Cool Wall Three: Not Cool (Complete!)

Community Challenges & Competitions
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Gorgeous vehicle! I’ll buy it :wink:

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Entries are now closed! Judging and results will come soon.

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JUDGING PART ONE: DEDUCTIONS

There are two major reasons why cars got point deductions. I have collapsed them for easy reading. Honestly, all the cars were generally solid. Good job!

Staggered Tyres

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The Waldersee Margraf by @Texaslav and Wells LC by @DuceTheTruth100 both lose 2 points for staggered tyres. This is a mix of two things. First, we have the realism. I am honestly not sure if any similar cars used staggered tyres, but would happily see some. More importantly, the tyres can’t be rotated, so there’s a usability issue. If the tyres can’t be rotated, that’ll cause some headaches - so, a slight point deduction.

Unsafe At Many Speeds

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The Courageux Mille by @mart1n2005 . Oh boy. Let’s start with the engine. You somehow got it using 95 RON fuel… in 1962. I have no idea how, and I honestly applaud it. That’s not anywhere near the biggest issue with the car.
First of all, the car can bottom out just driving around. It’s only 0.6%, but that’s still not great. Second of all, the car has a buttload of camber - 0.5 degrees of positive camber up front, and 1.5 degrees of negative camber in the rear. There’s a good reason for this though, want to see it?

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Yeah. It has the handling characteristics of a Chevy Corvair - you know, the car that Ralph Nadler ragged on? I imagine the conversation between Dominic and a more knowledgable friend went like this.

D: Hey, I have been considering buying a Courageux Mille Deluxe. Pretty cool French car.
F: Wait, what? One of those? They’re an absolute death trap, don’t do it.

I like to try and be constructive when I can. So… what can be done to improve the car? Honestly not a lot, and you knew it had this issue. It’s an inherent part of rear-engined cars, and one that’s particularly bad in the current version of the game. However, there are some options you took which worsened things.

  • First of all, bottoming out isn’t great. Either boost the ride height or stiffen the springs.
  • Second of all, the car has absolutely no anti-roll bars. Adding a front anti-roll bar will help rein in the oversteer, to a managable (but still terminal) level. Doing this would have allowed you to remove some of that massive camber.

The car loses 10 points in total. 3 for bottoming out (which would, presumably, have effects on the condition), 1 for the camber and its effects on the tyres and 6 for being such a death trap.

Other Notes

A bunch of cars did interesting things, but not enough to get points off.


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IP Freeway Star by @Knugcab , Zerve Kaveat by @Restomod :
These cars both have badging and branding that doesn’t match the engineering, but in a humerous way. The Freeway Star runs All-Terrain tyres. The Zerve has 4x4 badging, but only uses a full-time AWD system rather than proper 4x4. Both of these are what you’d see on actual cars, so it doesn’t really get my goat.


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Rossel F12 by @Fayeding_Spray

Feel free to use 92 RON [leaded] tuned for 91 (which will make him buy 91), 98 RON [leaded] tuned for 95 (which will make him buy 95), or 98 RON (which will make him buy… you know, 98).
This car uses plain old 92 RON. I can either slap a hefty, hefty wear penalty on and re-evaluate your stats with 1 RON worth of knocking, or I can round up and say that people will use 95 RON in it. I chose the latter.

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I’m not usually the type to comment on stuff like this like abg7 does, but this is actually something in my wheelhouse of expertise: rear engine cars. While I agree that the lack of any front anti-roll bars should be penalized, the amount of camber on the car is not a good place to take off realism points. What this car has is not a “buttload” at all. It actually has pretty sensible numbers for a rear engine car of the era. Case in point (which I think might’ve been an inspiration given that Mart1n2005’s entry is french) the Renault 8:

As you can see in this pic, there is at least .5 degrees of positive camber on the front and -1.5 on the rear. This was incredibly common and in sportier versions like the R8 Gordini you could get up to -2 or more degrees in the rear to counteract having negative camber added at the front. This was just common practice of making rear engine cars and minimized snap oversteer. The comparison of the Courageux Mille to the much slandered Corvair is fairly apt however, since both cars failed to take into account body roll and how it interacts with the suspension system, the Mille failing to have any sort of anti-roll bars at all and the Corvair having a very interesting swing axel as rear suspension. Additionally, the Corvair suffered heavily from driver error, with the average American buyer being more used to front engine cars and not taking into account the different handling characteristics of the rear engined layout. The Mille is notably european, which would minimize this effect due awareness of the layout and lead to a better reception.

I still agree that the Courageux Mille has been tuned quite badly with the omission of any anti-roll bars, but I heavily disagree that the amount of camber used is anything outside the norm. I’m not trying to overwrite your ruling, just keep people informed of the different engineering challenges are present in rear engined vehicles.

