“Strop” and “drivability” also usually don’t go in the same sentence. Just bear that in mind. 
Well that may give me…I mean us a chance. 
Well, one can only hope.
Though Vic, that’s a perception largely bolstered by my love of Unreasonable Turbo…
…this one’s NA 
drivability is through the roof. It would have struggled on the real pikes peak (carbureted, too), but otherwise, it’s a mean dirt monstering sideways machine! (Off-road tyres not standard…)
I dunno if people are interested in this, but here is the benchmark car (Non competing just a fluff piece)
With the grueling death of the muscle car in the mid 70’s so too did LHEs first sports car die. Coasting on sales of its original Com Star X4c from the late 60’s and its less than well received update in 1974, the X4d, LHE had to turn to other avenues, ceasing production of its X8-M V8 series engines and focusing purely on the X4-M Inlines. With two subsequent flops in a row things were looking bleak, so rolling out a second refresh of the Com Star had little chance of propping them back up on their feet. With the growing interest in Group Automation, LHE decided to take a chance on getting into racing. By taking their old sport chassis and using the leftover stock of X4-M80 turbocharged engines from the failed Famsed line, the new sports car was assembled for considerably less then expected. By saving considerable time on design for the chassis and power-plant, they were left with plenty of time to dial in the ride.
Though one had to question why LHE would bring a knife to a gun fight. The venerable X4-M 1.7L OHV Four was showing its age, having not yet developed an OHC variant yet, some time was spent modernizing what they already had. By hand porting each head for the production units, relying on their high performance valve springs designed in the 60’s, and going as far as to purchase a limited license from Bosch to use their mechanical fuel injection system. To compound issues while well under the maximum displacement for turbocharged engines, with the rules placed on the class having such a small bore engine limited them to a rather small turbo compressor, the upside to this was that the regulation 1 Bar was achieved very early in the rev range giving the little engine an incredibly manageable torque curve.
As an extra effort to boost sales, an all leather interior was used as well as an advanced SRS system making the car very comfortable, and rather safe. For everyday driving the sports car gave a quite acceptable return on fuel economy, and had just enough power to reward those who wanted to drive a little more spiritedly. Most importantly though, if you decided to get off the road, so long as you remembered to engage the manual locker, it was as agile off the road, as it is on.
The 1984 LHE Orbital X4Re, equipped with LHE’s X4-M84IE producing 123hp @ 5700rpm
Tell you what, that LOOKS good!
Thanks, I like building stuff within the confines of what LHE would do, rather then building a car or engine specifically to the competition. I am rather fond of my personal constraints.
I really like every-ones approach so far, these are all fine machines that are being submitted so far.
12/25 (13/25 when strop sends in his) Passed Inspection.
2 Cars pending revision.
Before I will introduce my own submission for this event, I would like to say “bravo”! Inspiring submissions here and I am really glad to be aboard with you guys. Whether or not I am up to par as well, remains to be seen, ofc. 
And now for something completely different…
The original idea for the Avstrada (roughly taken from off street, off road), was born in 1983. The cold war was slowly but surely cooling off, as the nations were warming up towards each other. Buildings cars not only for the home market gained importance even in the Soviet Union. As basic needs for families and farmers were covered, new cars were not afraid to focus on the sport aspect of existance.
Now, in the past, Romanov was known for reliability and price performance ratio, but certainly not for driving fast down the road while enjoying life.
A short wheelbase, a chassis that followed the trend, married to an engine that did more than just barely move the car.
Finally, the Avstrada with a 1.6 litre 4 cylinder engine forged from an aluminium block with 93 hp was introduced before summer vavations 1983.
That year, many young russians with enough currencies, spent the summers of their lives.
With the success of the Avstrada base model, Romanov felt encouraged to reach for the stars with a Rally Sport version.
The rear suspension was upgraded with a newly developed multilink system, should anyone feel brave enough to divert from the excellent russian road conditions. The engine grew by as much as a bottle of water and suddenly sent 80 horses more to the rear end. The homologation version reached a top speed way beyond 200 km/h. In style.
The rear end gained additional braking lights, while the front was garnished with additonal cooling elements and a bonnet, to keep the horses underneath in check.
