JOC6B - A New Wave (COMPLETE)

South Carolina, USA, 1964

It’s been five years since we last checked in on Earl Bauers, who was searching for a truck to use on his family farm in JOC6A - An American Dream. Now 22, Earl is recently married to Wendy, whose longtime friendship evolved into something more, helped along by drive-in movie dates on his truck’s bench seat. Earl still works the family farm, and business has been good. He was even able to buy another 50 acres and invest in a new-fangled combine for harvesting that has even brought in income from helping neighbors with their harvests. Earl and Wendy bought a small house not too far from the family farm, and Earl still uses his pickup truck daily on the farm.

Things are also changing in town. A new supermarket and shopping center has opened on the outside of town, and Wendy likes to go there to shop for her and Earl. But with only the one truck between them, it’s a hassle finding times when Wendy can either take the truck or the two of them can find time to go together.

So while Earl and Wendy aren’t exactly flush with cash, they’ve set aside some money to buy a modest new car. They also recently found out that they are expecting their first child together, so they agree that they would like to have a second car for taking their future child around town.

But Earl and Wendy don’t quite see eye-to-eye on what they want in their next car…

“OK, Wendy, if we’re going to get a second car, let’s head down to the Flint dealership and see what they have. You know, my Flint pickup has been rock-solid.”

“Earl, it’s rock-solid but feels like sitting on a rock! I know you wanted something practical, but how did you find something so uncomfortable? No, we are not getting another Flint. I want something more comfortable.”

“You’re not wrong that having something more comfortable could be nice,” says Earl. “We could also go with something a lot sportier than a truck. I saw a new car recently that had nice, sleek styling, looked sporty, and even had a second row of seats. I also heard it didn’t exactly break the bank…I think it was called a Mustang?”

“But what about our baby on the way? I think we might want something more practical than a coupe for our child. And what if we have more kids? Maybe something like a sedan or wagon would be more practical. But I don’t want some massive land yacht. My uncle has one of those that I drove recently, and it was just too big and ungainly to drive.”

“You can still put a few kids in as long as it has a second row! I know some of the big American manufacturers have been selling some new ‘compact’ cars lately. And over in the city, I’ve heard there are even some dealerships for foreign cars that are supposed to be small and great on gas. I’ve heard these days you can get a German, British, French, Italian, or even Japanese car if you know where to look. A lot of them are little hatchbacks.”

“I’m OK with a hatchback as long as it has enough space inside. It would probably be roomier than a sports coupe! And if it’s great on gas and doesn’t spend a lot of time in the shop, that wouldn’t hurt either! But it had better not be a total tin can–small and inexpensive is good, but I don’t want something ‘cheap’.”

Rules
Trim and Variant Year: 1964
Fuel: 87 AKI/92 RON leaded
Techpool: Default +5
Wheelbase: 116 in/2.95 m max (there are two bodies that are 116.14 in wheelbase, the 53 US sedan and the 60s sedan, that will be permitted)
Seats: 4 minimum, 2+2 is acceptable
Body style: sedan, coupe, wagon, or hatchback
Price: $15,000 maximum, but lower-priced cars will receive a scoring advantage.
Tires: cross-ply only
Negative quality no more than -3
As an American market vehicle of this era, must have round headlights without any coverings and should also have wipers, fuel cap, etc.
No race parts.
Interiors are not required and will not be judged, but at least a basic interior is encouraged.

Deadline/Submissions
Submissions open until July 26, 11:59 p.m., GMT -11 (basically, I will plan on checking for submissions on the morning of July 27, so as long as you submit the night of the 26th, your submission will be on time)
Post an ad with at least one picture of your car and send me a direct message with your .car file attached. If you are a new forum user, you will need to engage in enough activity on the forum (e.g. reading posts) to unlock the messages function.
Car model and engine family names should be “JOC6B - yourusername”. Car trim and engine variant should be the actual name of your car and engine.