For your additional consideration and proof that those camber values are pretty close to the norm for a rear engined car, here are a Porsche 356 speedster and Corvair convertible. Other notable cars that share these sort of camber values are the Tucker 48 Torpedo, Tatra 700 and its predecessors, Hillman Imp, DMC Delorean, Renault Dauphine, and the iconic VW beetle.

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Well, seems I have to remove that camber penalty point then, the Mille only loses 9 points then.

Now, for the nice simple hidden tests.

The “hidden stat”, as mentioned previously, was sales. Only issue is, it wasn’t working as expected so it was scrapped. The hidden “pass/fail” tests, however, have worked.

Test Zero

This is not a hidden test. This test is just right there, in the rules. Who tagged their cars correctly?

All these entries get an extra 0.5 points!

Test One

Does it have 4 or 5 seats? Having 4 seats is worth a point, having 5 or more is worth 2. This is the easiest test to administer. This test was hinted at by “He would like to be able to give [his friends] lifts to and from events”. Additional seats give no bonus.

  • 0 Points: Bazard Rikkett by @Edsel , Halvson Harrier by @lotto77
      Both of these entries are some variant of work car. The Bazard is a van, and the Halvson is a ute. They have space dedicated to cargo instead. That works against them when it comes to giving lifts. The Bazard could be modded to have more seats, but that's not being judged here.
  • 1 Point: Courageux Mille by @mart1n2005 , Rossel F12 by @Fayeding_Spray , Waldersee Markgraf by @Texaslav
      Not a lot to say, really. The Courageux and Rossel just made the decision to go with 4 seats. The Waldersee is in a coupe body that has to be 2+2.
  • 2 Points: Everything else.
      This isn't too surprising imo. The challenge rewards practicality. Extra seats boost practicality. Lots of you made the decision to add extra seats.
  • Honourable mention: IP Freeway Star by @Knugcab
      This car doesn't just fit five - it manages to fit six full-sized seats in. It's a shame I am not giving out extra points in this section, but it'd definitely help.
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Test Two

A lot of you managed to pick up on test two. This test is simple - Can I realistically carry two bikes around? Specifically, this bike scaled to 0.8, to match the dummies.

For this test, just about anything is fair game. A lot of the cars had some variety of roof rack, or a luggage rack, or dedicated bike mounts - in those cases, I basically just ticked the box and moved on. In some others, I had to carefully position the bikes in the back seat - where there was one. The only ones where I couldn’t fit both were:

  • The Courageux Mille, by @mart1n2005
      This one really suffered from its rear engine. In this body, you could maybe fit the bikes in the rear - but that's where the engine is. Try going to the front? Well, it's too small. I could get one in the back seat, but that was it, thanks to how close together the seats are.
  • The Dongsun SDC, by @Hilbert
      It's just too small. This is a narrow car. So narrow that the 4 seats definitely make sense. It's also so narrow that the bike is longer than it is wide. I could get one in if I tilted it just the right way, but I don't think it's feasible to fold down the seats and fit two running from the back to the front. Without an interior, it's hard to judge.
Tight fits:
  • The Rossel F12 by @Fayeding_Spray
      I can just *barely* fit one behind (and kinda hanging over) the back seat, with the sloped rear. The second goes on the back seat.
  • The Waldersee Markgrab by @Texaslav
      This has the same issue as the Rossel - but it just has more space between the seats (and larger seats, enough that I could barely fit two bikes.
  • The Wells LC by @DuceTheTruth100
      Another car without an interior, but it looks to be around the same cabin size as the Waldersee, and could probably fit the bikes in the rear seats.
  • Nikishi Classic
      Another car with a sloped rear, but it does barely fit one bike in the rear. The second goes on the seats though.
For the rest of the cars? It's nice and easy. They either have decently large racks, large cargo spaces, or both.

Test Three

Three is one plus two - so test three is test one plus test two. Put simply: Can the car seat five people and one or two bikes? As mentioned previously, most cars either have dedicated outboard racks, or are roomy enough to avoid the seats. All of those tight fit cars, where I had to put cars interfering with the rear seats? Yeah, that doesn't work now. The Nikishi Classic gets 1 point, but all other tight fits do not. Also, entries which simply cannot seat 5 people get zero points.

Score Summary

An overall balanced round, most people check the boxes here.

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Well, drivers not knowing how to handle rear engined cars wasn’t the only thing hurting the Corvair. For the first couple of years sway bars were optional to help give it a low MSRP, which wasn’t a terribly great idea. Secondly, there was the fact that the Corvair required different tire pressures front to rear to help avoiding oversteer. But people didn’t realize this and often set the pressures the same, resulting in u desirable handling.

