CSR 145: The Car that Howled Like a Wolf

CSR 145: The Car that Howled Like a Wolf

Previous CSR round (CSR144)

13 Goodwinter Blvd, Pickaxe, Moose County, 10/5/2022

Prologue

The whole thing was way too big to fit into a normal forum post, so here’s both a google doc link and a .txt file of it for convenient reading.

CSR145 The Car that howled at the moon. - Google Docs

CSR145 Prologue.txt (44.4 KB)

So there we have it. Ze’ev Wulfrith and his suave mechanic boyfriend Storm Breedlove are headed out to scour the countryside of Moose County for a classic late '60s early '70s grand tourer. This is the car that you will be designing. While they will be barn hunting for them, you will be designing these cars as if they were brand new. There are plenty of old and/or rich people who’ve squirreled away cars in “like new” condition for this to work narratively, with Z and Storm only having to clean the cars off and maybe do a quick tune up.


Inspirations

Lamborghini 400 GT Monza


Citroen SM


Volvo P1800


Ferrari 500 Superfast


Bizzarini Strada


Iso Grifo


Jensen Interceptor


Facel Vega II


Maserati Sebring


Mercedes 280 SL Pininfarina


Jaguar E-Type


Bentley Continental S2


Apollo 3500 GT


Prince Skyline Sport (The only Japanese grand tourer type car I could find, even though it is a bit older. The Toyota 2000GT also works, but is very much a sportscar)



Rules

Must be a car built on 4.2. Cars from 4.1 will not be accepted.

Model/Family Year: 1963-70

Trim/Variant Year: 1963-70
(The wide year range is purely so you can fit your entry into your brand’s lore more readily. It will only minimally effect the judging.)

Car Model: CSR145 - (FORUM username)

Car Trim: Make, model, trim of car

Engine Family: CSR145 - (FORUM username)

Engine Variant: Engine name

Body styles: Sedan, Coupe (no convertibles. This is the snow belt and Z really doesn’t want the hassle.)

Wheelbase: 2.3 M - 3.0 M (2.3 M is a hard lower limit, meaning no rounding up from smaller wheelbases)

Maximum doors: 3

No Mid-engined cars: While I doubt you’ll find a body to accommodate this anyway, mid-engined set ups are very much sportscar territory. FR and RR layouts leave enough room for a proper 2+2 GT car, MR does not. Visually having the car being front-mid engined is fine though, since it is still using one of the front engine choices in terms of automation stats.

Minimum seating: 2/*2 (These are GT cars, not traditional sports cars. Z also wants those extra seats for the extra flexibility they provide with taking friends places)

Leaded 98 RON Fuel (Z is willing and has the money to re-lead every gas of 98 he gets from the pump.)

No race parts (DCOE carbs aren’t race parts)

No semi-slick tires allowed

Maximum loudness of 45 (These are GT cars, so quietness and performance are expected. Usually this would be 30 but the new intakes have some odd loudness values.)

Minimum 1 muffler, no Straight through mufflers (Z knows what cherry bomb and glass pack mufflers are and doesn’t want them anywhere near his classic grand tourer.)

Budget: $70,000

In the advanced trim settings in the design tab: The engine scale much be set at .160 to get the engine to be the irl size. This should help you make design choices more realistically with your chosen engineering, especially if you decide on using a bigger engine.

An interior is required for this challenge. There are plenty of vanilla interior pieces for you to use and it’s a good skill to have for building cohesive cars.


Priorities

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

Design: Z knows craftsmanship when he sees it and this very much applies to how I tend to view design in challenges. Making something cohesive and era appropriate is key. Things like tyre proportions and other smaller details and add a sense or realism to your designs that will be most appreciated. The inspiration pics should give a decent idea of Z’s tastes in cars of the desired type, though you can always run your own inspirations by Z to see his opinions on them.

Realism: I will be heavily be looking at the cars of this era and class and what their engineering choices are. There is a decently broad spectrum to what was available in this category, as shown by the inspiration cars. I do ask that you tell me what the nationality of your entry’s brand is so I can pinpoint contemporaries. The other two points I want to drive home are Research and Explanation. If you don’t know much about went into cars of this era/class, do your research. If you do think you know how these cars were made, still do your research to make sure. In your ads for your cars, explain why you did what you did. If you did something unusual for the era, explain the reason behind it. If I can see that you have a full reason for a certain choice as explained in your ad, due to reasons like lore, engine bay size, etc, I’ll be more informed of how it fits into the era and against the other entries.

Driveability: No matter how fun it is to have a car that’s a handful to drive, this will be Z’s secondary daily driver. He needs it to be tame enough to not get him in trouble on the less than stellar roads in the county and not be spinning its tyres in every gear. Also while Z can drive stick, he already has one manual car and a break from that every now and then could be nice.

