Background.
June 2018. It’s another dawn in Malaga. The strong morning sun of late spring bathes my appartment, as I get ready for another day of work.
I work at one of Torcc’s schools. We’re driving schools, and we’re just about to begin our summer campaign, with hundreds of youngsters matriculating in our courses to try and get their B license before the start of their next year of university or school. This would be a great business opportunity for us…if it wasn’t for our Erin Vistos’ and Nohda Bops’ poor condition. Our local mechanic informed us that we might as well sell them at this point, worn out after nearly 8 years of intensive use.
So after two days of market research, we estimate we’ll need 10 vehicles to supply demand for practical classes during the summer campaign. Time to begin calling our local dealerships to see if they are interested in selling us some leftover units.
Judging criteria.
Important aspects:
-Drivability: it’ll be these kids’ first car ever driven in real life and, no, experience in [insert racing game] does not replace that. It needs to be forgiving, so they can focus on driving civilly and respectfully to traffic.
-Must use a manual transmission: those who are looking to take their B license exam need to know how to operate a stick and clutch manual, as it is the most common type of gearbox around here.
-Safety: even if the instructor has some input to avoid accidents (additional clutch and brake pedals on their side), we would rather both the pupil and the instructor walk an accident out with nothing more than scratches.
-Fuel economy: these vehicles will be driven for kilometres and kilometres during the summer. Fuel economy will be key for us to keep our operating costs down.
-Service costs: sooner or later one of these pupils will burn a clutch or grind a gear or whatnot. We need our cars to be cheap and easy to service so our local mechanic can do all the maintenance for cheap.
-Reliability: and last but not least, we don’t want the car to break down during a highway practice in the middle of nowhere, as we have a strict schedule to follow and towing services could take a while. We can’t be constantly repairing the cars either.
-Budget: $140000 for the whole fleet. Your fleet will be composed of only one model to keep things simple.
Not as important, but might make a difference:
-Comfort.
-Practicality.
Irrelevant:
-Sportiness.
-Prestige.
Restrictions (hard limits):
-No limited production and/or no mass production parts.
-No semi slick tyres.
-Loudness: 40 maximum.
-Engines will run on 95RON unleaded fuel.
-Engine: maximum 40 PU; maximum 85 ET.
-Trim: maximum 95 PU; maximum 40 ET.
-Trim year must be 2015. We’ll be buying for leftover units.
How to calculate your fleet cost:
You’ll have to calculate your fleet cost by introducing the relevant data into the green cells in the following spreadsheet. It includes Spanish tax horsepower, something you’ll also have to watch out for when designing your vehicle.
Naming Convention
Car model: CSR75 - [username].
Car trim: Name of the car.
Engine family: CSR 75 - [username].
Engine variant: Name of the engine.
DEADLINE: Friday the 22nd June, 24:59 CEST.
Ad for the fleet and price required!
(I’ll give you guys a day to discuss and point out possible flaws in the rules before finalizing them.)