An all wheel driven version was seriously considered and soon declared impossible. Too much risk, too little time, too expensive.
Requests to “borrow” some of the breathtaking new ‘Quattro’ technology from Audi, were met with sheer disbelief by the german engineers.
Still, the Avstrada RS had more than enough potential to become the next best thing besides an actual race car.
I’m about to submit my entry, but I keep having issues with automation actually saving what I do to the car so it’s just as I want it.
…I want to assume this has been brought up to the team besides as stated in one of their videos on YT but…it’s a thing that’s starting to wear on my nerves even with what I do to try and save progress.
My ranting aside, I want to be certain of…besides the minimal weight…if my naming process as requested was met.
To make sure there’s little conflusion, here’s a screenshot…and weight conversion between kg and lb is roughly 2.2 (kg to lbs is multiplied 2.2, when converting the other way around, you divide lbs by 2.2)…yes I’m doing boardline loophole abuse if not doing it right.
That aside…once it’s sure, I’ll submit it, and then I’ll get to my entry’s backstory (or there lack of).
Till then…that preview is an idea of what I’m bringing to the table.
EDIT…just realized I still got the naming wrong…then again that whole issue of saving what I’ve changed 
…I’ll have to change that again…and again an—
Instead of doing math you could, you know, just temporary change the in game units to Metric 
From Packbat Auto Works comes the 1984 Murina RE (Rally Edition):
This special rally-homologation edition came at the end of the lifespan of the first-gen Murina, and represented a radical departure from the model’s humble roots: premium fittings replacing barebones interior, high-tech safety equipment replacing almost none, and 2.8L of thirsty V8 replacing 1.6L of hypermiling I4. Torque steer was kept in check with an early traction control system and a well-tuned front diff. All in all, fans of the front-wheel-drive rally kings of twenty years earlier would find in the Murina RE a thrilling glimpse into an alternate timeline where rear- and all-wheel drive vehicles never took over … and a hell of a lot of fun on both asphalt and gravel.
Okay, it’s hopefully submitted so…here you all go with the car story and the finalized car.
I wish I could have just made this picture a bit more presentable but…I guess I’ll do better another time.
1984 Weiler Varro GT-GAR - Group A Rearwheel drive
–Recovery from hardship, a springboard back into the big time.
While Weiler was able to rely on their utility and commercial vehicles to survive the oil crisis of the 70s, in addition able to make all purpose customer cars including it’s first generation Meshar GT Hatchback as a more ‘economical’ take on things (alongside future proofing it’s Hardy 2 door machine among others), the company was at work with a new car as a flagship into their future endeavors to fully recovery from the mid to late 1970s.
The company had a difficult time enough staying in higher profile motorsports in light of the oil crisis’, even in spite of their beforehand ‘future proofing’ of their entire lineup, and legitimate racing successes, they were lucky to still hang on strong with their touring car and GTP/Group C endeavors as direct factory efforts. Indycar now being a secondary and they were currently out of Formula 1, as the Cosworth DFV proved too good a motor for any of their efforts for now.
They saw Group A as one more chance to get back into more of a winning streak, or at least if nothing else, make a popular car to be modified by customers, and willingness to give factory and semi-factory support, alongside their Group B efforts, including a final sendoff of their first gen Meshar.
At the 1983 New york Auto show, came the debut of the Varro. Just before that very motor show, after it, and before the road cars themselves hit the dealerships in early 1984, various test mules of various engine, suspension, drive-train and even chassis configurations were used, 25 in total until they could settle on specific setups that were easily adaptable across all their models to specified purposes. Those 25 mules had later been preserved, with a few as machines among the higher ups in the company, and select customers.
As for the 6 prototypes used for Group A, 3 for rallying, 3 for circuits, and then switched to see how each performed out of their element, they all used the AR/AV-4 25 block, first started in the 1970s, this engine served as their workhorse for their sedans, hatchbacks and sport coupes as standard, the parts changed according to the situation while the engine block displacement remained unchanged.
Extensive testing both in engineering and actual road testing made them come up with a very specific configuration. Called the AR4-25-84-A , this engine was built to go with group A specifications, but retained being reliable, even economical to a small degree (at least better than a Dodge Aspen), Although not to the extent of their other cars. However when seeing their competition perform…they put their cards on the table to see what other options could and could not be explored.
