Bruno Schultz, son of Magda and Stefan Schultz, has decided to move from his homeland of Germany to the booming capitol of Japan, in search of an education and a job. Soon after graduating from a prestigious university with a degree in Industrial Design, he has been hired into a multinational electronics company.
Now with an education, a high paying job, and a booming economy, only one question remains: What car does this man want?
Yes, the rules are relatively barebones. Yes, that does mean that you could enter basically anything. To do well, I highly recommend looking at the Priorities to answer your question.
“How many seats does he want?” How many seats do you think he wants?
Priorities
Looks, stylistic cohesion
Performance - 0-60, top speed, cornering ability, throttle response, etc.
Prestige - both as a stat and Überholprestige (Road Presence; “How imposing does this look in a rearview mirror?”)
Sum of Comfort and Sportiness (Spumfort) , as well as Product of Comfort and Sportiness (Promfort)
Everyday utility - Drivability, Practicality, bumper overhangs, visibility out of the car, etc.
Cargo volume - both as a stat and as fixtured, if applicable
Value
Reliability
Safety
Environmental resistance
Service costs
Fuel Economy
Historical stylistic realism, mechanical realism
Wildcard - I like a bit of weirdness in my challenges, so if you can make something weird, and make it work, I’ll give it a bit of a boost
Resubmissions are allowed and will fully supersede your previous entry(s) - though please use your previous submission DM thread to avoid unnecessary confusion.
I’m pleased to see Überholprestige catching on as an idea, though AFAIK this isn’t a thing in Japanese car culture.
Japan has tax rules regarding vehicle width and displacement. Perhaps they should be implemented?
I may be in the minority, but not alone on liking the adjusted-loudness rule from JOC3C. How about it?
Sum of sport and comfort (“spumfort”) seems a good measure of the overall quality of a vehicle’s tuning, suspension in particular - how well it does something. The product of the two (“promfort”) is a good measure of how versatile and balanced it is. The multiplication effect makes for an inherent discouragement to minmax, saving judges’ time and effort from subjectively weeding it out. To wit: my first draft of QFC23 had something like 110 Comfort and 4 Sportiness. By sum, it’d’ve beaten just about anything, but by product, 25 Comfort and 25 Sportiness would beat it.
Back in 1982, contemporary Japanese cars had to have mirrors mounted far forward on the front fenders, but Western imports did not, as far as I am aware.
Only one JOC3C entry unambiguously took advantage of the loudness rule - the Walf would’ve been illegal without it - and I venture it’s of more use with higher budgets that allow for lots of quality points. The additional complexity for judging/reviewing was minimal.
Also, FWIW, I found the cargo volume stat to be near-worthless, and that metric was quietly dropped. For bodies with an obvious trunk, I just ignored cargo altogether. For mid-engines, I did ask to see the cargo solution and got two very different answers (by far the better one being yours).
I also learned that the exporter screws up light assignments, so checking correct brake/tail/turn lights was also dropped.
I propose adding taxes to service costs. I’d have to read the details to confirm, but the gist is tha anything over 2 liters is moderately expensive, anything over 5 is very expensive, and width over 170cm is more expensive as well. In some cars, flaring the fenders may be a big decision.
Two bits worth knowing about Japanese car culture:
Togue or Toge - Japanese term for a mountain pass. “Toge run” - fast technical driving on narrow twisty roads.
Wangan expressway aka Bayshore Route - a highway in Tokyo that at least in the 90s was the epicenter of a street racing scene. “Wangan run” - high-speed mostly straight-line asshaul.
As the one that wrote the original JOC ruleset, I have now after little over a year found out the bugs, and I clearly see what needs to be updated to avoid any future confusion. I will look into it as soon as I come home.
Where do the quality regulations come from? Diminishing returns do all of that for you without restricting freedom. With default techpool, they start at +5. As for negative, you can occasionally use -wheel for major cheese, but mostly it does a good job at reflecting cost savings and the negative effects they have on the car. -5 chassis is one way to show the difference between a top trim integra and a true luxury GT, for example.
Perhaps recommend at least a simple interior, so that it can be mentioned in judging.
You may also want to put a simple wheelbase tax. Nothing complicated, but something like “under 90 inches = this amount, 91-101 = this amount, 102-109 = this amount, 110+ = this amount” would do a lot to encourage a dynamic between value, uberholprestige (road presence as far as im concerned), and promfort.
-3 through +8 is still a fairly decent range, and my thought process was that mentioning it in the rules might actually encourage people to use quality. at any rate, i think at this point it just limits cheese a bit without really restricting freedom. or at least i hope you werent planning some 15 quality monster lmao
nah. any interior requirement will end up just upping the barrier to entry unnecessarily, and god knows you dont have to have an interior to have a great looking car, so why require one?
im more on board with this, but my squishy feely part of my brain kinda just doesnt like it for some reason. i dont think its super necessary, and im not sure if it would do anything for the competition. feel free to persuade me on this though
I did some updates to the JOC rules, I would also like if you linked to the rules in the first post, and I would like to see that being repeated every time JOC starts over again, to iron out some question marks. Thanks!
So heres what I found with tax or additional costs for cetain things, most people cheese to just go under that or choose engineering to fit that as opposed to fit the style of the car
We’re here to give you some range of freedom instead of expecting everyone to try to cheese under a certain number to get an exemption.
Plus, we’re probably not as keen on you being under as we are being keen to make the best car for s client.
Even though the previous JOC was mostly expecting sedans or something for retirement, a some people threw super cars in as well.
