16th isn’t bad for me, I’ll take it
I’m not winning this, am I
REVIEWS, FINAL
10th Place @Happyhungryhippo
Burgwart Kosmos
Pros:
- Very low price
- Very comfortable
Cons:
- Slow
- Not remotely sporty
Verdict: Penthouse comfort on a motel budget.. if the driving experience doesn’t put you to sleep.
Vehicle Type: Transverse FWD 5 door liftback
Suspension: F MacPherson Strut R Torsion Beam
Price as Tested: $22,756.46
Drivetrain: 2.4 liter I4 SOHC 16v, 149 hp @ 5900 rpm. 4A
The Burgwart Kosmos is a surprising car. The 2nd highest comfort in test from the 2nd cheapest car of all. This is even more surprising given the Kosmos’ relatively rudimentary suspension layout compared to the competition. This is quite an impressive feat, but it wasn’t accomplished without sacrifice. Big sacrifice, with the 2nd lowest sportiness in test and a mere 149 hp making the car the least performant by a wide margin and outside of the desired range. Styling is handsome, simple but successful in its simplicity, and works with rather than against the shape of the body, putting in on the stronger end of appearance scores.
9th Place @Capri78
Whitfall Almont TLI
Pros:
- Low price point
- Good safety scores
Cons:
- Lacks comfort
- Lacks Luxury
- No standout features
Verdict: A bargain priced jack of some trades, but definitely master of none too.
Vehicle Type: Longitudinal RWD 4 door sedan
Suspension: F Double Wishbone R Double Wishbone
Price as Tested: $24,715.25
Drivetrain: 2.8 liter V6 SOHC 18v Turbo, 228 hp @ 5700 rpm, 5M
The Whitfall Almont TLI’s claim to fame is its price, at $24,715.25 it is among the cheapest entrants, and with entrants mostly choosing to head for the upper end of the budget range, achieving this price without massive sacrifices elevates this car to a top 10 finish. Past the price though, the competition chips away at its value proposition. Comfort is a big weak point for this car, by no means the worst in test but well short of the most competitive cars. This is not helped by the standard/standard interior, which also hurts the prestige score. Styling shows some promise but could use more time and refinement. The front fascia from the bumper up is quite unique and I think actually quite attractive, below it however is a labyrinth of many small grilles. The rest of the car is complete, but a bit dull, but overall it doesn’t score too poorly in styling.
8th Place @vero94773
Akari Solus Premium 3.0
Pros:
- Handsome good looks
- Top notch reliability
- Comfortable ride
- Easy driving dynamics
Cons:
- Pricey
- Not a sporty experience
- Surprisingly thirsty
Verdict: A quality product for the discerning but sedate driver.
Vehicle Type: Transverse FWD 4 door sedan
Suspension: F Double Wishbone R Double Wishbone
Price as Tested: $29,900.40
Drivetrain: 3.0 liter V6 SOHC 12v, 191 hp @ 5900 rpm, 4A
The Akari Solus makes a strong first impression, but perhaps an impression the car itself cannot fill out. Literally first: it is a much smaller car than it appears. At over 8 inches shorter and almost 3 inches narrower than its most direct styling inspiration, and very barely squeezing itself into the right size range, the car is much smaller than it looks, sized just beneath an Altima rather than the loftier, larger Maxima. It is quite an interesting styling exercise in making a car look bigger than it is without looking cartoonish: the swooping roofline gives the car an overall height a few inches shorter than its real competitors would have, while the lighting, and even more so the badging, are small, giving the car an exaggerated visual size by creating shunken frames of reference. Noteworthy as it may be, it was not actually much of a pain point in the car’s overall scoring, as most entrants placed themselves on the small end of the size range, and the car’s aesthetic score was still at the very sharp end of the pack. What hurt this car’s placement more significantly were the price and sportiness. Perhaps to be expected with a reasonable power figure hooked up to a 4 speed automatic, many contestants pushed the sport angle far harder than this car. With a good comfort score, a lack of sportiness or a high price could be forgiven, but not both. More minor detractors were the car’s fuel economy and prestige. The relatively economical engine cannot overcome the 4 speed automatic’s weakness, especially in comparison to so many cars with manual boxes, and the car’s small footprint combined with just a standard/premium interior result in a less prestigious package than many. It is quite impressive the car is as comfortable as it is with just a standard interior. Positives for the car as well in the 2 star priorities: this car is a runaway winner in 2 star scoring, with the 5th lowest service costs and runaway leads in reliability and driveability. All in all, a good car, showing some strong strengths, but not overcoming weaknesses in more important areas.