Priorities

High

  • Drivability. (Wendy will be driving most of the time and doesn’t want a land yacht. Earl is confident in his own driving but recognizes the importance of this issue to Wendy)

  • Cost to own. (Combination of purchase price, fuel economy, and service costs. Earl and Wendy are doing pretty well financially but aren’t flush with cash and don’t want to break the bank.)

Medium

  • Sportiness. (Earl wants something sporty, but Wendy is not sold on this as a priority. That said, he’s not looking for some extreme sports car.)

  • Comfort. (Earl and Wendy agree they want something more comfortable than their truck, but Wendy would really like a very cushy ride. Since Earl would rather kick up some gravel and carve corners, he doesn’t care as much and would rather not have something too softly sprung)

  • Reliability. (Wendy doesn’t want Earl to just get the most durable thing he can find like he’s done before, but it shouldn’t need too many expensive repairs)

Low

  • Prestige. (Just because they are looking for a small car doesn’t mean they want something “cheap,” and a number of smaller offerings in the 50s crashed and burned for being perceived as too “cheap.”)

  • Offroad. (There are a lot of dirt/gravel roads in their area, so while they don’t need a true offroader, it should be able to handle some rough roads)

  • Practicality. (Wendy would like this to be higher to accommodate a family, but Earl is happy as long as there’s a second row of some sort. And since this stat can be sort of broken in the game, it will not be over-emphasized).

  • Safety. (It’s the 60s, so safety features are pretty basic, but they want something that still feels safe on the road, especially if it’s a smaller car)

Realism/design coherence will serve as a discretionary factor. I frankly do not have deep knowledge about things like the exact tire sizes these different cars had, but if you do something outlandish, it will count against you, potentially significantly. Also try to build something with overall consistency with the brief, which I reserve the right to use as a discretionary scoring factor. For example, if you build an extremely drivable sports car with rock-bottom comfort, that car likely would not win regardless of how the numbers come out because comfort is a priority.

Clarification on realism [added 7/9]. Basically, make something that looks at least approximately like it could exist in the early 1960s, and don’t make any crazy engineering choices. For example, don’t try to shoehorn a V8 into a tiny hatchback or put something on 20-inch rims with low profile tires. The purpose of including realism/design coherence as a scoring factor is to provide a basis to (1) be able to severely penalize totally unrealistic designs and (2) reward entries that pay particular attention to detail and are particularly well designed. I am not going to be “gotcha” binning or penalizing anyone for having headlights that aren’t the exact right size for US regulations at the time or anything like that.

Inspirations
Chevy Corvair
Plymouth Valiant
Ford Falcon
Ford Fairlane
Chevy Chevelle
Ford Mustang
Plymouth Barracuda
Toyota Corona
Renault Dauphine
VW Beetle

Inspirations Gallery










12 Likes

I’ll make a few mules, but 10-15k should be plenty.

Beware the practicality stat, or anything else based on the near-worthless Cargo Volume metric as given in the game. (Yes, I know the Ghurruz from last round leveraged it. For cars, though, I’ve several examples of how broken it is)

1 Like

90 Leaded RON is not a thing, regular is 92 :stuck_out_tongue:

1 Like

I know you’re new to hosting JOC so I let this slide, but generally, to make it easier to follow the history I prefer if 6A, 6B, 6C etc. is held in one thread while a totally new round starts in a new thread. The one deciding to take up JOC6C could keep this in mind.

What about a minimum wheelbase? 2.4m would be the best option if you need to set a lower limit.

Also, I’m assuming the maximum wheelbase limit includes rounding, unless stated otherwise.

Tire choice? Considering that Radials in 60s US is quite uncommon still?

I would like to petition to increase the wheelbase limit to 116 inches. The fledgling “senior compact” or “intermediate” class of cars was just revving up in 1964 between the GM A-body and the Ford Fairlane platform - and cars built with that setup in mind often tried to combine sportiness with some practicality. They did not have a landboat reputation at the time, though they are large by today’s standards. If somebody manages to get good drivability with those, I don’t think they ought to be barred.

I second moroza’s evaluation of the practicality stat. For one, it makes traditional coupes basically a total stat dump while making hatchbacks (uncommon in the US at the time) the obvious choice as they tend to be more “practical” than wagons.

