So in m my work as a technician working on post-war sports and race cars I come into contact with cars that represented cutting edge technology for their day.
One example of an engine I would like to be able to put together is the Mercedes Benz 300SL engine. For those not familiar with it’s design specifics, it is a 3 litre inline 6, overhead cam (2 valve, with rockers) with direct mechanical fuel injection, long tube headers and an aluminum cylinder head (lined aluminum block was available for the 1963 model year).
I’m curious why this type of engine can’t be built in game in 1954 (yes that was the first year of production).
My guess would be that the engine was just that, cutting edge, and i do believe that this game at this state will try to represent technologies as they became mainstream.
If one wants to be picky, mechanized direct fuel injection was avalible on the “Hesselman” engine as early as 1925, and Alfa Romeo experimented with electric fuel injection as early as 1940 in a 6C, but these techniques were mainly avalible much later and as such we dont have fuel injection directly from the game start. In 1954 i would say that 95% of all gasoline-engines in the world used one or another form of carburator to feed fuel and air into the combustion-chambers, mechanical injection became rather regular to see in the mid to late '60s mainly in luxury cars and sports cars.
Furthermore, aluminium wasn’t used in engines of production cars on any larger scale before the '70s because of manufacturing difficulties, sky-high costs and problems with the parts of aluminium actually holding together without cracking or shattering, and aluminium-lined blocks wasn’t very mainstream, but i get your point and i guess it will be considered in due time.
Problem is that you don’t want the game to be too complicated or else you will have a game with a fanbase of just a few engine-nuts who knows what’s it all about, making it too simple scares away said car-nuts and they will have to balance things a bit, and that’s the hard part when you are a die-hard fan of something, to consciencely leave stuff you know and like out of the game to make it easier for people who are less die-hard.
The time which they unlock in sandbox represents when they become mainstream, in the finished game you’ll be able to use research teams to get ahead of the curve.
Your example shows that what we have planned for Automation is rather accurate actually. Through tech pool, parts will be available up to around 15 years earlier than they go mainstream, and even though the company you’ll be founding probably won’t have that kind of advantage already in 1954, less than a decade after its birth, companies like Mercedes definitely had - specifically on the engine side.
In Automation MFI unlocks in 1968 and Al-blocks in 1970. Subtract ~15 years from that and see what you end up with. 
Cheers!
[quote=“Raticon”]
Problem is that you don’t want the game to be too complicated or else you will have a game with a fanbase of just a few engine-nuts who knows what’s it all about, making it too simple scares away said car-nuts and they will have to balance things a bit, and that’s the hard part when you are a die-hard fan of something, to consciencely leave stuff you know and like out of the game to make it easier for people who are less die-hard.[/quote]
this very true but a way to get around this problem is with touritals that make sense to beginners and a simple and advanced setting system with preset valves (I’m talking about running gear, transmission and chassis’s here) in a simple mode you have a system like in R-factor (good game), where you have sliders to adjust down force, gearing (which combines engine into it) ride stiffness and steering this game ACCT (automation the car company tycoon) could have a running gear slider for beginners and value sliders for die hard gearheads