7th Place @mart1n2005
Knightwick Arden
Pros:
- Solid value
- Good safety scores
- Commodious
Cons:
- Poor cornering and braking performance
- Lacks excitement
Verdict: A fine car with an attractive price, few weaknesses, and sufficient punch. Just don’t ask it to dance.
Vehicle Type: Longitudinal FWD 5 door liftback
Suspension: F Double Wishbone R Double Wishbone
Price as Tested: $24,643.19
Drivetrain: 3.0 liter V6 SOHC 24v, 203 hp @ 6500 rpm
The Knightwick Arden leaves us with mixed feelings. Let’s start with the looks: an incredibly handsome front fascia would put this near or at the top of the heap if the cars could be viewed from the front alone. The rear fascia too, is strong, a handsome thing. However, like quite a few low-placing cars, this design is fighting its body choice. The beltline past the front wheel arches stays level with the front bumper and perfectly horizontal, but when combined with the car’s rising shoulderline and tall decklid, it has the visual effect of almost appearing to sink towards the ground as it approaches the rear wheelarches. The belt line then suddenly rises to match the top of the bumper in the rear. I don’t mind a belt line that dives in the center, and I know what it is like to fight a body in this game, but hugging straight from nose to rear wheel then suddenly jumping up is jarring and hurts the aesthetics of the car, both in beauty and believability. On more objective metrics, the car has a nice low price and presents another jack of all trades to the group, outside of sportiness. The car’s grip limits are quite low, hurting performance metrics too, although the acceleration figures are fairly good.
6th Place @vernode
Jacinto Jabalina GS 3.4
Pros:
- A real driver’s car
- Spacious
- Sporty looks
- Good safety scores
Cons:
- Stiff ride
- Just falls short of higher placed cars
Verdict: A truly fun family car in need of just a bit more fine tuning.
Vehicle Type: Longitudinal RWD 4 door sedan
Suspension F Double Wishbone R Double Wishbone
Price as Tested: $27,051.98
Drivetrain: 3.3 liter I6 DOHC 24v, 222 hp @ 6600 rpm, 6M
The Jacinto Jabalina is a really solid entry with few faults. At this point, the cars are only starting to fall by the wayside due to the real successes of the top vehicles. Sportiness is very strong, 2nd best of all, and the price is about dead on the mean. This car scores above average in every 3 star category to boot, and even doesn’t sacrifice too much in the 2 star categories either. The only pain point for this car is in the comfort; despite a Premium/Luxury setup, comfort holds this car back from an even higher finish. Styling is mostly good; it looks convincingly or a sporting variant of a more pedestrian large family car, although some of the detailing like the grid-line tails and the masked grille feel dated for ‘94.
5th Place @ErenWithPizza
Trask Kovora
Pros:
- Fun to drive
- Unbelievable fuel economy
- Affordable price
- Good safety scores
Cons:
- Stiff ride
- Less prestigious than many
- Less than stellar reliability
- Anachronistic styling
Verdict: A surprising overachiever that looks like it is from the future.
