CSR 125 - Alternative Sports? Alright, Ikouzo! [Finished]


CSR 125 - Alternative Sports? Alright, Ikouzo!

Read the CSR rules here.

CSR 124 - Quibbles and Facets


Big thanks to @variationofvariables for helping me up with my first CSR!
Backstory 2004, somewhere in the peaceful and pacifist islands of Nihon.

Tachibana Ryosuke is your average, middle class 30 year old Japanese salaryman. He’s an average guy. Average in his work, skill, looks, and has an average enough salary to keep him afloat in 2004 Japan.

He currently drives a boring Kei car, nothing special but is enough to keep him on the road and to get him safely to work and back to his average apartment.

He was living his average life just normally, with average satisfaction. Until, his family called him up to see how he was doing, and he eventually came to visit them in the countryside… where he would rekindle with his past…

Back when he was still a Japanese shounen, he absolutely was in love with cars. With poster cars such as the Skyline GTR, Porsche 911, NSX and other such cars being favourites of his.

However, by the time he’d got into high-school in the 90s where the economy was beginning to stagnate, all his car dreams for whatever reason had faded slowly.

Yet when he visited his old hometown countryside had given him inspiration to go beyond his average driving and rekindle an old love, an old love for cars. He was ready to sell his old kei car and go shopping for a brand new top of the line sportscar when-

He remembered why exactly he drove such an average kei car. Because in Japan, road taxes are not exactly average. He decided that day to use some of his savings to rediscover his old hobby.

And so, our salaryman is in a bit of a jiffy. Most of the current sports cars from Japanese brands to European brands, are either too expensive, or aren’t that practical for the daily life of a Japanese citizen. But maybe your company could do better? Would you show him to reconsider buying a slightly expensive sports car, or show him a normal sedan turned sport? Let’s see what you’ve got.


Minimums:

  • Min Driveability: 40
  • Min Sportiness: 25
  • Min Safety: 35
  • Min Comfort: 20
  • Min Practicality: 30
  • Min Prestige: 25
  • Min Engine and Trim Reliability: 60
  • Min 2 Full Seats

Requirements:

  • Trim and Variant year: 2004
  • Max Engine ET: 130
  • Max Engine PU: 60
  • Max Trim ET: 130
  • Max Trim PU: 140
  • Premium fuel only (90 AKI / 95 RON)
  • Maximum Service Cost (Soft-cap): $1100
  • Max loudness (Soft-cap) 40
  • Must have catalytic converter
  • Must have TC/ABS minimum
  • Soft retail price limit of $40,000 (not the material costs) (including perceived value tax).
  • No race parts i.e. Titanium parts, Semi-slicks, Fiberglass, Carbon Fiber, Space Frame or Glued-aluminum etc
  • Sedans/Coupes/hatchbacks only
  • No meme bodies
  • No 4x4

Priorities:

:star: :star: :star: :star: :star:

  • Styling | His old kei car was average, and so he wants something that hopefully looks better and less average. Something that has some flare, something exciting and is not boring.

  • Displacement | Japanese Road taxes are fucking stupid, and he doesn’t want to burn a hole in his pocket with some car with a 3.6-litre 6 cylinder unless it’s really worth it, maybe even an V8… but that if it is really worth it…

  • Driveability | It is his daily he got to drive it smoothly

  • Realism | The car must make sense or be justified, no min-maxing. :slight_smile: This includes reliability, engineering choices etc

:star: :star: :star: :star:

  • Comfort | He isn’t breaking his back with his daily driver. He wants something bigger then his kei car…

  • Price | He wants a decent car and is willing to flexible to spend, however, he is a salary man after all… cheaper the better if its worth it!

  • Practicality | He still wants to haul his groceries full of Hello Panda biscuits and Comic Kairakuten/LO volumes.

  • Safety | He doesn’t want a death trap, isn’t that a simple request?

  • Sportiness | He is looking for a sports car… This will cover the sportiness stats and stats in general of the car however, it will be judged based on the engineering as well.

:star: :star: :star:

  • Prestige | He just switched from a kei car… he wants to have a different experience and stand out from his previous ride.

  • Fuel economy | Gas isn’t cheap, but he is willing to bear with it if it is worth it. However, he would not consider something that will eat up gas.

  • Transmission | The man knows manual but he is thinking an auto would be useful however, still prefers manual over auto.


Disclaimer

At the end of the day, he is a person! The Design may sell him on the car or the engineering, so engineering will play a factor but only to an extent! I plan to judge it considering this factor.

