The first set I finished then dumped because they looked weird (suspension seemed too tall)
The second set had body morphing issues that I didn’t notice until the last car was finished (still no idea what happened)
The final set, which I entered, I sweated bullets making the Exordium due to it being the first application of my new way of approaching car design. I did everything I could to make it as helpful and as useable as possible for the target buyer, while saving resources elsewhere in order to keep costs down. The rest of the range were more conventional but I still had certain buyers in mind for them as well.
So I’m rather glad that I didn’t bomb out (as I was expecting) but basically sweeping the board…
Looks like Bogliq will be generating lots of profits in the next few years, which will help pay for all my extra-curricular activities, hahaha!
Hampton Motor Group - Round 3 Aftermath/Round 4 Prologue
The Swingin’ Sixties were proving to be a boom period for the Hampton Motor Group as a whole thus far. Despite reliability concerns, their entire lineup was still earning praise from the motoring press, especially in America. The Transtar stood out for being the best work van on the market (and as such was more popular with fleets than ever before), but the biggest plaudits of all were reserved for their muscle car, the Valiant V8 5.0. With more than enough performance to justify its higher price relative to its competitors, it fended off all its opposition with ease. Granted, it was the size of a pony car, and its engine was not the largest or the most powerful, but in conjunction with its light, well-tuned chassis, it worked wonders on the road, and at the track, where they began winning numerous touring car races around the globe.
Meanwhile, back in Warwickshire, on a cool autumn day in 1966, Toby remained as upbeat as ever. In his speech for the future of the Hampton Motor Group, he outlined his plans for 1972 and beyond: "Since its establishment in 1948, our company has gone from strength to strength. Yes, some of our products are falling behind in reliability, but it’s nowhere near catastrophic, although we are working on improvements on that front as we speak. On the other hand, the press has always had something good to say about our cars.
On that note, we are delighted to receive word that our first-ever muscle car, the Valiant V8 5.0, has been voted best in class by Motor Review World in the United States. It earned top spot purely on merit, with more than enough performance to justify its price. And we’ll let the world know about it - by entering it in various touring car competitions, from the British Saloon Car Championship to the American Trans-Am series.
As for the future, we will adapt our lineup to meet constantly changing regulations worldwide. To that end, our design and engineering teams are developing revised versions of the mid-sized Valiant II and flagship Vanguard, all of which are expected to go on sale by 1972. We’re doing this out of necessity - the Valiant II is a new platform, while the Vanguard still has plenty of life left in it. Even so, the latter could yet receive a complete redesign instead if we feel that it is the best solution for our company and its reputation.
Thank you all very much for showing your dedication to this proud British company. Its future lies in your hands, so be sure to make the most of it."
Shortly afterwards, Toby got into his brand new Valiant V8 5.0 (which he had just received as a company car) and drove back to his home in the English countryside. He knew that the current muscle car boom, as intense as it was, would not last forever, but in the meantime his colleagues were preparing an even more powerful version of the Valiant V8, with a detuned version of its engine planned for the new Vanguard. All in all, there would be interesting times ahead for the Hampton Motor Group, to say the least.
critique for low practicality (possibly down to the press-model being a two-door)
Model will be replaced by the already planned Anhultz Puck II in 1967
Anhultz Dione V C
sales not as strong (relative to competitors) as Puck
customers consider it difficult to drive
safety is below-average
A monocoque chassis is currently in development for the Dione VI and upcoming Mimas V (both '68, Dione possibly '69).
Prices for automatic gearboxes will be reduced on Dione B. Those will be made standard equipment for Dione C and Dione D. Customers will be able to order a manual transmission if desired.
Anhultz Dione BX (utility):
customers like the ease of driving together with goot utilitarian use (for it’s size, especially)
the vehicle is considered expensive to purchase
Changes mainly come through the adoption of the monocoque chassis on the sedan/ wagon models
Anhultz Dione S:
people just like it
Anhultz higher-ups consider the fuel eco to be too bad for an Anhultz
changes made through introduction of Dione VI
Politics:
Anhultz is looking at Keika Automotive in search of establishing a more serious effort in more sporty segments. Keika currently is using Anhultz drivetrains for their low-volume sports cars.
Thanks a lot to Bogliq Automotive USA @HighOctaneLove for supplying the chassis plans!
Rough ideas are being tossed around including a shared effort in a dedicated utility vehicle, potentially reintroducing the Callisto line to US cusomers.
Well, I suppose the pressure’s off for Earl at this point. Between pushrod engines and live rear axles, hyper-realistically engineered American cars are going to be doomed until the 80s, at least. My muscle car was already failing in handling I’m 1966 with my best suspension tuning.
That, and the intermediate at least should probably have cross ply tires, and both the intermediate and muscle car ought to have rear drums.