5 Likes

Barring articulable reason for excluding wheelbases over or under a certain size - such as giving an unfair advantage in some way - I’d petition for no wheelbase restictions at all.

3 Likes

I second lightening up the wheelbase restriction, if not removing it outright. It opens the door to far more options and ways to do things. Especially with comfort so high in the priorities, which means bigger could (but won’t always) be better. More variety means more fun, right?

2 Likes

Normally, I honestly don’t get the point for wheelbase restrictions at all- unless you’re emulating restrictions within a market, why bother? Like, if a car gets so small that it loses on practicality and comfort, that’s just gonna make it fail anyway.

In this case though, I do think an upper limit makes sense as a guideline- they want a small car, and it fits they’d have a definition for what that means. But I’d support Texsaslav in raising it a bit, or maybe making it just a soft recommendation instead.

2 Likes

A standard car in 1964 in today’s money was anywhere from $25,000 - $35,000 I think price should be high, maybe $20,000 to reflect the probably low income of Earl

I agree with this. I think a more specific price range should be 15-20k, but this would be pretty solid.

Thanks all for the input!

Given the push to expand the wheelbase limit, I have revised to 116 inches to allow for intermediates/senior compacts, per @Texaslav’s suggestion. I do not intend to implement a minimum or eliminate the maximum altogether for the reasons stated by @Edsel. I don’t think it’s unrealistic to say that certain customers just aren’t interested in a car of a certain size. Also, the idea of this challenge is to give some room to explore the ways the American auto market was evolving away from just land yachts in the early/mid-1960s. An intermediate fits with that; a full-size does not.

@Riley, thanks for pointing out the RON issue. It’s corrected. You know you’re American when all of your units you’re used to are weird!

I am open to other suggestions about the practicality stat. Have folks used some sort of modifier or alternate metric before, or is the consensus that the stat should just be dropped?

I am also considering adding safety as a low priority stat because it’s the 60s, so safety isn’t much of a thing, but they don’t want a tin can.

Thanks for the price suggestions–I am tentatively considering 20k as a limit, keeping in mind there will also be an advantage to not using the whole budget.

@xsneakyxsimx, good point on tires. It looks like we’re still a couple years away in 1964 from radials being available from the factory on American cars, so I have made cross-ply required.

@Knugcab, sorry for the error, and thanks for your patience with the newbie.

Thanks all for your input, and keep the suggestions coming!

5 Likes

Hey who wants to collab and do design :slight_smile:

As for the practicality stat, currently the game SEVERELY handicaps wide cars… probably because they don’t work well in European cities with narrow streets. That’s not really an issue in America. Maybe look more at load capacity, cargo volume, and seats?

I really don’t know how those numbers would work, but that might be a better way to find the more useful cars.

2 Likes

Cargo volume is very broken for cars, but load capacity seems to work, albeit not a primary concern here; they’ve still got a truck, and nobody buys pony cars to haul gravel, so as long as it’s enough for 3-4 or however many asses and a suitcase each, that should suffice.

What if “practicality” was based on doors, seats, passenger volume, and a subjective “eyeball test” metric? I know I have seen cases before where different body styles of the same car will have wildly lower or higher cargo volumes for unclear reasons, but have people encountered similar issues with passenger volume?

I See a bit the Problem that everyone will do a wagon to score high in practicality, while even Corvair and base Mustang are among the inspirations

You could get a Corvair wagon… lol

Seriously though, I think that would end up being a judgement on which person you want to impress more. Wendy wants something as practical as a wagon, Earl wants something sporty like a Mustang. It’s up to you to decide where your entry fits in there.

OK, I just edited to make the big trade-off be between comfort (Wendy) and sport (Earl) as medium priorities, with practicality kept in the picture but reduced to a low priority to avoid it having too much influence and serving more as a tiebreaker than an overriding design priority. I also added safety as a low priority. This preserves the challenge of balancing/trading off priorities in design decisions and gives less of a benefit/penalty to particular bodies.

3 Likes