It depends on the area as defined by the ‘boxes’ in the body. Currently these zones are defined independently when making the body. Implementation of changes
are forthcoming: the spaces will be altered by the morphs too… This includes engine bay space too.
[quote=“strop”]
It depends on the area as defined by the ‘boxes’ in the body. Currently these zones are defined independently when making the body. Implementation of changes
are forthcoming: the spaces will be altered by the morphs too… This includes engine bay space too.[/quote]
Oh thank you, Beelzebub! 
I know right, can’t wait to shoehorn a multi turbo 11L v12 into a coupé, Carmageddon style lolol.
(This does require the new engine integration etc first if I understand correctly.)
ohohohoho do i smell some drag competition coming?
also… 95 kg lighter… and i didnt even tried to make it light… i could make it lighter quite a bit more.
namely, changing to SOHC engine
Wait, 1092.6kg is the heaviest car here? Wow… I guess it must have something to do with the fact I’m using a 4.8L cast iron V8 xD
Also, being last place is not really unexpected to me because AMW normally builds high-quality, well-engineered cars like scalpels. This challenge, however, required something as simple and as blunt as a sledgehammer. So while I did try my best, I’m not surprised that I came last.
Considering the simple, blunt sledgehammer actually performed poorly, I think you meant to say that the challenge wasn’t actually as suited to the simple blunt sledgehammer you tried to build 
I figured that while it would have been quite fun to max out the burnout stakes, that would eventually count towards barely 10% of the total score at the cost of at least another 20-30%… meaning the challenge was actually quite different to what it seemed.
That said, it wasn’t really the place for high quality cars. Or pragmatic, well balanced ecoboxes as Leo already mentioned. And I’m really not about to claim my car is anything approaching high-quality. Let’s just say it was a helluvalot of carefully considered compromise: the compromise of build quality of most things 
hoho. im going with ‘the silent winner’ with my car. it’s above average in almost everything, not the least in anything, not the most in anything. such that im in 4th place 
im still wondering the 2 top car… like how did their car value nearly doubled the value of the car in 3rd? 
but 1 more thing still isn’t in consideration. looks, how does all of the competitor cars looks?
Mine was a careful balance of compromises to get me a good blend of “Can go fast” with “Can do burnouts” and a smear of practicality. Then I took the butcher’s knife to the car to drop costs enough to get back under budget. A nice note I will mention on my car is that there’s no negative quality.
Ooh, it will be interesting to see which comes out on top then. Oppositelock tends not to touch the tech sliders, whereas I tend to play with them quite a bit.
Ugh, anxiety getting in the way of writing again. Going to take a breather, eat some dinner, hopefully take a hack at it this evening.
No worries here. I can understand writing is a tough task. I can wait.
Picking a new car is a hard choice. On the one hand, you want your car to be economical. On the other hand, you want your car to be sporty. On the third hand, you want your car to be absolutely bonkers. Is it really possible for any car to be all of these things at once?
Well, I don’t know. But it can definitely be some of these things at once. So I’ll tell you what I’ve done: I’ve combed through all the cars coming out this year - and a couple from last year - and come up with a list of three cars that I think might just fit the bill. All three of these are about $8150 MSRP*, with polymer bodies, four seats, a tape deck, power steering, five-speed manual gearboxes driving the rear wheels through a viscous LSD, and enough horses under the hood to make those rear wheels burn between the traffic lights … and each one of them offers a little something more as well. So lets get started.
[size=85]* Using the Consumer Price Index, US$12 000 in 2010 is the equivalent of US$8155 in 1994.[/size]
The Dingo sport hatch from Grey-Skies Industries doesn’t really look like much on the outside. It’s quiet. It’s unassuming. It’s reliable. It’s comfortable. And with a quoted combined city/highway rating of 30 mpg (7.8 lt/100 km) using regular unleaded, I’d forgive you for thinking this was nothing but an ecobox.
Well, wake up, because what you have here is a taut, responsive little beast that’ll keep you grinning all day, every day - and that fuel economy just means you can spend more time driving it. 136 bhp isn’t that much out of a two-liter MPFI sixteen-valve DOHC inline-four, and the VVT adds more economy than speed, but the aluminium block and head keeps the weight down, and on the stock 195/50 tires front and rear it’ll do zero to sixty in 7.4 seconds and the standing quarter mile in 15.54. Understeer is almost nonexistent and the suspension, simple as it is (struts in the front, semi-trailing arm in the rear), is perfectly tuned to keep the wheels planted 100% of the time with a minimum of bounce.
It’s not the cheapest car on the market and it’s not the greatest to drive - it’s just the cheapest car you’ll find that’s great to drive.
“Well, sure”, I hear you say. “But what if I don’t want to be cheap?”
