Storytime! :D
As far as Bazard knew, this would be their last attempt at the consumer market.
Bazard was a commercial company. Vans and trucks were what they knew. They had tried to make civilian cars, but they’d come out to brutish and unrefined for civilian tastes. They had tried importing cars made by their Automation-Universe counterpart Centara, but the AU and the US were such different markets that they might as well have been trying to sell umbrellas in the Atacama.
There was one Centara design left that they were willing to try, and if it failed, they would just go home to their vans and trucks; never returning to the consumer market again (unless in 20 years literally everyone in the US suddenly decided that they all wanted Trucks and SUVs as their personal cars, which would be a rediculous scenario that would never happen, right?)
Some of Centara’s original Tormentas in all their body styles, including Bazard’s van contribution. A notable thing about the Tormenta was that all perfomance upgrades were available for all body styles; even, upon request, the van.
inspired by cars like the BMW 2002 and CM Spaniel, Centara created the “Tormenta” for the 1980 model year. Available as a Hatchback, Wagon, or Sedan, the Tormenta tried to make Eurpean-luxury performance available to more average consumers. Base trims of the Tormenta were not very exceptional (though they did still come with locking differentials and good suspensions), but the highest trim cars were actually pretty formidable performance-wise (these cars sacrificed a bit in the way of comfort and practicality, but… that was kinda the point.)
Once it became clear that the cars were going to be received well in the AU, they sent over some wagons to Bazard so that they could make a van out of them (since car-based vans are popular in some areas of the AU). The Bazard executives drove them, and they liked how they handled, and they liked that this car wasn’t criminally underpowered like Centara’s others…and they decided to give it a shot.
Bazard had learned from before, though; they weren’t just going to sell it unchanged, though. They fitted new lights too meet regulations, and large bumperettes to make the car look safe. They designed garage-door enclosings for the headlights to try and fix what was by American standards a horribly dated facade, and designed completely new rims for all trim levels, because the old ones looked like what Bazard put on their box trucks.
They also revamped the engine; they kept Centara’s naturally-aspirated Boxer-6, but adjusted the power output and delivery to be more similar to what Americans were used to. They also upgraded the transmission; the budget 3-speed manual was gifted a fourth overdrive gear, and the 3-speed automatic was outright replaced with a brand new 4-speed design. They refined the range of interiors to better match what Americans expected, and they improved the safety technology drastically (which is to say, they barely managed to meet American regulations; the original Tormenta wasn’t a very safe design).
Centara liked and even adopted some of Bazard’s changes (such as the garage-door headlights). Others, they found confusing or wierd.
The 1985-year Bazard Tormenta officially became available on January 1, 1985,* though preorders opened up the week before thanksgiving. They marketed the car as the perfect mix of sportiness and practicality (even though few trim levels were actually as sporty as the ones in the commercials), and described it as “what a personal vehicle should have been all along.” Weather their marketing worked though, and weather their hard work payed off… is what we shall find out soon.
The version provided (originally sold at $11,100 USD) is a wagon of the “Pe” trim, the highest trim available without any performance upgrades. With a premium interior, medium-compound tires, and the mid-tier 157hp engine, this comfort model may not be the fastest version of the car; but it’s certainly more representative of what most buyers would’ve left the store with.
(*Bazard doesn’t do the thing where it releases each model-year car in the preceding calendar year, as they consider it to be gimmicky and dishonest, and much of their brand image revolves around their straightforwardness and honesty- traits generally appreciated by their practical-minded commercial audience. As another example of this image, they brand their dealerships as “stores” as a way of highlighting that they don’t use the predatory practices commonly associated with car dealerships.)
