The Downfall of Iron, Part 2
Background
From the 1970s, DCMW was increasingly involved in transcontinental rally events, whose border-transcending nature made them amount to international missions of friendship and goodwill, eventually helping end the cold war. This diplomatic aspect was prominently in mind when Dalluha accepted an unprecedented invitation to the 1989 GT-Endurance event at the Lerance Raceway. With the cold war’s end already in sight, it was a prime opportunity to put DCMW’s name on the map, ahead of the resumption of direct exports.
Of course, a gesture of goodwill and diplomacy in no way implied pulling punches in the race itself. DCMWs motorsport strategy typically relied on a superlative engine moving an adequate chassis, but this time it’d have to be the other way around; the power cap prevented a brute force approach such as the one used in 1960 at La Marche, where the prototype DCMW Barrijat, initially named Raqqada, was the most powerful of any class and dubbed a “battleship” by the event organizers.
The car selected for Lerance, the DCMW Nashwar (better-known in the west as the Norðwagen Loki), wasn’t the heaviest hitter on its team, nor the lightest, but for a medium-pace course it was the racer of choice. With a qualifying lap time of under 5:42, ample reliability, and efficient fuel consumption, DCMW’s expectations were high. With bodywork by the prestigious TIO Design House (@DrDoomD1scord ), it was also an effective publicity tool for the newcomer brand.
Among the factors behind the Nashwar’s formidable performance was the extensive use of aluminum alloys. Though neither was known at the time of its development, this shift in materials, primarily away from steel, would dovetail synergistically with Letaran industrial development efforts, as well as mitigate the large-scale steel shortage in Dalluha in the early 90s.
Dalluhan culture frowns upon blatant corporate advertising like that of typical racecar sponsorship. In any case, none was needed; in addition to DCMW funding the venture from both its R&D and marketing budgets, further funding was offered by the Dalluhan Foreign Ministry, the Onyx Palace’s cultural events fund, and last but not least, the personal reserves of none other than His Excellency, the Sultan of Dalluha himself. Well known as an automotive enthusiast, the Sultan also happened to be a fan of a genre of music in its heyday - Metal. As a condition of his sponsorship, the car was painted in a variation on Dalluhan official racing livery with logos of several metal bands - a battle jacket descended from a battleship.