Only one manufacturer used an overhead cam setup at all (and that wasn’t even on all their cars), everyone else was pushrods. And live axles were the norm in these submissions, though some were coil instead of leaf.
But yes, we’ll see how people engineer this next round…
I already know that Ardent is doomed, since the engine being used in one of the entries is basically 25 years old by the time of this round. The other two are only a few years old, but still have potentially fatal drawbacks. All of them are thoroughly realistically American designs for their size classes.
Because of the “Recycle your muscle car” challenge, it’s no secret: Both the intermediate and the muscle will be a Chesapeake again. And anyone whose seen my lore knows the Manhattan is going to be the luxury car.
That manufacturer is in fact mine - the Hampton Motor Group of Warwickshire, England. They began using overhead-cam engines for their core range as early as 1956, which is also when most of their cars (except for their utility and sports car lines) adopted coil-sprung live rear axles.
With that in mind, I’m also thinking of submitting variants of the Valiant in the intermediate and muscle categories once again. Hampton’s company lore, meanwhile, dictates that the Vanguard will be positioned as a luxury car.
As for these regulations?
What exactly is a 2.5 mph bumper, assuming it’s not integrated? Also, do front fog lights count as parking lights?
Yeah, but am I correct in the three Bogliqs all had independent rear suspension? Even the ute? Plus one had a 1.4 liter engine. All very, very unusual in an American car. Plus the top muscle car was a radial-tired European.
It would seem what is the norm is not what is winning.
And yeah @abg7 posed a good question. AFAIK the bumper laws didn’t come into effect until '73. Most bumpers in '72 looked just as flimsy as '71. On the flip, most cars were being tuned for unleaded by then.
After receiving news of poor safety in their midsize Wesson, the Charge CCM Company built a new crash testing facility in Vancouver, Washington. With a new upcoming luxury model, they are throwing all they have into building the ultimate safety car. They hope to add some of the techniques they learn into the 1969 facelift of the Wesson.
You are incorrect on the bogliqs. They all had solid axle coil.
The radial tire winner did so despite a penalty to all stats. Yes, it would have been unusual tires to see back then on an American manufactured car, but we were well behind the times in tires because, well, Murica.
As far as tuning for unleaded, it was starting to happen but didn’t reach “most” production cars until '74.
As for bumpers: that just means they are required. The “2.5 MPH” was an intermediate step before 5 MPH bumpers in 73. They can be minimal or flimsy if you want, but they have to be there.
Blockquote You are incorrect on the bogliqs. They all had solid axle coil.
Ah, I was confused by your note that they all had an “unusual wishbone-and-coil setup”. It was admittedly probably pushing it for both Earl and Bogliq to put it on compacts, but that combination was on all of GM’s big cars starting in 1958 and even in their trucks from 1967 to 1972.
Looks like I’m going to have to put a chassis and suspension data block on all my lore blog entries, so that this confusion can be easily cleared up in the future!
I’m doing my best, but I’m an Aussie, which means that US rules and norms don’t come naturally to me. I’ve googled this stuff plenty of times and there simply isn’t any definitive source that timelines this data out in any meaningful way…
Also, if you read my lore entries, you’ll see that I’m not RP’ing a “typical” US manufacturer. I’m loosely comparable to AMC in that I’m trying to make customer-centric cars, rather than sell “polished turds”, lol.
US manufacturers were 100% capable of innovation; they were richer and better established than European marques of the era. The reason they chose to stagnate was simple, they chose profits over people, with the most obvious evidence being the Pinto lawsuits versus fault rectification debacle.
If your company makes a DW front end, then it can easily engineer a DW rear end. Same goes for springs, disc brakes and body innovations such as hatchbacks. Monocoque chassis development is less clear cut, which is why I haven’t got any monocoque cars in my line-up, but by the 70’s, when the “big three” were buying Euro brands, the know-how was clearly available and this is when they started to introduce monocoque to the US. Radial tyres were available for a long time before they became mainstream in the US and it was money that drove their delay too…
Americans are just as smart as anyone else. Europeans loved lighter, smarter cars and so do Americans, but because the car companies refused to offer anything better, the US public were conditioned to believe that dross was the best they could get!
My entire range will be making a Mk II facelift in 1970 so my cars will be a couple of Sachems and my Primarius luxury car. The Primarius has DW’s all 'round, with the customer-centric focus showing that the customers loved the IRS so much that it wasn’t worth the cost savings of a solid coil setup.
Thanks to the Australian Holden Commodore, with it’s trailing arm travesty, I cannot use them without struts and a monocoque. Besides, DW front end parts can be re-used in the rear end, which reaps (in RL, lol) savings in parts costs, supply chains and end-user maintenance.