Vehicle Type: Transverse FWD 4 door sedan
Suspension: F McPherson Strut R Double Wishbone
Price as Tested: $25,240.93
Drivetrain: 2.0 liter I4 DOHC 16v, 181 hp @ 7600 rpm. 6M
This car is an impressive piece of engineering. To pull the 3rd best sportiness out of a FWD car with McPherson’s up front is no small feat. This is accomplished with neutral handling balance and a fizzy 8000 rpm VVL I4 with excellent throttle response, a torsen LSD, lightweight forged wheels, and stiff suspension with aggressive alignment specs. That VVL I4 yields a small hp figure compared to many here, but still provides enough oomph to lose nothing in the performance metrics, thanks again to very high cornering limits and great braking performance. There’s a lot to like about this car, however, an unfortunate truth about Automation is that front McPherson’s are still a handicap: to tune this car for such high sportiness requires sacrifices in comfort that block this car from a high position. More on this in the post script. Other aspects that hurt this car were low prestige; to be expected with just a 2 liter 4cyl, and lower reliability, again perhaps to be expected for an 8000 rpm engine. The styling is an odd duck. Mostly a good looking car, lacking badging but not unforgivable.. But something about it is off. All the details of this car, they look at least 5 years too new for a ‘94 model, especially the front bumper treatment. Overall, this is the sort of car I had hoped could do well, and it has, but not quite best.
4th Place @Texaslav
Arlington Archprince
Pros:
- Athletic and sporty
- Charming styling
- All the space you could ever want
- Prestigious
Cons:
- has a mighty thirst
- Poor safety scores
Verdict: A complete package that is just slightly less complete than the very best.
Vehicle Type: Longitudinal RWD 4 door sedan
Suspension: F Double Wishbone R Coil sprung Solid Axle
Price as Tested: $26,988.58
Drivetrain: 5.0 liter V8 SOHC 16v, 267 hp @ 5100 rpm, 5A
This car, even more than the Trask before it, is an impressive feat. Defying its even more disadvantageous solid rear axle, it scores well in both sportiness and comfort, and it doesn’t even suffer in the drivability category either. The car’s vices are predictable: the large and heavy car, with an automatic, a lot of displacement, and a lot of power, does a worst in test 15.6 mpg, and body on frame construction hurts safety. Styling isn’t beautiful, but it is charming, convincingly playing the part of a sedate American full size car given a sporty dress up kit. At the end of the day, this car is a really strong contender that beat almost all the competition in most metrics, but falls just short of a podium
3rd Place @the-chowi
Longbridge L60 3.0
Pros:
- Good looks
- High comfort
- No major weaknesses
Cons:
- not as sporting as other high finishers
- a bit small
- simply outdone by the similar Kaufman
Verdict: A mighty fine choice, just bested by a very similar car that is finer.
Vehicle Type: Longitudinal RWD 4 door sedan
Suspension: F Double Wishbone R Double Wishbone
Price as Tested: $26,430.07
Drivetrain: 3.0 liter I6 SOHC 18v, 190 hp @ 5800 rpm. 5A
The very handsome Longbridge brings a lot to the table, and is one of two cars on the podium that actually makes a compelling jack of all trades approach. This car doesn’t fall behind the competition in many statistics, scoring only slightly poorly in safety and performance. So, why doesn’t it land higher? Sportiness, while good, is a significant amount lower than the 6th through 4th place entries and the eventual winner, and it shadows the 2nd place car in almost every metric, while the 2nd place car scores much higher in comfort and brings more performance to the table, so the Longbridge goes no further. Styling is quite good; while the overall aesthetic is somewhat dull, it is very believable, complete and handsome, and overall ties for top marks here. My only minor gripes are the unflattering wheel choice, excessively rich candy apple paint, and a rear-heavy cabin.
2nd Place @Xepy
Kaufman Ataraxia 2.9S
Pros:
- Extremely comfortable
- Easy driving dynamics
- Unique, handsome looks
Cons:
- Thirsty
- Not as sporty as other high finishers
- On the small side
Verdict: Perhaps the most correct answer to the prompt. A great car.
