CSR161 - With an Attitude [DONE]


Atera Excelsis Regal 3.4

Experience the thrill of Japanese engineering with the Atera Excelsis Regal. The meticulously crafted 3.4L straight-6 engine unleashes 253 horses, pinning you back in your plush seat as you rocket to 60mph in a mere 7.4 seconds. Indulge in the symphony of sound from the Mark Levinson audio system, all while the innovative adaptive suspension anticipates every curve, delivering a driving experience as unforgettable as it is luxurious.

The Atera Excelsis Regal. Where performance whispers elegance.


made in collaboration with @HybridTronny

Gallery

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32 Likes

Think you missed the entry done by me and @xsneakyxsimx

I have not. It’s entered into the spreadsheet, and I certified it as complete in the 49-hour warning post.

For God’s sake, people, check both posts. I count 31 entries, and it’s obvious by observation that the 13 entries mentioned in the closing post aren’t the full haul.

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Got it. Just saw.

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ROUND 1 - THE JOB CARS


Jacksonville Beach, Florida; January 1993

Our guy Mike Maverick - real name Tony, mind you - started his re-integration with the wrestling business by reconnecting with his former protege, Scott Suave. Suave - just as Maverick - plays a villainous character, a heel. In the 1990s, that means they and a whole lot of other such talent share a locker room.

The Dangerous Alliance - an example of a villainous, or “heel”, stable. If you know wrestling, you’ll recognize some of them as being real-life counterparts of the characters I put into this story!

Prologue for Round 1

Mike: Scott, I gotta give it to ya. You sure know how to give an old dog a great welcome back.

Scott: Aw, don’t start with that. You took me under your wing back when New York was small-time; it’s the least I could do, Tone.

Scott - an honorable man devout to his friends and to his God - and to a certain herb, too, paradoxically - was all too happy to introduce his old friend to his new colleagues, starting by going to the beach. And Jacksonville - being Jacksonville - supplied some fitting weather for the occasion, though it was nominally winter.

Scott: Hey Phil, get your frilly mug over here! This is the guy I wanted you to meet. I taught you how to bleed, but he’ll teach you how to draw money doing it!

Phil: Draw money bleeding? In this company? You gotta be shitting me, old man!

Looking like a million, fresh off two beers, and with a tinge of angry, insecure anxiety in his voice - the man approaching the two veterans is Peerless Phil. A Texan playing the role of a pretty boy with a mean streak - but who’d probably be more at home playing his own, pissed off alcoholic self.

Phil: So you’re Maverick? I watched that little special feature they filmed on ya back in '89. I been wanting to play that character for years, ya know! Dream had been saying there ain’t a market for it, but now that yer here it seems like he’s full of crap!

Mike: Yeah, Dream seems like a very, eh, “Diplomatic” fella. Suppose you shouldn’t be buying all that he’s selling. But what can you do, kid? The last booker I worked with ran me out the business for a decade. You ain’t got it so bad, in comparison.

Scott: Alright, Alright, that’s enough belly-aching from the both of ya. Tony, tell Phil something useful instead.

Mike: Get patient. Use your promo time well if you get any at all - don’t waste it. Maximize your minutes. You have the face, you have the attitude, you have the ring work - it’s a matter of time. You swear so good that you’ll hand us the sailor demographic on a silver platter. And every 80s wrestling kid is growing up into one, so it’s a rich market.

Phil: Well, seeing as you ain’t juuuuust telling me to be patient, I’ll take that. I gotta start thinking about promos in advance - hit’em where it hurts. If they want me to be a heel, they’ll get the baddest man alive!

Scott: Forgive them, Lord, they know not what they do.

Down at the hotel later that evening

The heels headed down to Marv Mathers’ room. A veteran himself, Marv - known to many as The Peacekeeper of the Fiendish Four stable and notable for being the “brother” of one of the bookers - got himself a fat room with a TV. Mike paid his dues for the day by bringing in and hoooking up a tape player - there would be lots of reminiscing, coaching and ribbing over the old Northern wrestling tapes he brought. Philip brought the booze, and Scott brought some of his stuff as well.

