Well, in Storm Automotive’s case, we had a massive technological leap in 2000, but… Other than kicking off some AI and explaining our fully automated factories, it’s still mostly the real world.
Sinistra Motors is the Storm Automotive spin-off company that starts in the '40’s after a bit of time travel. But even it could fit in the lore easily enough because, again, locations and places are mostly real world.
Minerva Motors and Dynamite Motors are both challenge companies with some back-lore that basically defines the design without much actual company lore. Minerva builds last-decade’s designs today, and Dynamite somehow manages to stick around like a bad penny despite their random nature.
I’ve got a few other companies that exist that weren’t one-off companies, but these are the important ones. And chances are, with the Unreal port, Storm’s lore will be adjusted slightly. I still think 2000 is the big year for the tech boom, and 2021 is still the year Luke goes back in time to 1940 after some extensive modifications to blend in, but otherwise, same basic lore, just we’ll include other little events along the way and leave some space for new stuff. Though one thing is that Storm will no longer have the little Italian car company, Pharte, to drag it out of trouble. It wasn’t used enough to justify it, the cars that used the technology from that company weren’t overly popular types of cars, and as a result, the entire little company that could be is no more.
Sinistra will arrive on the forums around that time, and will undoubtedly offer similar insanity to Storm without being exactly alike. I have a basic engine-lore plan in mind with them and they’ve got some back-story already. Pretty much, they’re going to start with SOHC and a crossplane V8, and if they want to get a specific type of engine, they have to work through what they have to create it. Essentially, XP becomes FP to enable I4, which enables I3, which enables I6 and V6, which after both have been made, enables V12. Cams have to be derived from similar, which means SOHC has to become DA-OHC in order to become DOHC, and SOHC can derive straight to Pushrod because of the rocker arms. Pretty complex, I know, but it’s my way to make it more realistic how they come up with new engines. I5 is derived from the I6 if we get those, and V10 will just be two cylinders lopped off of one V8 and stuck onto another, enabling immediate use of the new engine type. Maybe Sinistra will just V10 everything. Which may make more sense than this whole plan, but I want to use it for something. If this changes, blame it on aliens, time travel, Luke’s fascination with odd engines, or a combination of all of the above.
Minerva and Dynamite may arrive on the forums to display challenge cars. They may also have a few models that aren’t challenge cars as well, and some lore will be created to make some sense of it. Minerva’s pretty much a car company run by people who believed the past was so much better, and seek to bring a piece of the past into the present to prove it. Dynamite makes normal cars most of the time, but then there’s stuff that comes out that makes you wonder if everyone involved was either drunk, stoned, high, or a combination of all three. Some of it becomes collectible, most of it becomes scrap.