Hey VicVictory, I thought I’d put leaves in the rear of the Haulstar? I’m going to have to check that out because I meant to put a leaf sprung rear end in there!!!
EDIT: I checked my file and the Haulstar has a leaf sprung rear end!!! I was rather worried for a minute there, since I could’ve just made a Sachem ute and van if I’d installed coils,
I’m doing my best, but I’m an Aussie, which means that US rules and norms don’t come naturally to me. I’ve googled this stuff plenty of times and there simply isn’t any definitive source that timelines this data out in any meaningful way…
If you are ever genuinely curious about the accuracy of a given technology, I am familiar with all the firsts of the US auto industry up through the 80s. For example, the first car in the US with radial tires as a factory option was in 1967, and the first standard was for 1969. Both were very luxurious. You couldn’t even get radials in an auto shop in the US before then, you’d have to go to a specialty import dealer. Even in 1972, only the luxury car and perhaps the muscle car should have radials, and none of them should have rear discs. The most sophisticated luxury car in the country may have had optional four wheel anti-lock brakes, but still no discs on the back. Meanwhile, monocoque chassis, which you have avoided, dominated all of Chrysler since 1960. Chrysler innovated way more than AMC did, in terms of being customer-centric.
It’s not that US manufacturers never tried to innovate. But whenever it did it either bit them immediately in the behind or no one bought the features.
Fuel Injection, AMC, GM, & Chrysler, 1957 - unpopular, people would rather buy a larger engine and have a carb they would work on. Cancelled the next year.
Air suspension, GM, 1958 - at least as reliable as Citroen’s pneumatic, but a Cadillac buyer wouldn’t accept French reliability, enough people complained it got recalled.
Aluminum engine blocks, Chrysler, 1960 - people bought slightly cheaper compacts from competitors, so Chrysler quickly made the slant six iron
Anti-Lock brakes, Ford, 1969 (two wheel) & Chrysler, 1970 (four wheel) - available as a cheap option, but nobody bought them.
AlSi engines, GM, 1970 - well, this one was admittedly GM’s fault for messing up, but points for trying
Et cetera, et cetera. American companies quickly learned that most of their customers would rather have less sophisticated engineering than give up an iota in price, maintenance, or reliability. “You never lose money by appealing to the lowest common denominator.” A good combination of traditional engineering still went pretty far in the early 70s - a 1973 Cutlass matched the braking, cornering, accelerating and mileage performance of a Mercedes S class costing 3 times as much. So US makers settled in simply due to experience - if they got any bigger, the government would have broken them up under antitrust laws anyway. The UAW settled in too, letting quality slip; the government laid down the law ruining reliability; and any savings in price was chipped away by OPEC. That’s all besides the competition improving. Once they woke up and put in effort in the 80s it was too late.
Americans are just as smart as anyone else. Europeans loved lighter, smarter cars and so do Americans, but because the car companies refused to offer anything better, the US public were conditioned to believe that dross was the best they could get!
Only enthusiasts in America care about light, small cars today. Everything from all makes, domestic and foreign, is trending towards larger, and into crossovers and trucks and not sedans. The only popular sedans are silver rental-spec Japanese blandmobiles. Companies make what people will buy, buyers are just fickle.
The Corvette isn’t a muscle car. By this challenge’s very definition - it is certainly no trim of a family car. It had independent rear suspension, too but that doesn’t mean you should have it in a family car. (It was on two compact cars of the 60s that weren’t FR but were cancelled by 72.) Heck if you want to go by firsts, Crosley had something similar to “disk” brakes in the 1940s.
I appreciate your friendly intent, but as you should be able to tell from that post, I already have a very thorough knowledge of US automotive history. I am not only an enthusiast but I work in the industry. When I do need to do research it’s not the kind of thing you can get from a summary page; usually I have to dig through brochures.
But in reality I put the link in that post wrong because it was directed to HighOctaneLove who wrote that he has difficulties with the American rules and standards …
Well, that’s embarrassing, looks like I’ve got it all wrong. In hindsight I should have realised that the people in those corporations would have tried new stuff out. Sometimes things come along too early plus, like in the latest let’s play by Killrob, most people never test the limits of the car anyway. Therefore they never see the benefits of the tech, that usually came from racing or aeronautics, and would rather save money.
Therefore I fully retract my earlier statements and @patridam thankyou for the information and the offer of being able to pick your brains in the future…
Also, sorry @VicVictory, I tried to be more “American” this time around, but I have still managed to miss the mark. My only comfort is that at least it wasn’t as far off the mark as last time!
Oh please don’t get me wrong, there’s a ton of times the industry held itself back just to save money. Johnn DeLorean suffered from that at every turn. So no crow necessary, I hear it’s oily. I just gotta defend my boi America sometimes, he might be big and dumb but I feel bad when everyone makes fun of him.