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I have no dispute with the usability penalty on the Markgraf, but I have to protest the assertion that it’s unrealistic. Tiresize.com quotes both the Chevrolet Corvette and the Porsche 911SC receiving staggered tires in the year 1978 and keeping them ever since. While those two are smaller sports cars where the Waldersee is a luxury coupe, the Corvette is front-engined (thus it doesn’t have the weight in the back) and the Porsche, like the Waldersee, seats four. I think that late 70s-early 80s engineers working on a luxury car would indeed look at staggered tires as a way to avoid oversteer and poor turning.

That being said, I didn’t know I could fit 2 bikes lmao

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Hmm, I know I tagged mine just before submitting after a final check over the rules and an “oh shit” moment. I’m travelling still and don’t have access to the game till late next week, so I’m just making a mental note for myself to check after my return home if it’s A) human error and I submitted the wrong export (most likely TBH) or B) I submitted the correct file and should submit a bug report that tags don’t always save/import properly.

Good start to the judging, looking forward to the rest already! :slight_smile:

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Damn, forgot the tagging, I had it in my head until last minute…oh well.

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I said I wasn’t sure, good to see that there are examples. The -2 does more heavily reflect usability and will remain as it is. Incidentally, this kind of discussion is why I placed these two elements, the most debatable one, first.

A note on judging

I realised I forgot to detail how judging on stats will actually work. The system follows the lead of YACC, but with one key tweak. The worst car of the lot gets the full negative points (5, 10 or 15 depending on stat). The best car gets the full positive points. The median car gets zero points. For all other cars, it's based on how close it is to the maximum, median and minimum. Example: There are 7 cars (A, B, C, D, E, F and G), with scores of 0, 1, 3, 5, 6, 7 and 15. The minimum, A, gets -5 points. The median, D, gets 0. The maximum, G, gets 5. Car B is 80% of the way from the median to the minimum, so it gets 80% of the negative points (-4). Car C is 40% of the way, so it gets 40% of the negative points (-2). Car E is 10% of the way to the maximum, so it gets 10% of the positive points (0.5). Car F is 20% of the way to the maximum, so it gets 20% of the positive points (1).

Please note that the totals provided in each round are rounded to one place, but the actual values in my spreadsheet are not. Hence, it’s possible for things to be out by a little here and there; the scoring roundup in each post will always be fully accurate.

The side effect of this method is that it means many cars will have negative scores. This does not mean your car sucks. Every car in this round is a wonderful car. It’s just not the right car for this client.

Judging Part Three: Range Anxiety

Worst Score:

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Bazard Rikket (234.3 km) - The Rikket has the smallest tank of any car, by a considerable margin. Even a good-for-1947 fuel economy can’t save it here. That tank ends up placing it behind the thirsty Capital K6 Custom and Wells LC (5.1 and 5.2 km/L respectively).

Middle of the pack:

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IP Freeway Star (418.7 km) - The Freeway Star is the third thirstiest car, just barely beating out the Waldersee with 7.9 km/L to the Markgraff’s 8.1. It’s also the heaviest, and one of the highest footprints (behind the Waldersee and the Wells). This gives it the second largest tank (behind, you guessed it, the Waldersee).

The Best:

Mons Amis (718.8 km) - It’s a modern, fuel efficient car. The only more efficient car is the Dongsun, which is small enough to fall back. In general, this category benefitted the more modern, efficient cars. Shocking, I know.

Scores For Range
  • Bazard Rikkett by @Edsel : -5 Points (234.3 km)
  • Capital k6 Custom by @Prium : -4.8 Points (241.8 km)
  • Wells LC by @DuceTheTruth100 : -4.3 Points (259.3 km)
  • Rossel F12 by @Fayeding_Spray : -4.1 Points (266.2 km)
  • Zerve Kaveat by @Restomod : -1.8 Points (354.1 km)
  • GSI Banlieue by @oppositelock : -1.6 Points (359.2 km)
  • Courageux Mille by @mart1n2005 : -1.1 Points (379.8 km)
  • Morabia Jestrab by @Maverick74 : -0.8 Points (389.6 km)
  • IP Freeway Star by @Knugcab : 0 Points (418.7 km)
  • Waldersee Markgraff by @Texaslav : 0.3 Points (439.7 km)
  • Durendal LeGrand by @GassTiresandOil : 0.6 Points (453.3 km)
  • Nikishi Classic by @BannedByAndroid : 1.6 Points (512.6 km)
  • Fuki Ikigai by @Caligari : 1.9 Points (530.6 km)
  • Halvson Harrier by @lotto77 : 3.0 Points (598.4 km)
  • Mara Kanyon by @AndiD : 3.2 Points (608.0 km)
  • Dongsun SDC by @Hilbert : 4.4 Points (685.3 km)
  • Mons Amis by @cake_ape : 5 Points (718.8 km)
Scores So Far
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Yeah I don’t believe the simca 1000 or Renault 8 had any anti roll bars either, so while it would have improved “stats” it would have only been more realistic for a more sporty model. I’ll probably do an update with low levels of sway bars a couple of years later.
In this version of automation the car is pretty hard to not have bad oversteer though. But it is an early 60’s rear engined car so it is what it is, the only thing by accident is the bottoming out stat as I must have missed that

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I’m satisfied with that. Just wanted to clear up that no alien space butterflies were involved.

