While yes, she is in her 70s, she’s also around like 5’2" and relatively fit from all the walking and yoga she does. Also she’s lower to the ground overall, so less of a drop into the vehicles.
2 Likes
Grouping 4: Smol
❀ Kei Category Reviews
July 15, 1998.
It was Hachi who signaled the need for a break this time around and was the one to go get snacks. Chihiro didn’t always like to indulge herself on cheesy fried puffed things like her grandson, but she decided to treat herself this time while they moved on to the final grouping.
@azkaalfafa Kotatsu Sway
Hachi: “We’re on to the final grouping now. The three actual kei cars my friends and I found.”
Baachan: “I can see that, and we’re off to a cute start already. What took you so long to find these ones?”
Hachi: “It didn’t take very long at all. I was just saving the best for last.”
Baachan: “Can’t really fault you for that now can I? This Kotatsu Sway seems to be a cute prospect. It kinda follows what I liked about the Illusion Mirion. Retro, but still up to modern safety standards and with modern innards. It looks like it has some classic british influences to it, which are fun.”
Hachi: “Seems to be ok on everything else too in the road tests I’m seeing. Plenty of mpg, supposedly a little lacking on interior amenities, but that’s normal for some kei cars. WHa??? Can you check if I’m reading that right? The overall price and yearly servicing feel like typos.”
Baachan: “They definitely are not. This other article references specifically how inexpensive it is to maintain. I don’t understand why the reviewers keep bashing how it drives. It’s a kei car. They’re not going to behave like a fwd sedan. Well I like it and that’s all that matters.”
(Honestly I have no clue what is giving the car such a low drivability score. Chalk that down to Automation not liking small, lightweight cars. The design is stellar though and does the same thing as the Mirion, though less extreme in how far it pulls from history. It also makes the best use of the kei car SVC reduction to bring things down to just $535.9. That in addition to the design quality and overall low price make it good contender.)
@mart1n2005 Matsuma Tinko Hyper-XX
Baachan: “This reads like a typical kei hatchback. It’s almost textbook for them from what I’m seeing. The main interesting thing I’m seeing is the i4 instead of an i3 like a lot of them have.”
Hachi: “Yeah. If it wasn’t for how this particular model treats the rear seats as full seats instead of giving traditional hatchback space behind them, I’d probably confuse it for a couple of other similar looking hatches.”
Baachan: “It’s a shame. If we hadn’t see such interesting cars already it might’ve been an ok choice. Maybe your sister could have one for her first car? Tinko is such a cute name and it fits with her personality.”
Hachi: “Maybe, she’s a bit far off from driving age though. I’ll probably do a similar thing for her like I’m doing for you with whatever she’s looking for.”
Bacchan: “Such a kind brother she has.”
(Overall the Tinko fits the bill of a typical '90s kei box. Slightly sporty styling, a rev happy turbo engine, plenty of space on the inside for people or cargo. Specifically or in this case due to it having full size rear seats, which is kinda hard for me to see having other cargo space behind them in such a small car. Most everything on the Tinko is middle of the road stat wise. It’s a good, period correct car in most aspects. The lower drivability as well as the very safe styling is most of what’s holding it back at this point.)
@yurimacs Bradford Starry XS
Hachi: “I know how you reacted to the Vizzuri from earlier, so I’m felling better about showing you this one. It’s a hit among most of my friends and journalists seem to enjoy it a lot as well.”
Baachan: “It’s certainly super cute and has the sort of cool sportiness. It’s like they shrunk a supercar down to kei size. Also the name is adorable. It’s probably a little shooting star of a car.”
Hachi: “See that’s just the thing. It is very much a supercar shrunk down to kei size, with a price tag and comfort score to match.”
Baachan: “These reviews make it seem worth the occasional jolt to the spine though. It gets such good scores everywhere that the full budget seems very worth it. I might want to pick up a pillow or two, or look into how to get the suspension adjusted slightly softer. Though the road between the house I’m looking at and town isn’t that bad.”
Hachi: “You shouldn’t have to be making compromises on something that uses your full budget though.”
Baachan: “Hachi, compromises are a fact of life. And sometimes the heart overrules the head. Goodness knows if it didn’t, you wouldn’t be here.”
Hachi: “Uhhhhhhh…”
Baachan: “Well it looks like we have a good enough of a selection paired down. I’ll be in touch in maybe about…three weeks? Be prepared for a full day of test drives.”
Hachi: “I have a school event that day, maybe the next weekend?”
A Whole lot of back and forth scheduling ensues
Baachan: “Well that settles it, October 25th it is then. Hopefully I haven’t forgotten the details of the cars by then.”
(A wonderful little rocket of a car. Excellent stats. The only detractors are the comfort score and use of max budget, which everything else makes up for. I’m honestly stumped on how you achieved some of them within budget and without cheese. The promise of a small package with big performance is definitely fulfilled with the Starry XS.)
13 Likes
Are kei rear seats more like + seats in automation? They seem to be tiny bench seats, maybe like +3 in the game. It’s a minefield though. I bet if I had gone +3 rear seats a different host would have binned the car for it 
They’re definitely closer to + seats. + seats give at least the implication that they’d be folded down most of the time in a hatchback, or could be at least. Definitely a case by case thing with different hosts.
Finals X3
❀ Test Day Reviews
October 25, 1998.
Hachi was surprised to be traveling down to just north of Tokyo for this final road test of the six options he and his obaachan had picked out. As he neared the place where she’d told him to meet her, he quickly realized exactly why she’d wanted to come this far south when there were plenty of the required dealerships back in Hokkaido: Tsukuba. She had said she’d needed to call in some favors to set this day up and Hachi believed that when he saw just how few cars were in the parking area. To book out the whole track for a private testing day with brand new cars was exorbitantly expensive, something only Chihiro with her corporate connections could pull off.
Hachi: “Why didn’t you tell me we were going to be doing the testing at Tsukuba?!?”
Obaachan: “I wanted to keep it as a surprise. I know you really enjoy racing around here and other tracks on your PS1 games, so I wanted to get you some experience driving them in real life too. I was also worried that if I told you, you’d end up with friends tagging along, making this much more difficult to make a decision on.”
Hachi: “That’s true. I doubt I would’ve been able to keep them away. I’ll have something fun to tell them about when we get back though.”
Obaachan: “Here’s the first two sets of keys. We need to get started now because thoroughly testing all of these cars isn’t a short task.”
@Xepy Nanahoshi Sprygor MAX-T
Hachi: “This feels a bit underwhelming compared to what the advertisements and reviews said about it. It also pushes more than expected too.”
Obaachan: “Most of those reviews were comparing it to boxes of the same type. It definitely isn’t keeping up well in this field. I’m also worried about how the undercoating is going to hold up in winter weather. It’s awfully thin.”
(In this field, the MAX-T is just outclassed by the rest of the offerings in performance, both in acceleration and cornering Gs. The lack of interior(which I do include in the design evaluation of cars) and low environmental resistance score also contribute to this one being knocked out early on in the day. If it had properly fit kei regs, it probably would be higher in the rankings.)
@shibusu Saberin Soaura Lynx 1000 S
Obaachan: “This one is quite lively in its handling. Not quite as composed as it’s the G force numbers would lead one to believe. Still a fun little bean to drive tough.”
Hachi: “It definitly has some porsche esque handling quirks. The inspection we did earlier showed just how not weather resistant the Saberin is though. That doesn’t bode well for it lasting in the winter weather of Hokkaido. It id cheap enough we might be able to get an aftermarket coating sprayed on it though.”
(Despite how fun the Saberin Soaura is, that pitifully low environmental resistance score is really what’s keeping it from doing any better. The lower drivability isn’t helping either, but the low ish price is what’s keeping out of the lowest spot in the finals. Just a case of not quite putting enough in to do better.)
@azkaalfafa Kotatsu Sway
Hachi: “Wow. This really is as hard to drive as the reviews made out. It just feels oddly leaden untill it doesn’t and just lets go. This would be a problem in everyday driving.”
Obaachan: “Yeah this doesn’t feel nice to drive at all. And I can see exactly where they saved money designing this thing. For a new car, this has a surprising amount of road noise. Hopefully I didn’t break anything during the tests.”
(Style can only pull out over a bad stat for so long. I still haven’t been able to find a source for why the drivability is so low, but that’s what finally did the Kotatsu in. The price being so low didn’t help the perception of the car either. Still a cute little retro kei coupe either way.)
@Maxbombe and Copenmechanisn Illusion Mirion
Obaachan: “It certainly is plush in here. The hood isn’t as hard to see over as I would’ve thought either. What’s that dinging sound? I thought I turned my phone off.”
Hachi: “That would be the low fuel indicator, something I doubt we’ll be seeing on any of the other cars we drive today.”
(Again, just one stat being bad can do a car in at this point. The Mirion is a wonderful car other than the very low MPG value. Maybe better gearing could’ve helped that stat out a bit.)
@Aruna Vizzuri 1000 Stradale
Obaachan: “Just as cute and fast as I expected it to be. A joy to drive as well. I might even be able to get a personal best lap it’s so controllable.”
Hachi: “Obaachan you’re scaring me a bit with how fast you’re going…and are those sparks I just saw coming of the skid tray under us? The clamshells aren’t easy to repair on one of these.”
(This Vizzuri is a blast of a car, with not real low points other than maybe the full use of the budget.)
@yurimacs Bradford Starry XS
The echos of the Starry’s engine being pushed to its limit can be heard in the distance
Hachi: “Is she really still hot lapping that thing after all this time? I thought it would’ve either broke her spine or ran out of gas by this point. …Oh that is uncalled for!!!”
Obaachan flies past the inside pit wall where Hachi is watching, casually flipping him the bird.
(Such a joy of a car and proof that you can pull high enough marks in areas to overcome a not good stat in others. Congrats on the win X3)
17 Likes
It’s taken a while, but you’ve finally concluded this CSR in the best possible way - let’s hope the next one raises the bar even further just as this one did.
Also, congratulations to yurimacs for winning! Anyway, is the Starry a Kei car or not (and in the latter case, what engine exactly does it use)? And if I’m not mistaken, it wasn’t built on any of the Bean body sets (as so many of the other entries were), but on a mod body of some sort (either the '91 Beet, or the more rounded '92 MGF-like roadster). In any case, its proportions suggest a mid- or rear-engined configuration.
And after looking at the final results, I wasn’t surprised that the top four were all sports cars of some sort - all of them (in particular the top two) delivered the most bang for the client’s buck, at least in her view.
1 Like
What a blast! This CSR is surely tightly packed with fierce competition from left and right. Honestly thought that I wouldn’t get the win, but here I am with my very first challenge win after nearly a decade of playing this game. xD
Thank you so much PortalKat for hosting this CSR and for everyone who entered this challenge, you guys make this CSR a very fun one.
@abg7 By the way, the Starry is a full-on kei car, and I built it using this body
Anyways, I am definitely down to host my very first CSR.
Totally gonna give it my best shot (or the best I can do), I actually do have something in mind but I wanna refine it a little further, so I will need to give it a week to finalize everything so I can publish it in one go (hopefully).
16 Likes
The kei-sized version of the mid-engined 405-esque body set is a good choice for a sporty mid-engined 90s kei car, especially since it’s unlocked later than a similar-looking body set that more closely resembles an AW11 MR2 - but what you did with the base you chose was simply sublime, with the original body outline being virtually unrecognizable under a mass of well-placed 3D fixtures and body moldings.
Congratulations yurimacs!
It’s a lovely looking car with very intricate details. Looking at your car makes we wonder how you went about making it with all those fixtures.