Well, given the magazine you’re reading, I’d say that boat already sailed. But I know what you mean. And I know what you’re asking for. And I think a little company by the name of Matteo Miglia has set out to give you the answer.
The Matteo Miglia Excelsior Rossa Corsa. Just look at it. Just look.
No, seriously, only look. That shiny red body is made out of the cheapest plastic this side of a soda bottle, and if you lean on the wrong spot, it knocks the lead out of the headlight and you’ll be spending the next hour trying to find it under the hood to plug it back in again. Ask me how I know.
That aside (and the cheap-feeling interior aside), this car is a looker and the looks don’t lie. Four-wheel double-wishbone suspension with 225/40 fronts and 235/35 rears gives this baby handling to envy, four-wheel discs with ABS help it stop on a dime, and the truly delightful 2429cc SPFI SOHC V6 under the hood is fitted with VVL cams to keep things quiet down low and raucous once you take it past 4500 RPM up towards the redline at 7800. And when you do mat the throttle, the 214 bhp under the hood will push you from zero to sixty in 6.3 seconds and through the standing quarter mile in 14.46.
It runs on premium, not standard, unleaded gas, and you’ll struggle to maintain the listed 20 mpg (11.7 lt/100 km), but you’ll be getting a lot of performance for your gas money.
“Wow”, I hear you say. “Wild.”
Nope.
“What?”
This is the tame one.
“What do you mean, this is the tame one?”
I said you might want economy, you might want sportiness, or you might want absolute bonkertude. We’ve only looked at two cars so far.
“…oh no.”
Oh, yes. Gird your loins and put in your earplugs, because I am about to open Door Number Three.
I saw this car - Storm Automotive’s Savage TT - and I said, “is this a golf cart? Is this one of those baggage-handling trucks from the airport? What is this?”
Well, I can tell you one thing right away: if you take this car on any golf course in the world, you will be arrested immediately. You will be arrested before you make it up the driveway. Because that TT stands for “Tire Torcher”, and with 245 bhp driving 105-mm wide tires so thin you’ll think they’re painted on the rims, this car is the legal definition of lunacy. Take the three liters of MPFI SOHC V6 under the hood rev to 7400 RPM, spitting exhaust through a muffler that’s basically nothing but an empty pipe, and you won’t even hear the sirens as you peel out on the highway at 90 mph in third gear.
Sure, the cramped interior with its bench seats is pretty depressing (although the trunk is quite capacious), and sure, the brakes fade like hell if you spend any amount of time pushing the limits, and sure, it handles … well, like it’s got 105/40 tires on all four corners. And sure, all that wheelspin costs it on the drag strip - we’re taking 8.2 seconds to sixty and 15.78 in the quarter mile at best. But this flying brick will hit almost the same speed as the Excelsior RC with none of the class, and thanks to its own VVT system, it gets more power and the same listed mileage on regular unleaded as the Excelsior does on premium. It’s a mad, mad, mad, mad thing, but somehow it works, and if you ask me, that’s what makes it beautiful.
“…”
I know, I know. You’re not convinced.
“…I just want a fun car that won’t kill me.”
How pedestrian of you. But fine - I understand.
Of all the cars I have tested, I can say without hesitation that the Matteo Miglia Excelsior RC is the most fun to drive. It is one of the finest budget sports cars I’ve seen - and if that was the only thing that mattered, it would be the car I chose.
But in the end, economy does matter. However thrilling a car is, you still have to pay for gas, and the GSI Dingo, with its excellent fuel economy combined with excellent performance, is simply the better deal. If all you were doing with the car was autocross, the Excelsior would have it, but the Dingo is more comfortable, more practical, more reliable, and - most importantly - cheaper … and it is still a hell of a lot of fun. That would be my final recommendation.
3. $1562.24: Storm Automotive Savage TT - $12 000, $2211/yr, Four-Door FR Sedan, 3.0L SOHC MPFI V6. “It’s not the size of the car that matters … it’s the size of the engine.”
2. $2381.14: Matteo Miglia Excelsior RC - $12 000, $2409/yr, Two-Door FR Coupe, 2.4L SOHC SPFI V6. “So grippy, the doorframes are padded in case you turn too sharply.”
1. $2454.24: GSI Dingo - $12 000, $1529/yr, Two-Door FR Hatch, 2.0L DOHC MPFI I4. “How do you make excellence so boring?”
Congratulations again to Madrias, strop, and oppositelock for their excellent entries, and thank you all for participating!
1 Like
Once again, oppositelock and myself continue the close rivalry with opposite pipping me to the post in terms of value for money, but I do take considerable satisfaction in apparently stealing the reviewer’s heart. Thanks for the glowing report packbat.
The Storm’s 105 tyres make me giggle, that’s one way to get wheelspin on the cheap.