Also big ass tank go brrrrr

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Judging Part Four: Another Modern Benefit...

First, a couple of notes on emissions. First of all, all leaded cars were reviewed with devmeth to simulate unleaded fuel. Second of all... Yeah, this round is hugely skewed modern too. Rip. Just gonna do it quickly as there's not much of interest.

Worst Score:

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Rossel F12 (8102) - Yeah, this is not a surprise. A classic car with pushrods and carbs with poor emissions, colour me shocked. I believe the Bazard - the only older car - gets better emissions due to having far lower power.

Middle of the pack:

Zerve Kaveat (838) - Middle age, middle emissions. Moving on.

The best:

The newest car, and the lowest emissions. Yes, there are engineering choices at play, but increasing year has the largest impact.

Scores For Emissions
Scores So Far
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Shouldn’t it be “score for emissions”, not “score for range”?

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Oops

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You are powering through these reviews! :smiley:

Also, my brand is Fuji, though Fuki sounds pretty good too, haha. Maybe even better. :stuck_out_tongue:

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As far as the pace of judging goes - all I need to do is write a little bit on the notable cars, then copy and reformat the scoring overviews. The spreadsheet was prepped and filled a few days before entries closed.

Judging Part Five: Reliant Robins

Now, two important notes. First of all, I ended up deciding to just deduct 5% reliability (multiplicative with wear) for every 10 points (or part thereof) of ET above 100. Luckily, nobody went above 50 Prestige. I also squared the wear before applying it [so reliability is base*(1-wear^2)*(1-penalties)]

Worst Score:

Halvson Harrier (41.5 Points) - This one has been through the wars, and it shows in the stats. It honestly has a pretty good reliability score… and it’s held back by its high wear, and a high engine ET. It’s the kind of car that’s been through a lot, and is hard to maintain. Ouch.

Dishonourable mention:

Fuji Ikigai (48.7 Points). The Fuji Ikigai is the second most reliable car by base stats by only 0.4 points. It has less wear than the top entries… And it has an incredibly complex engine, with +3 family quality and 5-valve DOHC in a boxer 4. That takes it to fourth worst.

Middle Of The Pack:

Durendal Legrand (57.3 Points) - Middling wear, middling base, a smidge high ET combines for middling final stats.

The best:

IP Freeway Star (64.6 Points) - Only two cars are more reliable in base stat - the Mara Kanyon and the Fuji Ikigai. The Fuji has already be mentioned, and the Mara has been taken care of just that little bit worse. There are other cars where the owners took better care of them, but those cars are worse in terms of reliability to start out.

Scores For Reliability
Scores So Far
  • Capital k6 Custom by @Prium : -9.7 Points (Down 3 places)
  • Courageux Mille by @mart1n2005 : -7.8 Points (Up 1 place)
  • Rossel F12 by @Fayeding_Spray : -7.2 Points
  • Bazard Rikkett by @Edsel : -4.4 Points (Up 2 places)
  • Waldersee Markgraff by @Texaslav : -2.5 Points (Down 2 places)
  • Halvson Harrier by @lotto77 : 0.2 Points (Down 6 places)
  • Wells LC by @DuceTheTruth100 : 2.3 Points (Up 2 places)
  • Fuji Ikigai by @Caligari : 6.4 Points (Down 6 places)
  • Zerve Kaveat by @Restomod : 6.4 Points (Up 1 place, leads by 0.0704)
  • Nikishi Classic by @BannedByAndroid : 6.5 Points (Down 3 places)
  • GSI Banlieue by @oppositelock : 7.4 Points (Up 5 places)
  • Dongsun SDC by @Hilbert : 7.8 Points (Down 3 places)
  • Durendal LeGrand by @GassTiresandOil : 8.8 Points (Down 2 places)
  • Morabia Jestrab by @Maverick74 : 9.4 Points (Up 5 places)
  • Mons Amis by @cake_ape : 10.4 Points (Down 2 places)
  • IP Freeway Star by @Knugcab : 16.0 Points (Up 6 places!)
  • Mara Kanyon by @AndiD : 21.1 Points (Up 1 place)

Talk about a big shakeup!

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Fs in the chat for me, lads.

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It’s just a portion of the scores, you still got chance.

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Whoops, I didn’t expect that, nice surprise!