Suffering from a bad hangover from excessive new years celebrations i decided to stop my long hiatus from Automation and make reality of a dream car i have had in mind for a long time, instead of just making cheap junk cars.
I call it the SuperHawk and it’s a 1987 semi-premium sports coupe with almost all of the archetypical 80’s stuff, and being FWD i imagine it being all the rage back then, and something of a laughing stock today.
Engine is a rather big 2.5L twincam I-4 with a absolutely massive turbo, EFI and catalytic converter topping out at about 280hp on premium 98 octane. I was toying with the idea of trying with a small V8 or a straight 6 but it simply wouldnt fit under the hood, and i4’s were all the rage in the 80’s anyways.
5 speed manual with limited slip diff, 16" sports tyres and sports tuned suspension.
Premium cassette player and some bells and whistles. Imagine the interior being like the 80’s smacked you in the face, 2 bucket seats in the front and 2 small seats in the back, and a mediocre luggage compartment. The SuperHawk is all about speed and hi-tech for the era.
I took many ideas from cars of the era like the Ford Sierra, Saab 900, Opel Rekord and perhaps mostly the Ford Mustang Fox Body, along with some subtle cues from 60’s muscle cars. As usual i find it funny how the game sometimes calculates scores. Apparently this car scores highly as a GT car, sports car, premium something-or-another and premium off-road(!), but it’s main intention is to be a semi-premium sports car.
Please share your thoughts. I could probably go for a smaller engine with a more humane torque curve and i’d love to toy with the idea of making an automatic version for the US market, with some horrible 3-speeder with overdrive or something.
To put it bluntly, this thing looks odd, with almost no tail and an overly long roofline. And the sloping nose with no upper grille gives it a rather blank face. But the problems with it don’t stop there.
What really kills it for me is the excess turbo lag (on 98 RON!) coupled with the front-drive layout. This car really needs an engine with a milder state of tune to be more easily drivable. As it is, it’s an awkwardly proportioned, torque-steering mess.
The engine seems okay. The problem with it is that theres no point of using 98RON when the engine only needs 95. Other than the roofline being weird, would like to see the rest of the stats.
I’d be the first to admit that the engine isn’t very good. It has an absolute crapton of boost - too much really, with the mentioned turbo lag. I have been on a hiatus for over a year from this game and i have never really designed a turbo engine so i thought i’d go crazy about it.
The 98 RON is really an oversight from my part. I was tuning the engine to 98 at first, then decided to back down on the compression and other stuff, then forgot to lower the octane. I will tinker with it some more, see if i’ll stick to 98 or just go lower octane.
The design with the long roofline, no upper grille and almost no tail really is a concious decision. I wanted the late 80’s look on the front which you can see on Fox-body post-facelift Mustangs, the '89 T-bird, and to some degree the Sierra and some of the Opels of the era. The roofline is a homage to some of my favourite cars - 70’s/80’s Saabs, and the tail end is a (perhaps misguided) attempt on a 60’s muscle car look blended with 80’s looks of Porche 924/944, Saab etc.
I went with FWD because it was - in part - all the rage in that era and i wanted to try something different.
Next step is making a more humane engine, experiment with RWD and perhaps making a “previous model” with late '70s vibes.