Vehicle Type: Longitudinal RWD 4 door sedan
Suspension: F Double Wishbone R Multilink
Price as Tested: $27,331.88
Drivetrain: 2.9 liter V6 SOHC 12v Supercharged, 233 hp @ 5500 rpm, 5A
The Kaufmann is a really excellent car, bringing a similar approach to the Longbridge, but doing so with much more comfort and power and slightly more refined tuning. Such an impressive jack of all trades is this car, that it scores positively in every metric bar one: fuel economy. Between the 17.5 mpg, the just slightly above average sportiness, and the relatively compact dimensions impacting prestige, safety, and spaciousness, this car ends up falling behind the winner. Styling here is well executed, especially with some very nicely created rear taillamps, but leaves me wishing for just a bit more, feeling just a bit dated and unexciting compared to the very best, but it is still overall among the strongest here in the appearance score.
1st Place @moroza
Norðwagen Oðin S 6x4
Pros:
- Unmatched driving dynamics
- Massively prestigious
- High safety scores
- Spacious
Cons:
- High price
- Weak reliability
Verdict: A car above the market segment the prompt set out to ask for.
Vehicle Type: Longitudinal AWD 5 door liftback
Suspension: F Double Wishbone R Multilink
Price as Tested: $30,074.73
Drivetrain: 3.0 liter I6 DOHC 24v Supercharged, 254 hp @ 6000 rpm, 6M
The most precisely optimized entry here, resulting in a car that is only a little over budget in price but brings a suite of technology that would elevate it well beyond the desired market. No matter here; I made no provisions for rewarding cars that make sense in this experimental ruleset. Fully active sport suspension with AWD are squeezed into the budget thanks to a smattering of negative quality applications in the chassis, driver aids, and a whopping -5 quality on the supercharger. Reliability suffers between this and the tech, but a poor showing in a 2 star category can’t drag this car down far, especially with the fairly large car getting big advantages in safety, prestige, and size compared to the strong smaller competitors. Comfort is only a little bit worse than the Longbridge and Arlington, but still good enough to keep this top priority metric in the black. Styling is a mixed bag. It is very complete and has handsome front and rear fascias, but there is some weirdness in the proportions. A very short front overhang is unbalanced with the very long rear overhang. The cabin stretches awkwardly far past the rear axle, and combined with the unbalanced overhangs and a long dash-to-axle, the car feels as though it’s greenhouse has been smeared rearwards of its correct place. I also still can’t get on board with the split windshield or the triple exhaust. Despite these nitpicks it still scores strongly in sharper end of the styling metrics.
Congradutulations to Norðwagen! Keith and Anissa are excited for the new Oðin, a car that can satisfy their family car needs with more flair, fun, and panache than the Tanager. While the minivan was a purchase of mostly practical need, this big sports sedan is an absolute upgrade over Anissa’s old car, serving double duty as a family car and as a bit of recaptured youth, re-injecting excitement previously lost with the sale of the sports car years ago.
Post Script: Thanks to all the entrants for your submissions. I don’t choose to host often, as I don’t find it an especially fun use of my time, but I do like to try to experiment with rulesets when I do so, as I did with QFC49, where I took a sledgehammer approach at encouraging realistic entries without inflicting a realism clause. This time, I took a far more laissez faire approach this time; choices were less restricted and no choices were given flat price penalties, instead opting for a price modifier based on ET and PU. I had hoped this may help quell the balance issues that price penalties had previously tackled, especially given some chatter that the suspension types are less differentiated in Al Rilma than in the past, but alas, the price modifier system was ineffective in its goal: the more advanced suspension options on the chassis tab still fully came to the fore and proved outright superior to more inexpensive setups, and AWD too reached the top of the heap. I also added a last minute TP budget increase to the rules compared to my mules, worried some people may struggle otherwise, but this proved unnecessary, further diminished the effect I was aiming for, and pushed entrants upmarket of the intended targets. Regardless, in summary, I feel that the flat penalty approach I took with QFC49, and as we see in the current CSR, will continue to be a clunky but necessary approach to balance in challenges.