Value Tax Displacement Factor


Japan’s Road tax is an iffy thing… This will play a role in engineering while you make your car. For the x amount of cc of your engine will directly affect the estimated price of your car. For example, a 2L engine will add $4800 to your current estimated price. Be careful to not be too small or too big.

Yuri's note: i cba to make a CSS chart lol

Even though there is a soft limit, the displacement tax will play a big role in his decision!


The fun part: Inspirational Cars!

This can be a new 2004 car or a face-lifted car from the 90s!

Naming convention: Model and Engine Family name: CSR 125 – “forum username”

Trim: Make/Model/Trim of car
Variant: Engine Model/Variant

Message me on the forum with the .car file to submit. Through discord is not recommended as I might miss it.

Deadline the 9th of August AEST

21 Likes

Is the upper bound of the displacement for road tax inclusive?

For example, if I have a 2.0L engine, will it be taxed $4100 or $4800?

It will be based on whether or not its 1999cc or 2000cc. If its the latter, it will be taxed $4800 and vice versa.

4 Likes

three things:

the safety limit is listed twice, at different values

and

what of your entry has less than 1000ccm

also the 55 driveability requirement makes it seem very difficult to NOT go FWD and/or automatic gearbox

Oops sorry fixed that on the question on engines less then 1L he doesnt want a Kei car… after all he has driven one and wants to switch also he isnt going for a hardcore sports car so 55 driveability is to prevent people from going overboard, after all, alternative sports. But ill consider lowering it down to 40.

Mr. Ryosuke does not want to go off-road at all, so 4x4 drivetrains most definitely should not be permitted - FWD, AWD and RWD setups will be fine, though.

1 Like

ahahah oh yeah i should probably ban 4x4 thanks!

Just for reference, I found that 50 drivability was the maximum in terms of what I could achieve with what I thought was a decent car, but results will definitely vary between people.

Being a sports car, is there no minimum performance requirements?
Sure, it would probably affect sportiness to a very low level, but I guess one would not want it to reach 100 km/h in 70 seconds like my old Nissan 720 diesel…

1 Like

Thats in the realism aspect in priorities, if it doesnt add it, it will be binned.

I was just asking, I actually prefer soft and somewhat vague limits sometimes, I just guess people wouldn’t like to be binned because it had 1 km/h too low top speed and reached 100 km/h 0.2 seconds too slow if nothing are said about performance requirements, so… :smiley:

But I guess sportiness requirements takes away dead slow cars anyway.

Its pretty much free reign, but it must be justified or make sense, it doesnt have to be a 270km/h car but it must be decent enough and realistic for the engineering involved, but it is as said, engineering will only play a factor to a certain extent! So don’t worry about it too much.

3 Likes

One more thing: What exactly does this refer to?

If I am not mistaken, it means that race intakes/headers must not be used, nor can semi-slick tires or anything requiring a CNC shop (as titanium conrods and billet steel cranks do). But what about regular forged internals (which don’t need a CNC shop, just a forge works)? Can we use any of those as we please?

Yes as well as materials such as titanium and semi-slicks etc. Yes forged parts are allowed. As you said no CNC shops basically yes. Ill add it to the rules to clarify.

yeah but there is the marging INBETWEEN 660cc an 999cc.

technically not a Kei Car, yet apparently untaxed

there’s gonna be some people wanting to make a turbo 900cc MX5 to lower taxes

You really want to make my first challenge a living pain
Well fine ill add it but i recommend not to go too low this is going close to minmax territory. And i dont recall a production MX5 having an engine below 1000cc. I suggest to not go below 1L... It will probably a insta bin. On the contrary, this would work for a cheap track car... but this isnt the car he will be looking for.

Figured I might as well ask before I submit and regret it, how does he feel about hatchbacks? Since we have anything from a Chevy Cavalier to an E46 I have no idea how a warm hatch would go down lol

Quick question about service costs, I know you said about it being a soft cap, so therefore would something like $1077 be ok if the car is able to achieve better in other categories such as overall cost. It’s just in all the cars I have tested so far I stuggle to get under 1000, although I have one or two more concepts to try.

Hatchbacks are an ok for him. He doesn’t prefer it much over sedans or coupes, but the added practicality will be a nice little bonus for him.

Yeah I’ll try to bring this up with Comet, i personally think $1000 might be a little too ridiculous so I’ll see if i can get him to raise it a bit.
Made some test mules of my own, $1000 still seems fine as a soft cap.

I haven’t had any issues with the service cost, even with a boxer engine with narrow sides and AWD when I tested it.

1 Like