Marv, though, he had a stack of car magazines on the coffee table, and he got straight to business with Mike.

Marv: Dream told me you wanna get rid of your ratty little Canuck wheels. The way I see it, this ain’t a personal matter - it’s a public matter. A locker room matter.

Scott: That’s right. The last thing we want is a big heel like yourself driving a jobber’s car. Or, you know, anything that can’t cram a whole bunch of us in.


HARD RULE BINS

Phil: The way I see it, all those luxo-cars aren’t the most dependable anyhow - so if a luxo-car is also known to have problems, that’s something you shouldn’t buy.

Mike: That makes sense. Which instantly puts something like an Aetherion limo out of contention: They’ve been hit in the faulty material and tooling scandals, according to one of this magazine’s columns.

Marv: Truth be told, what puts it out of contention to me is how its ass looks. Makes me wanna drink myself to death.

(A statistically competent entry on the surface - big, fast, aluminum-bodied to total rustproofing. Raises eyebrows in some realism departments - like the 12.4:1 compression on, best believe it, regular gas. Other than that it’s middle of the road… Unfortunately, both co-hosts concur that it doesn’t look good at all, from the cheap-looking “default with different hue” color, to the smorgasbordy rear vents. The proportions aren’t bad, though. But this is not a visual bin, but an instabin - as the entrant exceeded the techpool cap.

Truth be told, I was warned that my reused “example” techpool image - which depicts an overall techpool of 44.3M - could have caused problems. I should have changed it to one depicting 40 million or under. However, when 29 out of 31 entrants pass a spot check, I count it as the remaining 2 having only themselves to blame.)

Scott: Same article would also disqualify the Veloce Giove. Kind of a shame - I know Tony likes the sporty ones.

Phil: I trust an eye-talian car about as far as The Giant could throw one. Probably wouldn’t last three winters, either.

(This is the other techpool bin. It’s also the only sub-6 cylinder car here, with only 5 pots; is a razor’s edge away from being a low prestige bin; and it has Achilles heels in reliability and environmental resistance that stem from a zero-quality body that is also normal steel (not a binnable/finable offense on its own, mind). We were also underwhelmed by the design, especially considering the bangers Ch_Flash tends to put out.)

Marv: Mortal-Kombat-4 over here isn’t going to do either, if workmanship’s our metric. Lakestar has been in hot water with the government due to making engines out of tolerances and then failing to fulfill warranties when they pop.

Scott: I don’t think MK will ever even get to 4. The guys that make it could be bought out by our Northern friends to make games for them - and we all know they’re G-rated as can be.

Phil: Amen to that.

(This car is binned for having a 1995 engine variant. Apart from that, it’s unreliable, thirsty, hard to drive, and isn’t much of a looker. To remedy most of the above would be a matter of tuning - it can barely utilize half of its cam profile of 60, and the suspension tuning is terminal oversteer-inducing as well as harsh.)

Mike: And then there’s this damn thing. Flint’s apparently had some sort of production collapse that’s so bad, their cars have been found sold new with surplus engines from the past. Possibly even ones pulled from the junkyard. And if they have that going on…

Phil: Yeah, DTA. And look at it: It’s one massive car, but it looks small and docile. Only the donuts are huge and that just makes it look goofier.

(Sadly, the only six-seater here is claimed by a 1986-variant year motor. It has other issues, too: low prestige, a “less cool Aurora” look, and the absurd 30-inch-tall tires. While dynamics were not a high priority, it’s not every day you see a car on medium-compound tires flop so badly at cornering, with 0.6g being the best it can achieve.)

STAT-BASED BINS (low scores in 4-star priorities)

Cavalier Motors Gazelle - @Er_Foxone

Scott: Ooooooh, jobber car!

Mike: No kidding! Even if the airbags weren’t stuck in the top position, this thing is just a plain little brick. With a 1.6 liter engine. That’s not even half a gallon! I can’t trust that!

(Binned for lowest-in-competition prestige - just 32 points - alongside poor design and poor comfort. The car is pretty nonsensical with its tiny 90-degree V6 that nonetheless has a helical diff attached to its slushbox transaxle - driving the front wheels clad in utility tires. I suggest the entrant commit a weekend or so to research ahead of the next challenge.)