Sportiness: While the automation sportiness value will be taken into account, the main focus here will be real world stats like 0-60 mph, 1/4 mile time, grip G’s, etc. Z doesn’t like to trust the conglomerate sportiness scores that magazines put out about cars and prefers to look at the raw numbers himself. Z isn’t wanting something that behaves like a muscle car in this aspect. He already has that in his '86 Midlands and would like for this Grand Tourer to actually handle as well as go fast.


:star::star::star:

Comfort: Z wants to not only have the style of a vintage Grand Tourer, but the plushness of one as well. He knows it won’t be up to modern standards, but he’s certain he can find something that would’ve been top of the line for the era. He really doesn’t want a record player(phonograph) in it though, as they’re a bit too temperamental and can’t be used while driving.

Prestige: These are Grand tourers, this should be a no brainer for the category.


:star::star:

Fuel Economy: While Z did just come into a decent chunk of money, he isn’t sure how far he can push his luck with withdrawals, so he doesn’t want something that gets 5 mpg on its best day. That and with the looming threat of electric cars, gas may be even more of an expense in the future.


:star:

Price: Z does have the means to use the full budget. However if a cheaper car can do the same as one that hits the budget cap and still piques his visual tastes, it’ll do better. Go too cheap though, and he’ll be wondering if the car is a genuine or not.


Interesting Tidbits

-Some fun things about Ze’ev’s personality and tastes that you might find useful. How usefully they are is up to you.

-Ze’ev is 5’7.5"(67.5 inches, 171.45 cm). Not super short, but decently shorter than the mannequin in game.(Storm is 6’2", but will be a passenger most the time.)

-Z does know how to drive stick(his '86 Midlands has a fairly notchy 5 speed), but finds automatic transmissions a bit more convenient and doesn’t mind them having the shifter on the column like in his mum’s Grand Beltane(Crown Vic equivalent).

-Z’s favorite color is purple, though that is a tricky color for him to find in paint that he likes. He usually goes for blue greys, forest greens, silvers, slightly tinted whites, muted blues, and interesting blacks when he’s looking at car paints. He also likes some browns, but they are harder to get right. He really doesn’t like showy colors on cars like red, orange, yellow, or anything super bright. He thinks they look ok on some modern supercars, but he’d never want to live with a car that obnoxious.

-Most of Z’s favorite music is from bands like Metric, Depeche Mode, Beautiful Small Machines, Rush, Freezepop, Ladytron, The B-52’s, and Vocaloid producers such as Pinocchio-P and Deco*27. A very eclectic mix.

-Some of Ze’evs biggest fashion brand inspirations are Alexander McQueen, 1950’s Dior, and Charles James(no, not the beauty youtuber). He also likes a combo of mid century modern and Victorian aesthetics, admiring their optimism and use of wood and leather in intersting ways.

-Z doesn’t smoke or do other harder substances, but will occasionally drink, his usual choices being stuff like Asti Spumanti, Balley’s Irish Cream, and Kahlua, all of which been know to consume straight. He does like the sweeter mixed drinks and will also go for ciders and fruit flavoured beers. His favorite fruit flavour is peach and he despises coconut flavoured things.

-Z very much likes playing DnD, usually being either a buff version of himself as an anthro wolf, or as some sort of sassy, lithe but not slutty female character. This also goes for the characters he likes to play in video games as well.

-He also wears a pair of patent leather doc martens most of the time, so do with that what you will.



Deliverables

-Your .car file

-Your forum post/car ad in this thread.


Submissions open Friday, March 10 2021
Submissions close Sunday, April 3 @ 11:59 pm PST

Send your car to me though discourse dm’s only and let me know if parts need to be hidden (most likely the chassis due to interiors.)

WARNING: This challenge is being hosted on 4.2, which has been going through occasional patches that mess with stats of cars. Keep this in mind when entering. As for all the challenges I host, you are allowed to resubmit as many times as you need to until the deadline of the challenge. After the deadline passes, you can no longer resubmit, so make sure any new patches haven’t screwed you over.

17 Likes

This is meant to account for the fact that some coupe bodies within the required size range are actually hatchbacks.

This means that the forward row must have two full-sized seats, with +2 seating in the rear row at the very least - but entries 2 full-sized seats in the rear should be accepted as well.

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Yes to both of those. Some coupe bodies are listed as 3 doors and having two full front seats and two half rear seats is the bare minimum.

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Regarding engine placement and orientation, is the longitudinal RWD configuration mandatory for front-engined cars? And can we use parts that reduce production efficiency in any way given the range of trim years?

Are interiors mandatory?

Not only that, but it should also look like it belongs in a $70k (in today’s money) flagship grand tourer from the mid 1960s to the early 1970s.

After all, interior design is going to be just as important as exterior design.

That’s true for the carbs themselves, but not for the race intake option.

Given the premise of this round, I don’t think chunky off-road tires won’t be allowed either. Speaking of tires, are radials allowed? Especially considering that lower-end cars from 1963-70 only came with cross-plies.