I’ll be posting the scoring spreadsheet in a bit (let me know if there’s more data I should add to it), but there’s a reason I had the reviewer swoon over your car so enthusiastically - in terms of Raw Desirability (that is, before the running cost and purchase price deductions), the Excelsior RC is the leader by a fair margin. Seriously, good job.
I’m really glad Madrias did it, too - realizing I had three choices that were so radically different in the top three was what got me un-writer’s-blocked.
…but yes, it’s absurd. 
I was struggling to get the car back under budget. Originally, I had reasonably wide tires under it, but I had to choose between keeping my vented single-piston front discs with drums out back, or drums-all-corners and only slightly wider tires.
That, and I refused to make the already little V6 any smaller. I mean, it’s not even a proper 4 liter V6. But I had fun building the car for the challenge, and I’m glad to take home third place. This was a fun challenge, and I got a good laugh during the reviews. Packbat, you managed to capture the spirit behind the Savage TT completely. Insanity on four wheels. Basically a tiny car with a big engine making way too much power on tiny little tires, designed simply to have fun. And yeah, I could easily have downsized the engine and fattened up the tires, but, realistically, I wanted to keep that 245 horsepower.
Actually, funny story, that was the fourth or fifth engine type I tried in that car. Originally, I had a really tiny V8 that revved like hell, but I couldn’t get the power out of it without making it expensive. Then I tried a big four-cylinder brute, but, well, that ended up way too expensive, so I went to a twin-turbo V6, couldn’t make it have high enough drivability, even though I had massive wheelspin (somewhere around 90% without blowing the tires), so I took the turbos off and went 3 liter and pretty much figured that was that. Cost savings, I stripped the DOHC in favor of SOHC in order to free up some budget.
As I said earlier, it was a fight to get it back under budget because I built the car, originally, to the best I could of all the criteria, then started making compromises for cost. Rear drum brakes, single piston calipers up front, basic interior, a step down on safety with an added +1 quality to keep that up. Corrosion resistant steel with polymer body, instead of what it originally had.
Effectively, I’d figured, rather than trying to meet the criteria from the bottom up, meet them from the top down. Ignore the budget, build the car, bring the car back under budget, and then run it.
Either way you look at it, I had a ton of fun in this challenge, both in building the car and reading the reviews. As I said, you captured the spirit behind the Savage TT 100%. Insanity with wheels.
oh gawd… you just solidified ‘bonkers’ into a car 
but… a 3l v6 only requiring $1.5k/yr??? how the hell did you do that? O_O
koolkei, I don’t know exactly how the calculations got to that number, but my strategy was to avoid stressing out components too much, avoid quality sliders, and use cheap stuff when possible.
It’s a basic V6, Cast Iron block, default 86x86mm for 2997cc. SOHC - 4 valve per cylinder. Cast Iron heads, no VVL. Cast crank, I-beam steel conrods, forged pistons. 9.5 compression, 75 cam, VVT enabled to boost power/economy slightly. Naturally aspirated, MP-EFI in twin intake mode, performance intakes, regular unleaded gasoline, 14.7:1 Air/Fuel ratio, 55 ignition timing, 7400 RPM redline. Long Tubular headers, twin configuration, 1.75 inch pipe, High Flow catalytic, no muffler, straight-through muffler.
As I said, simple V6. A little small for my tastes, but it did the job. No quality sliders were used in the whole car, other than to add 1 point to safety to make it sellable.
Believe me, this isn’t as crazy as my initial design, but my first car ended up being about 15k over budget. Had a 2 liter V8 that could hit 9k or 10k RPM, made plenty of power, but cost way too much. Had to scrap it, as mentioned above, and this is what inevitably came of that project. An engine with four seats, a roof, and some wheels attached to it.
Awesome review, thank you. I really didn’t expect to be competitive, I just built something I would want to drive, I guess being well rounded but not exceptional paid off in this case. I’m particularly glad you noticed the suspension tuning, I think I’m finally getting my technique down. Fun competition, thanks again.
@koolkei, Madrias: The Savage TT actually runs $2211/yr, not $1529/yr - I’d have to crack it open in-game to give you the exact details, but I remember gasoline is usually the biggest expense and the Savage TT got 20 mpg (11.7 lt/100 km), same as the Excelsior RC. Lean fuel mixture plays a large role in that.
@oppositelock: You’re welcome! I tried to look over the cars in detail for review purposes. 
I think this was very much a contest you win by well-roundedness. Looking at the five cars that scored above-average overall, only the Excelsior RC defined the extreme in any scored category, and only by a narrow margin - and neither of the dominant top-two scored less than $318 in any category.
And I’m glad y’all had fun - even allowing for the stress, this was fun for me as well, and quite educational. Hopefully I’ll be running another some time after the open beta period is through for the new build.
yeah. suspention tuning? whats that? never heard of it.
but really. i’m really crap at that…