Phil: If that one was plain, this one’s just plain disgusting! Why’s it so round but so blocky? Why’s it got a gas engine badly pretending to be a diesel? Why? Why? Why?

Mike: I don’t think a “Why” chant will catch on, kid. Maybe try “What” or something.

Phil: …What?

(Sorry for being harsh - but this design is just not good. You got huge sealed beams next to an aero-style grille on a flat front surface - and all that made out of the inherently squishy E90 body - all on the Crown Victoria body, which lends itself better to relaxed, rounded, even aerodynamic shapes. It’s got salad shaker rims combined with a formal roof… Just all over the place. And let me address the entrant directly here: Stop trying to shoehorn “Gasoline Compression” engines into places they don’t belong. Fake turbodiesels won’t help your entry or your reputation, especially when you manage to take 8 seconds to 60 with a 360 hp engine.)

Scott: Maaaaaajor jobber car! Teeny little… Wagon-van thing, good for hippies and cruiserweights at best.

Marv: Yeah, I dread trying to fit into one of those eight seats. Please don’t, Anthony.

Mike: Yeah, I won’t. Shame, too - if I could just have that but sized up by 20% or so… Like one of those family trucksters of yore.

(Binned for low prestige. Truth be told, this is not a bad car - it just missed the brief something fierce. Not comfortable, not large, not even that cheap either.)

Phil: There’s a family truckster right here, in sedan form.

Marv: You gotta be shitting me, kid! That is a mockery of an actual Supersport barge. It’s got cut-rate struts up front, it’s got the roofline of a Japanese import, it’s unreliable - not too mention too harsh-riding.

Scott: It plain doesn’t look right. There’s better barges around these days. Many better ones.

(Binned for design - it’s very plain, and the Lancer body just does not work very well for a full-size role without some major cutting-up. I appreciate trying to make an Impala SS replica - I’m a Roadmaster owner myself - but there’s a better SS replica already in the competition. One that’s actually ladder-framed, solid-axled, and doesn’t need expensive ITBs for power. A lot of the tuning and options baked into the car are inefficient effort - entrant will be making better stuff with more practice.)

Scott: It’s Russian? Weren’t those commies making 30-year-old American sedans 2 years ago?

Mike: Maybe they should have kept at it. The old ones looked a lot better.

Phil: Don’t look that terrible to me. I’m just afraid of that low roof in a car that ain’t too massive in the first place.

Mike: I’m not dealing with this Russian car; I’m not a Russian heel, after all.

(Binned for design. A combination of awkward color combination, out-of place fixtures (50s chrome hood scoop? A 90s vent cluster stuck to the back of the car as well as the front?) brings it down. The engineering is generally unexceptional, but props on getting comfort and reliability very high simultaneously.)

Marv: Now, this is an interesting ride. It’s got a V12.

Phil: A V12?

Marv: Yeah.

Phil: And this is what, a compact?

Marv: Yeah, it’s a compact liftback.

Phil: Well, if the whole front’s engine, where do the people go? Who buys this crap? V12. I bet it’s not even that fast!

Scott: Magazine says a bit under 8 seconds, so it really isn’t. Out of a 340hp V12… Yeah, this car makes no fucking sense.

(This competition’s sole pure-realism bin. If Riley’s CSR156 entry was a Camaro/Firebird front end bolted to a small liftback, this is a BMW 850CSi front end - complete with pop-ups - bolted to a small liftback. Rule of cool can’t really hold when we’re talking about a BMW 3-series-size car with a V12 that is slower than an older-model E32 750i. It’s a bit of a shame when looking at the car’s exterior, but it’s also distinguished as one of several cars that flat out refuse to use quality. The one good statistical thing I can remark upon is the insane - especially for 1993 RWD - 78+ drivability.)


Please discuss results in a calm, civil manner. Discourse is encouraged - salt is not.