The initial rules for group A only allowed turbocharged motors up to 2 liters, while the AR-25 had several turbo configurations, it was too big an engine to be turbocharged and still be legal for Group A Homologation, and the company was hesitant to use smaller blocks based off it given their mixed fortunes with turbocharged engined in the past at 2 and under liters. In addition, the VA6-28, An SOHC V6 a motor specific to Group A’s max allowed NA limit, was still in development and not yet regarded as reliable enough, and the same went for the AO5-20 and 28 models, an Inline 5 that still had issues with balancing and smoothness.
Attempting to enlarge the engine to 2.8L yielded unsatisfactory results, and an Inline 6 was a too long horizontally. They then tried to use a smaller take on their abandoned V8 from Formula 1 and found that while it was powerful, it was for their purposes, a little too heavy for their goals then and there.
So the engineers decided to simply stick to the company’s policy of a reliable machine, sticking with the AR/AV4, tweaking ignition timing and fuel mixture among other features. Their goal was just 200bhp and over 18mpg (US).
Which was met along with making the car ‘bare bones’ enough to be changed accordingly to what a racing customer would want with it, but also make it liveable and reliable.
While it retains many of the features that would be present in the road cars, due to the specified rules, a choice had to be made between either removing the wing or front lip, and it was decided to keep the front lip. One other change was replacing the rear suspension, the concept and standard production machines, a semi-trailing arm, with a solid axle leaf rear suspension with the purpose of making it more worthy of off-roading alongside making it higher and a less-stiff suspension in that regard.
Finally, a change in ventilation on the roof. The original concept had a 200+bhp turbo motor using mechanical fuel injection developed in-house. This NA motor with a carb 4 barrel configuration, had an altered central vent, with additional vents to assist with hot air extraction and cooling, in addition to an attempt for a cleaner aero profile.
The whole package in total including 4 seats weighed a slim 2024 pounds, and an overall price just over $8000 US (adjusted for inflation, $18,252.83 in 2015 money), it exceeded safety requirements and overall, a car meant to be very drivable but compromised on comfort and prestige. In return it had a low maintenance cost total of a little over $1300.
With this configuration finalized, the first 2500 models to be assembled at the factory were built to this specification. The remaining that year, were built to the finalized road model specifics, and during all this, plans were already in motion to build both rear drive, and all wheel drive variants, both for Group A, and eventually Group B alongside the Meshar.
With this start, Weiler were on their way to become a prominent motorsport force once more even if their overall manufacturing capacity was at best, 2/3rds of any of the largest car companies at that time.
That is one heck of a story, Rossriders. Good job, and good luck in the competition!
Excellent stuff guys, 15/25 Submissions. 16/25 when I recive Strops, and 19/25 if the people in revision state submit fixed cars.
So, only 6 slots left. with a potential for 9 if the people waiting on re-submission fail to do so.
Update:
18/25 with 2 pending re-submission. Only 5 slots open.
It’s the Ponni Olympus MkII HS, the second generation of POMOCO’s affordable sports car, now in 4-door disguise and with a peppy 2.8l I6 engine.
HS stands for Homologation Special, which means that just 500 of these are going to be made.
[img]http://i.imgur.com/BB8l6cz.png[/img] [img]http://i.imgur.com/gBdkRc0.png[/img]Ooh, very nice!
Thanks, and the same to you as well.
In 1984, Mercusa already had a successful large sedan, however, was lacking in smaller options. Pushed for time to develop for the upcoming rally season, they developed an all new, carbureted, turbocharged 2.0L V8 and shoved it into their large sedan, the Xenon. This resulted in a decidedly left-field homologation special; a clearly American style car, bench seat and all, competing against light and lithe small sedans and hatchbacks.
Interesting! I like the styling, too - very strange. 
Astana will enter the competition with the Astana Defiant Deluxe 2.0L
The Astana Defiant (model 1984) is a 5 seat 3-door coupe/hatchback designed for those who want performance without expending affordability and comfort. The Astana Defiant provides you the ability to ride in style and have that extra power to get you noticed, if you choose so.
