best in the entire utility segment, but only because drivability is not evaluated with cargo load. Try and take advantage of that massive capacity, and things go downhill. In summary:
[BERNIE SANDERS “I AM ONCE AGAIN ASKING FOR THE ABILITY TO EVALUATE CARS WITH DIFFERING LOAD CAPACITIES”]
So, what else is there to look at? I’ll be honest, not that much. It’s not that great offroad, but there’s still need for deliveries that are restricted to the city. Comfort is mid. It’s just a solid, economical van. In terms of the stats that I can fairly judge, it’s probably the equal of the Neyaarat. I’d like to introduce more stuff that accurately penalises the low torque, but it’s unfair to do that now, so I won’t. It is what it is. Funnily enough, the van allegedly has only two doors, apparently the rear isn’t a door. Bodies are weird like that. The front is nice, but it just feels like a generic van that leaned heavily into the styling of the era, whereas other entries feel more… timeless, I suppose? We’ll be revisiting it later though.
I was originally going to analyse this on a car by car basis, separate it all out, but… There’s not that much to separate, really. I hinted at it here and there, but most of the cars here are actually in a similar class. The Ilaris and Serena are both similarly-built, car-derived utes, with similar bed lengths around 1.7 metres. The Hiluq, in spite of the hefty remodelling, is ultimately still car-based too, and has even been separated and modelled to have a slightly smaller bed, around 1.5 metres long. Widths are all similar, depths are all similar, they even have similar amounts of wheels extending into the bed. The beds, in short, are all similar capacity for this segment. Really, the amount you can carry in each of these utes is similar.
That leaves the vans - and wouldn’t you know, they can all carry more by sheer virtue of being vans. Not having a partition between where the passenger space ends and where the cargo space begins means not needing to use some of the vehicle’s length on that. Of course a van will have more room for cargo than a ute, it’s part and parcel of being a van. The tradeoff, of course, is that certain types of cargo like mulch or sand are harder to carry in a van, and a van has more restricted ways to load it. If your job needs a van, it needs a van.