24 Likes

I can take the aero concerns, the stupid engine whatever, and the salad spinners, but E90 body? That’s just an insult, it’s on the Crown Vic body. I may be dumb but I’m not that dumb. Aside from that, yeah the engine thing is stupid, I don’t know why I keep doing this but next time I’ll probably just stick a Vulcan ripoff under the hood should it fit the theme

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Except for the Zephorus (which was held back by its unusually slow acceleration for its relatively small size - 2.7m is very close to the minimum wheelbase limit of 2.65m), these first few eliminations weren’t very surprising - at least my entry passes through to the next round of cuts. How it will actually fare there, however, I do not yet know.

It looks like I need to learn more about car designing. Do you guys know any good tutorials for learning car design? I would like to get better at making cars in this game.

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I have seen worse designs than your car.

You can send it to me and I could give you some advice and demonstrate it directly on the object.

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Maybe it´s helpful for all newbies and other inexperienced entrants here, so I dare to explain the one or other thing in the thread.

In general: The car uses a lot of “advanced” building techniques like the use of cutouts, while it might be better to stick to complete fixtures at early stages. The too flat roof is a burden of the mod body, that can´t be fixed. The resizing of mirrors and door handles is recommended, they are too small. But I will focus on front and rear now.

The front bumper is good, while the headlights seem too narrow. Also, indicators in the front bumpers were considered oldfashioned by 1993. That´s clearly an 80s thing, a 90s car face had the indicators next to the headlights, there might be exceptions like VW (Golf III, Passat 35i facelift) but they abandoned it then for a reason.


The rear bumper… nah, this looks like a Fast and Furious tuning kit for a Honda Civic in 2003, not like an upmarket 1993 sedan. The taillights are a bit too small. and full LED is something totally inappropriate for 1993. I needed to move the plate indent down to make space for larger taillights, but that also gives the bumper space a better use than the previous fixture that didnt go well with what the brief was asking for. The rear could use any other taillight shape, but I tried to stick with the original one to make it better comparable.


Of course one could even improve it further, but:

a) the mod body is shitty so any really detailed effort will propably not be worth it
b) I think it´s sufficient giving minor inspirations than redesigning the whole car, in fact, it wasn´t too bad, just not coherent for 1993 and the proportions out of scale.

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I completely forgot about the engine on my part, so definitely my fault on my end. First time trying to make something somewhat reliable, but it’s clear that I’ve got a long, looooong way to go before I could do something relatively ok.

(The Mortal Kombat 4 bit is great for lore, since I recall MK4 itself was weird, so thanks Marv!)

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I can agree with that. There were, however, a few contemporary exceptions, such as the 1994-2002 Jaguar X300/X308 XJ (itself a heavy refresh of the 1986-vintage XJ40), whose front indicators were placed in its bumper (between the headlights and fog lights) out of necessity considering the lighting technology of the era:

Even so, this indicator placement became increasingly rare as the decade progressed, as you have pointed out.

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I would say that it depends a bit on where the car was made too. American and Japanese cars generally stuck to it a bit longer than European ones.

Being the first challenge I send, I think it’s quite normal ending in last place. I am not that good in making cars, expecially if we talk about sedans. I took a small engine thinking it was actually quite normal for a sedan to have that engine (I am european and we got quite small engines in cars).
If anyone could help me improving the design of my car it would be nice.
Btw I inspired from the Chevy Impala for the design and took inspiration from a Lexus SC for the specs.

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I wasn’t expecting to get anything crazy from this, but it’s definitely nice to know where to start on improving for future challenges

It’s been nearly two weeks since the first round of cuts has been announced - I’ll happily wait a few more days for the next one given the high standards of the hosts’ writing.

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I second the bit about at least Tex’ writing (can’t recall if I’ve read anything by maxbombe) and that it’s worth waiting for. Regardless, it’s the end of a semester and I’ve seen at least one mention of all-nighter study/exam prep sessions; patience is called for.

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I like this design a lot. Reminds me of the Pontiacs of the era, especially the wheels and rear. Almost like a grownup sedan Sunbird.
1992 Pontiac Sunbird 2 Dr SE Coupe

I shouldn’t double post, but this is another good design reminiscent of an American automaker of its time. This reminds me of late Oldsmobiles, like the Aurora and more so the Alero.

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