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You know how the 500 Superfast has a “Steel Tubular Frame chassis”. Would this be a space frame (in Automation) or something else???

Given that I put the Citroen SM as an inspiration car, I’m not going to mandate front longitudinal rwd for front engine cars. However, be mindful that fwd, especially transverse fwd, is incredibly uncommon in this era. Like unless it’s a specific quirk of your brand’s identity don’t use it levels of uncommon.

I’m not exactly sure about the production efficiency thing. It’s not like you have an engineering time or production unit limit. These cars weren’t all highly mass produced, so I guess they’re fine.

I have no clue why you’d use chunky off-road tyres on a road car off this caliber. That’s a very unrealistic choice. As for radials, those are encouraged, seeing as they were the performance tyre of the time and were starting to come into normal road use a bit as well. Just keep in mind that they were still fairly close to cross ply proportions in regards to width and sidewall height.

I’m not sure it would truly be space frame, but might be as close as we can get to what they actually had. Maserati was toying around with a space frame sort of design pulled over from their birdcage race cars, so it’s not fully out of the question. Just make sure it’s justified.

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Regarding the engine size thing, are we sure that .16 scale is RL size for every engine? I seem to remember 0 being equivalent to 3.385 in (default) bore, and realistic scale being determined by (Bore / 3.385) - 1.

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Another thing I have to mention is the noise limits. dcoe carbs are off the table anyway as any kind of sport intake it so insanely loud now it’s basically useless for road cars. Unless we all rethink our noise limits from now on

This rule is mostly to get around how automation engines are too small compared to their irl counterparts. I used the dimensions of a Mercedes 6.3 v8 and the 20 cm cube to arrive at this number. It might not be exact for every single engine, but it gets people to think about the design ramifications of the size of engine they’re putting in their car.

You have $70,000 worth of budget to play with. Some use of exhaust quality is going to be expected.

I meant to say “I don’t think chunky off-road tires will be allowed”, so sorry for my misunderstanding.

Anyway, does the $70k price cap refer to the price in the markets tab?

1 Like

it’s the price listed as approximate cost in the details stats tab

Okay, here are some things I can say about the ruleset now that I’ve gone through a mule or two.

DCOE is impossible to get under the noise limit. 15 quality, restrictive twin-RevFlow, cast exhaust can’t get a reasonably sized engine below like 47 loudness. I have a weird feeling that the “30/35/40” loudness thresholds of the past were never accurate to begin with.

The ETERNAL ANTIQUE DIFF QUESTION arises again. Radial 205/70 (period accurate) tires and an open diff end up boosting wheelspin to the point you have to let your 1st gear go beyond 65 mph if you want any drivability. Are we doing autolockers or are we going full slip-n-slide? A clear line must be drawn so that CSR133 doesn’t happen all over again.

Finally, if we’re saying that tires should be period-correct, are we doing the same with valvetrain? I know for sure I’m doing 2-valve DOHC because 4-valve is a late 70s upgrade at the earliest.

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If I am not mistaken, 4v DOHC can be selected even in 1963-70, but I don’t think it would be very realistic, would it?

TMCC13 (which was set in 1968) allowed for the use of automatic lockers to simulate a primitive LSD, so I’m sure it will be allowed here as well.

In part this is because a standard intake (which is quieter) isn’t available for that kind of carburetor.

And what about mechanical fuel injection for newer cars (from 1968 to 1970 if I am not mistaken)? Is that allowed as well?

Anyway, if I were to take the plunge and jump to 4.2 just to enter this CSR, I would seriously consider a high-displacement pushrod V8 with a standard 4-barrel carb (or two) as my choice of engine, especially if my "plan B " option of a single- or dual-overhead-cam I6 or V12 turns out to be unworkable for the kind of car I intend to build. Especially since some of the cars listed as inspiration actually were powered by big OHV American V8s.

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Yes, auto lockers are ok to simulate classic LSDs.

The only reason I even mention DCOE carbs at all is due to at some point in the past i saw salt over them being considered race parts (may have been on a different discord server and not on the forum here). I may bump the noise limit up to 45 though, since 40 does seem slightly too restrictive now, even though the clones of irl cars I made to get stat references usually are cracking around 35 loudness at reasonable hp levels for the era.

Mostly yes. This falls under the realism bit of the rules.

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Mechanical fuel injection is definitely allowed, stuff like the Maserati Sebring and Volvo P1800 had it.

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The Nissan S20 engine found in the Fairlady Z between 1968 and 1973 was a DOHC4 arrangement. I’m sure there are other examples, but this came to mind. I’d say it’s realistic if the lore is there to support it.

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Can the rear two seats be full size or do we have to use the smaller seats?
Also, what are the buyer’s stance on land yacht GTs?

This means that the rear row must not be completely absent - at the very least, the rear seats must be +2, while there must be at least two full-sized front seats.

With that in mind, a big, soft land yacht won’t cut any ice with Z, I’m afraid.

2 Likes