This aside though, I still feel the winning car is plenty deserving; though active suspension feels quite inappropriate for the class, the rest of the car is on brief. Meanwhile, other cars that were in arms reach of the win, the Kaufman and Longbridge, were relatively small cars, to their disadvantage in 3 star priorities where safety, prestige, and size created a triple dip on encouraging a large family sedan for an American family living in a place where having something compact is of little concern. The Arlington got the message here, it’s even bigger and by some margin, but its 3 star scoring is held back by the the fuel economy and its, imo, unfairly punished safety score; a very small total range of safety scores resulted in a slightly outsized impact, and BOF cars get a arguably overly hefty penalty in this category in game. Based on the 4 star priorities alone, the Norðwagen’s high price would have seen it behind the Kaufman, Longbridge, and Arlington, but its suite of strong scores in 3 star priorities put it back out ahead.
On a more whimsical note, I most certainly did not expect the top two cars to be the only supercharged ones, nor for them both to be purple.
13 Likes
QFC66 was an unexpected loss; this was an unexpected win.
Now that it’s pointed out immediately above a side profile view, the criticism of the proportions seems justified. While the comments about other cars give a sense that you inherently prefer a cab-forward look over more classical proportions, I agree I took those a bit far. Part of the cause was that this build began as a sedan, not a liftback, with less visual mass in the upper rear. That initial draft also made a point of 50/50 weight distribution, abandoned when I switched to the liftback. Glad you liked the fascias, the front in particular; I’ve come a long way from this:
It was my first build in Al Rilma since at least one major update, and I gave up trying to make it substantially more reliable, just sent what I could manage and hoped for the best.
Cramming higher-segment cars into lesser budgets is Nordwagen’s MO, and probably always will be. It’s at best a hit-n-miss strategy that not every buyer jives with, but those that do, get what they pay for.
I fundamentally appreciate the inclination to experiment, though I feel that QFC49 was a better method overall. The calculus here boiled down to making materials cheaper, in a computationally inefficient way. It was a minor annoyance to have to run additional calculations, given that not doing so risked a bin. I wonder if people feel similarly about my usual Comfort overrides, even if they include no such risk?
While I would like to host the next one, I must honor my promise to finish ATC first, and anyway I still have CW9, at least until people start clamoring for it before it’s ready. So @Xepy, JOC7C or 8A or whatever previous Journey you’re inspired to pick up and write the next chapter for is yours to host or to pass further down.
6 Likes
Oop another second place! Congratulations to @moroza !
The design I used did date back a bit, refreshed slightly for this challenge, don’t think I even used it in a challenge before so I’m glad it did well. Also very surprised to see that only two of us used Superchargers for this, I thought it was the perfect time to test them out.
I would like to host the next iteration (would have been 7C), but I’ve been sick for like a week and really behind on other personal things. So I’ll pass to @the-chowi
2 Likes
Since I’m already running another challenge, I’ll also be passing this one down
@Texaslav it’s all yours
1 Like
I’ll take it. Give me some days.
1 Like
That means how many days?
Best regards
The f…ing norseman
4 Likes
This totally slipped my mind; long overdue @ErenWithPizza if you’d like to host it’s yours
I need to look into how JOC actually works before I say anything. So far I’ve just built a car to a ruleset whenever I’ve entered JOC, I’m not up to speed on how the storyline and stuff work
I have nothing that I would like to do with this challenge, so I’m passing it down @vernode
no time to host, I’ll pass down to @mart1n2005
I haven’t even looked at the game since the middle of December but I’m sure I can rustle up something to stop this game of pass the parcel. Give me a bit to throw something together.
2 Likes