Me recreating every (?) European COTY - Part 11: 1974 Mercedes S-class

[Knugcab]

I said earlier that there are no advanced body molding on the R16 and now I really take it back. This whole portion, would more or less have to be built up from scratch, starting at the beltline and ending up as two ridges on the roof. I would have liked to be able to pull it off, but with my current skills I see it as something being too much of a struggle, that probably would give unfavourable results so no…I’ll cheat and leave this out unfortunately.

That leaves the door handle recesses as the only side molding left, more or less, and since they have a slightly hexagonal shape I used a resized version of this grille fixture for it, with all parts set to body colour.

For the actual handle, a resized bumper bar.

Renault pushbuttons are available as a mod…I think they are supposed to be from a 5 but that might as well be the same part as on the 16.

The rear fender badge is created with chrome embossed text and bumper bars thinned out enough for the text to be visible.

Now, here comes maybe the first useful tip here for making realistic Automation designs - the use of chrome trim.

It is easy to believe that they only exist to make the car look more fancy. The truth is that they are often there to make the car cheaper (!) to build.

When you think about it a car body is welded together by pieces of sheetmetal, but take a look at the car, and the body most often appears to be one single chunk of metal - you don’t see many exposed welds, do you? Well, the answer is often in creative use of trim pieces. Without being an expert on the R16, I am pretty sure that the piece of chrome trim going over the roof is there to hide the joint between the roof panels and the sides of the body.

Not unusual on older cars was to fill such joints with lead, but that was a time consuming and expensive process, that also is questionable from a health and environmental point of view. So it more or less have disappeared nowadays.

So, when placing chrome (or for that matter plastic on more modern cars) trim on your vehicle, look at it and think where it would be logical for the body to be welded together. Is the weld going to be visible and is it going to be in a spot where it is disturbing to the eyes? Placing trim there is one of the keys to a more realistic appearance.

For this decorative panel, once again a grille fixture, but with materials changed, was used.

[Knugcab]

The problem with googling multiple reference pictures of a car that is largely unknown to you. It seems like the early cars had a totally different trim panel in the back, so it was flipped over and “painted” aluminium instead of glossy plastic…

There is no good fixture for R16 taillights so I started with building up lenses with this fixture, not totally seamless but will work until you look them up really close.

Bumper bars used for framing.

I guess that while I am scratch building taillights anyway, I could as well add the three screws holding them…details that will add depth I guess.

Made the reflectors from cutout patches in chrome (lenses temporarily changed to clear to show it better).

With bulbs, and bumper bars added as “dividers”.

Looks somewhat convincing, and even lights up properly.

There is a rather huge plate recess in the rear, but since every plate recess in game was too sharp in the corners, a grille fixture with the mesh replaced with body colour was the way to go.

Some detailing later and I feel finished with my work for today.

[conan]

Hey, would you consider sharing the finished .car as well? It’d be fun to play around with them.

[Knugcab]

Eventually I will, yes. Just haven’t bothered yet, but it will happen. I mean, some of them could also, for example, be useful if someone wants to host ARM but not build a base car I guess…

1964 Rover 2000 P6

In the meantime, have the Rover for Beam… (Yes, it has the white chrome bug, managed to sort it out for the Austin but that one is still waiting for approval).

[Knugcab]

The 16 has a similar recess on the roof as it has on the hood, but more shallow, so I duplicated that method.

Moved this decor panel a bit to match up better with the taillights like on the IRL car.

There was a little struggle with finding a bumper with the right, “square”-ish profile, this isn’t really right either but I see it as close enough.

Added some horns too, the usual vanilla fixture, nothing strange there.

For turn signals, once again this one.

And a new mesh in the grille, of course a 3D radiator will be going behind this too, to not have a gaping hole.

[Knugcab]

The rest of the front detailing is rather straightforward I guess (if not, just ask).

The tiny air scoop (probably for the heater) is a detail that is easy to forget, and I used a popup headlight fixture for this.

A somewhat similar (but more egg shaped) mirror is what I have seen on most early 16 reference pictures, both door and fender mounted. I must like fender mirrors, right? Wrong, I don’t. But I kind of want to do them before that era is totally over.

Adding seams like this is boring work, but gives the car some depth and makes it look less toy car like.

Well, seems like the actual bodyshell used wasn’t that wrong after all.

When I hear “R16” I picture a white one in my head, and it also seems to have been the most common colour on the early models, but as I said, it doesn’t photograph all that well in Automation. Red seems to have been somewhat common too, so red it is.

You can clearly recognize this as a 16, I hope?

Now, interior time!

[mart1n2005]

This thread is brilliant. