CSR 163 - Spontaneous Tomfoolery, Begin! [FINALS RELEASED]

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CSR 163 - Spontaneous Tomfoolery, Begin!

Somewhere, in a garage of 4 bumbling youths


The Story and the Brief


Click 4 Story hehehehehehe
Jasmin wiped the sweat from her forehead, surveying the chaos around her. The garage was a mess of tools, car parts, and some pretty sweet rides waiting to be finished being worked on.

Vinnie leaned against the workbench, eyeing Jazz’s latest failed project. “You know, Jazz, we’re running low on ideas for Quirk Express. Our last episode was a real snooze-fest.”

Jazz frowned, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “I know, I’ve been trying to come up with something new, but nothing seems right. We need something that’s gonna blow people’s minds. Something that actually stands out for being really out there…”

She kicks the rusted van sitting on the low hoist in front of her, “This piece of shit couldn’t even get enough people to leave comments about what they want done to it as a project. That’s how uninteresting it is. This really was a bad choice for a star car even if we consider the two potatoes and a bag of chips we paid for it”

Vinnie sighs, “Well, what did I tell you before? It’s an Asia-only JDM minivan used for hauling people around, has a hilariously underpowered 4-banger, is a great workhorse but like… other than being a nostalgic icon for a few amount of people, it has no distinct character”

Jazz stares blankly at the car, “ Yeah I thought I was being smart with this one. I guess I have a different vision of them because my parents back in Taiwan had such great things to say about them. And you’re right, other than being a reliable hauler, it’s just a rustbucket to the majority.”

“I mean it’s not the end of the world,” Rachel poked her head out from behind a stack of tools. “We should hit up some online forums and see if anyone’s selling anything interesting. Maybe we can find someone who’s looking to get rid of what they think is their grandma’s old clunker, but is actually a rare find.”

Mike, the garage’s resident car nut and all-around weirdo, chimed in. “Yeah I’ve been thinking, we should hit up some of the local junkyards too. See if we can find something that’s just begging to be restored into a star car.”

Vinnie raised an eyebrow. “Yeah I suppose we could try going to the junkyard, or asking around in online forums, or visiting pretty much any online marketplace really.”

Mike nodded enthusiastically. “Uh huh! They got all sorts of weird and wonderful stuff in there. I’m sure we could find something that’ll give enough fuel for another viral video for Quirk Express?”

Jazz gives herself a minute. She has been a mechanic for years with these 3 goofballs in this workshop. Other than servicing and fixing up regular cars, they also have a reputation for working on oddball cars, hard to find parts for and probably not local by any means. One day she had a bright idea for opening up a YouTube channel to share her odd finds while working in the garage, and her journey of working on them. She named it “Quirk Express” since the channel’s main focus was banking on how interesting and quirky a car was. She’s had some ups and downs with the videos they’ve produced, but this recent one was a proper flop, all because she misjudged how boring her last find would be to the viewers.

“Alright, I may have fucked up pretty bad with this one. And people probably expect a redemption episode after that last one. Can’t afford to skulk around, better get to it,” She thought.

“Yeah, it sounds like a plan, guys.” Jazz smiles and looks back, “Let’s split up. I’ll go with Vinnie and have a look around at the local junkyard, you two can stay back and look on marketplace, craigslist, ebay, gumtree and local forums and what not,” she says as she gets the keys to her NSX.

“Wait, no,” Vinnie cries out while laughing, “Don’t take the Honda, let’s take Mike’s Scout instead in case we decide to bring some spare parts from the yard, eh?”

As Vinnie and Jazz borrow Mike’s car to head towards the junkyard, Mike and Rachel settle in with their laptops. Rachel starts scrolling through all the typical marketplaces while Mike settles on looking at local car forums. “Okay, let’s see…there’s this guy selling an old school bus for $2500. And this other guy wants to get rid of a '96 Excelsis for $4000… Uhhhh…”, Rachel’s voice drowns out as she gets lost in the adverts.

Mike chuckled. “Those are both great leads, but I think we need something more…quirky. Something that our viewers don’t expect to see, because they’re not something you get to see on an everyday basis.”

As they searched both online and in the junkyard, hoping to find something truly unique. A car that they will fall in love with for how unconventional and weird it is, and share the same feelings with their viewers all the while making great content around it so their channel hits off for good.

because discourse update sucks, the story is hidden up there in case you missed it tee hee

Brief

If anyone has ADHD and can’t read for more than 3 seconds

Meet Jasmine aka “Jazz”, a car enthusiast with a penchant for the unconventional. She followed the steps of becoming a car mechanic from her father from a very young age, and not only has she inherited her dad’s garage but she has upscaled it quite a bit as well.

She has also recently started looking for weird, quirky and interesting cars of their times as a hobby, something that has led to her side hustle on her relatively new Quirk Express YouTube channel. It has gained a cult following among those who appreciate the weird and wonderful creations of the automotive world.

Jazz is on the hunt for her next star car – something that’s more than just a curiosity, but an honest-to-goodness head-turner. She’s not interested in your run-of-the-mill, hum-drum daily drivers.

No, she wants cars with character, quite a lot of it in fact. Cars that’ll make you go “What in the actual fuck were they thinking back in the design room?”

Think of it like this: If a car is so bad it’s good, or so weird it’s wonderful, Jazz wants to see it. If it’s a hodgepodge of mismatched parts, a really well executed prototype or concept, or a styling exercise gone wrong, she’ll take a closer look. If the car was weird fresh out of the factory, that’s fine. If it was done by a tuning house or some mad workshop with nothing but crazy intentions, that’s totally acceptable too. The main takeaway is Jazz’s point of drawing the line is very broad and she’ll accept a lot of bullshit before even she says “Nuh uh”. (Refer to the checklist section of the Calculator)

In this challenge, Jazz will be evaluating a collection of cars that fit her eccentric criteria. She’ll pit them against each other, comparing and contrasting their quirks and features. And let’s be real – some of these cars might just break down on the spot, while others might make you wonder why they were never popular or put into mass production.

Jazz is willing to drop around $20-28,000 dollars to add something really funky to her collection. these budget allowances are subject to change if Jazz finds a car that is truly exceptional or rare. As in, if she finds value in something that has tons of personality and can provide good content for not a whole lot of price, she’d rather save that money for other stuff. But for the most part, she’s willing to stretch her budget to find the perfect quirky ride!

So, what’s your peculiar ride? Is it a late 90s-era rebirth of a '50s classic, or a record breaking factory sleeper with super hi-tech interior? Does it have an engine that’s been modified to run on pizza crusts or a transmission made out of fuckin adamantium itself?

If you’ve got a car that’s weird or quirky or interesting enough to make Jazz do a double take, send it our way. But be warned: she’s not afraid to speak her mind, and if your ride is just plain awful with zero character or personality for redemption, she’ll let the world know.

Rules and Regulations


I will preface this by saying, this is a used car round. Which means I will provide you with a calculator, you will put in the stats for your car in the calculator as necessary and it will throw a price at you that estimates what your car’s price will be when selling 2nd or whatever hand. More on that later.

Allowed Car Trim Years: 1990-2015

Road Legality: Generally, recommended. But if it’s just a wee bit illegal, like having illegal exhaust mods, or having gray area modifications done etc, that’s something the crew can work on. If it straight up lacks basic legality stuff like appropriate headlights and what not, yeah nah that’s :wastebasket: .

Emissions Standards: WES 7 for 1994 or before. WES 8 for 2001 or before. WES 9 for 2009 or before. WES 10 onwards.

Techpool: 60M combined for 1990-2010. 65M combined for 2015.

Fuel Type: Follow your car’s intended market segment. Don’t expect me to accept a car that’s basically a corolla underneath and it needing to run 98.

Used Price Limit:

$20,000 according to the spreadsheet for 1990-2010.

$28,000 according to the spreadsheet for 2011-2015.

Techpool and Quality Management:

  • Negative techpool is STRICTLY BANNED.
  • Negative quality is PERFECTLY ACCEPTABLE.

Advertisement Standards:

Quite possibly the first CSR round to have something like this might be tweaking on this one. Because I don’t know what the lore reasoning is for your car being quirky, like why it looks like a half chewed bubblegum, why it has Babymetal logos on the sides, why the doors had to open like Rolls Royce doors, why there’s a cute tiny V8 inside what seems like a knockoff DeLorean, etc…

I expect you to provide me with an advertisement and lore tidbits that are sufficient enough to justify your car’s existence. If you DON’T do this, I will simply assume why your car be quirky like that, which might end up being not very favorable for you.

Look I’m not asking for a 2000 word report I just want some validation for why your car is the way it is. I know a good chunk of us send the hosts lore tidbits for our car submissions while attaching the car file, and it generally helps. This is no different, and a wee bit more elaborate.

Usecases for the potential star car


Obviously once the crew is done milking the car for content, that won’t be the end of it. And they’re usually not the type to part ways with a car they like anyway. So chances are, they’d like to keep it around in the garage.

What will it be used for? It depends.

  • If it’s good enough for general use, is livable, running costs aren’t too bad, one of them would probably just use it as a daily of sorts. It might even become a very iconic car for the channel.

  • If it’s less economic to run, isn’t the most livable in general situations, and fits a certain kind of niche like trackday, rock climbing, adrenaline rush hunting etc, then it’d be a weekend cruiser/toy for the crew.

  • If it fails to do even that, but somehow manages to be a very cool car with head-turnability, it will be repurposed as a show car, or something you occasionally bring to car meets to mess with people.

Scope of The Builds, and Priorities


What’s that? You need clearer directions and need to know all the acceptable criteria?

Glad you asked, because everything related to those is included in the spreadsheet.

Here’s some basic points before we finally head over to that though. I promise the next one takes you to google sheets C:

  1. Ask yourself, is this something you’d see popping up on facebook marketplace or craigslist every other day? If so, this might not be it.

  2. Is the wow factor limited to a few slightly odd and goofy features like multicolored panels, or a really big blown engine in an otherwise completely pedestrian car with no visual cues and engineering done to accommodate such power? You might need more oomph than that.

  3. Look at CSR - 124 for general directions for what worked back then, what didn’t and what could work. Things did change a lot since then however, so that’s not a definitive guideline.

  4. Execution IS KEY. I realize something like a Toyota Sera is just a fruity Tercel with mostly fixture work, or an SVX is just a highly advanced ahead of the time car with also more fixture work. That is correct. How do I judge then? On how you executed everything. The design, the engineering, the coherence of it all. If you slap a few bumper bars and a few pieces of patchworks and call it a day, good luck getting through.

  5. Is your name betterdeals, or do you make at least similar products? Those cars certainly have an audience and a market, this is not one of them unfortunately. 2D panels converted to 3D to make boxy asymmetrical trollmobiles is funny once or twice. With enough creativity and the same basic principle however, you could make it work…

  6. Addendum for extra clarification for those who need it

The Calculator


Not my cleanest job, but I’m also not a very skilled spreadsheet cruncher. However I did end up setting a relatively complex used car calculator, something that I plan to use more in the future and potentially let the community use it as well if it turns out to be really good I sure hope so.

Link to the calc

Tutorial


  1. Click on File > Make a Copy

  1. You’ll create your own separate copy of the calculator. This is how it’s supposed to be done as you can’t edit the base calc No shit.

  2. Only parts you need to really worry about:

  • Quirks and Features checklist

image

  • Top Left, main calc. Put down your details here. Try not to fuck the stats up. Because I will be putting these down and if your values differ from what I get and your car ends up being overpriced, you might get binned.

  • Right hand side, gearbox type selection. Do not forget this as this attempts to offset some of the penalty for having certain types of gearboxes or vice versa.

  • Built in Fuel Economy calculation section.


And that’s really it, not really that complex I want to kill myself just look at the coding.

Inspirations


These won’t exactly be 100% within the era-range I’ve chosen, but they’re supposed to serve as guidelines.

Jesus Christ here we go

Suisei Toyota Mega Cruiser Last time’s winner

Pop culture icon reference, not supposed to be an actual inspiration by itself.

Pontiac Tojan, first production car to reach 200 MPH, and stunning looks IMO.

Lincoln Mark X Concept

Volkswagen XL1

BDSMW Gina

:clown_face::athletic_shoe:

Alfa SZ

Toyota Sera

Retromodern mid-oughts American goobers like the SSR

Breadvans like Pulsar NX and Mazda RX500

BRAT

Crossing Vehi

Mid-engine family egg

Fiberglass 944, and French too

Your mechanic’s worst nightmare

Somewhat tame Kaido Racers

I hate myself

I expect to see a decent bit of effort put into the overall design if I get something like this^

FWD TT non-RS

Pajero Evo

Nissan Figaro

CHINA ____ GEELY

Any Mitsuoka ever

Toyota Will Series

Lexus 2054

image

Any SAAB concept ever

hq720 (1)

U500 Unimog

Mini 1300 Marcos

I am LOSING my FUCKING mind

image

Street Legal Golf Carts

^Here^

Even more here

Submission Methods and Deadlines


Submission Deadline: September 8, 2024. 11:59 PM (UTC+10)

Naming Convention: CSR 163 - [forum username] as the Engine Family and Car Model name.

Engine Variant and Car Trim are free.

Extensions: In case of entry droughts or delays caused by late deliberation or update patches, there will be extensions provided as necessary.

Submission Method: Message your .car file to me on this forum; Make a reply on this forum post with at least one advert of the car.

Resubmissions: You’ll be allowed A SINGLE RESUBMISSION before deadline finishes.

LINK TO THE USED CAR PRICE CALCULATOR

I understand this is a bit of an outlandish CSR Round and I hope everyone cooperates so we can depart from the usual “Cram the fastest, comfiest, feature-creepiest car in the most efficient price and form factor possible” formula. It gets a bit boring.

So let’s give engineering priority the middle seat for once and have some fun in this CSR!

I need to sleep try not to explode the discussion for when I wake up

26 Likes

Almost forgot…

image

Chrysler A57 Multibank

^some of the best comedy this forum had seen back in the days

10 Likes

is this mlc10

Truly one of the CSR’s of all time

3 Likes

Nice to see a few paradigm shifts here.

So let me adhd sure im doing this right.
1990 ram 150 with a 1996 ram body, a 4bt with a poorly optimized turbo hooked up to the 4 speed auto from the original 150 2wd with a utility paint scheme?

Does that sound like an entry ?

That sure sounds like a good base for a weird janky 90s sport pickup truck from a company that doesn’t know how to proceed into this era if that was the goal or thereabouts.

Obviously you’d develop much further into it but that’s a good ballpark yes.

A reminder for everyone though, it doesn’t have to be weird and quirky in every angle possible.

Don’t force it

Let it Flow ✨ Naturally ✨

2 Likes

Well that was just the Golf FSI :stuck_out_tongue:

I like this round, I doubt I’ll have enough time to come up and execute some idea for this, but I definitely like it.

2 Likes

I haven’t seen a CSR with such an escapist premise in a long time - but I have high hopes that you will pull it off!

1 Like

TMCTLMXL1BVCSZSSSPRXBIEASXKDSFPFGMWS2054SUAMGCGEWAPB
All the inspirations as one acronym. Prepare yourself for the Deals. They can not be Bettered.

1 Like

What in the name of all that is holy…
Any context for those who joined later?

Also, where is Jazz from and how does that relate to her perception of quirkiness? Would the car’s original market, if it’s different from her own, affect said perception in and of itself?

4 Likes

Holy shit it’s already been four years since this. Time flies and I haven’t even had fun, damn.

1 Like

So, I come to two car i will reuse with small edit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/automationgame/s/FtU85LJtAo
or

but with 300+ hp turbocharged I5 and call it a Jetta Fireball

Mate I wish we knew what that guy was on about…
On another note, he made a really weird 3 fixture wonder muscle car with a fuckoff big engine and relatively low horsepower. He called it a very manly car or something, this was a part of his response to the controversy.

I haven’t given it much of an importance of what Jazz’s residing country is, as I figured it matters very little in the context. She will judge cars and their quirkiness on many different factors, and a small factor would indeed be their country of origin. If a car is doing something that’s way different than what’s the norm in the country, obviously that’d be perceived as unique and depending on other factors, it may be quirky. If your car is from a fictional country, that’s still based on a real world country so we’d still have a reference.

I’ll make a longer post about a few clarifications later since I’ve been getting some questions about things I didn’t or forgot to address in the main post.

2 Likes

What is your view on ATS? It might be needed to reach some quirkiness traits IMO.

reading further, seems he was going through psychosis, at least that’s my impression. :frowning:

ditto, all the builds i have in mind require anywhere from moderate to extreme ATS.

also, you have trucks and offroaders in the inspirations but the calculator seems to not be considering offroad and utility scores, which might affect those of us who want to make trucks or offroaders.

And affect positively, at that - given IRL anything that can climb a medium-sized rock depreciates twice as slow

Anything about ATS usage? CSR realism I assume is expected so anything that can be changed in the engineering should be disallowed?

Extended Explanations, Clarification and Transparency

RIGHT!

I’ve been asked many questions for the sake of clarification over the last day or so. As your host, and as the host of a very outlandish round in a long time, I have my responsibilities to make this experience as smooth as possible. This section is dedicated to clearing up some extra questions people had, things that I couldn’t clarify myself due to time crunch or simply because the main thread was becoming too convoluted or complex.

Posting discord screenshots because I’m lazy as fuck!!

Unconventional Wheel Configurations


image

sigh

Which means, I’m allowing anything like these:

image


Advanced Trim Settings limitations


image

In other words, I do not care if you use ATS to the moon. If this is what you need for your intended build, that’s fine. Yes CSR realism, but this is also a very open round. I understand having to open up ATS limitations for this one.


Scale of Quirks and Features and Checklist Prioritization


image

In other words, it was a nearly impossible task to implement an objective quirks scale in this round while following the CSR formula even loosely, so instead it’s a benchmark. Once you pass a certain threshold of quirky, you’re in and from then on, you’re judged against cars of similar types and/or similar niche.

Also definitely do not try to clear multiple niche all at once and failing at all of them badly, covering one single point in the checklist very well will give you a much better subjective score from me.

Reliability, Env. Res, and HOW they are perceived at the time of submission

This is important


Reliability and Env. Resistance are scored linearly in this round.

image

I won’t reveal the exact breakpoints you can just peek at the spreadsheet formula
but basically you can follow this:

Reliability

  • 100-91: Mechanically pristine condition.
  • 90-81: Very minor mechanical wear.
  • 80-71: Minor mechanical issues, generally reliable.
  • 70-61: Noticeable wear on mechanical parts, requires frequent maintenance.
  • 60-51: Moderate mechanical issues, parts may need repair or replacement.
  • 50-41: Significant mechanical wear, requires quite a bit of maintenance and repairs.
  • 40-31: Major mechanical issues, multiple components need attention.
  • 30-21: Severe mechanical problems, requires extensive repairs.
  • 20-11: Very unreliable, frequent breakdowns, major components failing.
  • 10-5: Non-functional, FUCKED if you will.

Env. Res.

  • 100-91: Zero body damage or rust
  • 90-75: Very minor wear.
  • 74-65: Minor cosmetic issues, small rust spots or light body damage.
  • 64-48: Somewhat rusty or minor body damage, some cosmetic repairs needed.
  • 47-40: Moderate-ish rust and body damage, requires some bodywork.
  • 39-35: Significant rust and body damage, needs extensive body repairs.
  • 35-25: Major rust issues, large areas of body damage.
  • 24-16: Severe rust and body damage, structural integrity may be compromised.
  • 15-11: Very poor condition, extensive rust and damage, needs major restoration.
  • 10-5: Complete rust out, body is beyond repair. Or FUCKED.

Other points, and more SUV/Utility inspirations

This section might be edited in the future to accommodate more questions


Alright so…

Damn before I could finish writing…


I could’ve added offroad and utility as two more weighted scoring units in the spreadsheet. But what that did was fuck over any other types of cars in their pricing. And selectively determining whether a car is offroad/utility focused or not be it from my own assumption or the creator’s input doesn’t really leave a lot of room for fairness in some regards.

This is where I have chosen to have some opaque, subjective judging, like a traditional CSR round.

Because what I have found from my own testing is, if you’re building utility/offroad focus vehicles, you’re making sacrifices in many other places that does increase your costs unless you’re going cheap as shit

And let’s be honest, time and time again CSR has proven stats don’t mean everything

You can have the highest performing car in a round in terms of numbers, but if it reeks of cheese you WILL get dinged. So in the end, it really does just come to subjective preferences. So I would recommend not worrying too much about raw stats that are not being weighted. This round is more about how you execute your visuals, and in extension, execute your design to support the wacky engineering.

I do hope I’m getting the message across.

Utility Inspirations

Cock and Ball Torture

Gemballs

Coggiola T Rex

Jeep Treo (wack)

Bertone Freeclimber

Honda Crossing a Road

Saleen Shenanigans

Sex with a person in a RAV4/Sportage Convertible

Freelancer SE3


I hope this answers everyone’s questions???

Ah one more thing, the calculator is still being tested, in beta phase if you will. So if anyone feels it’s borky, has issues, isn’t being fair, the linear scores are nonsensical, then let me know.

20 Likes

is it ok if it doesn’t pass emission standards?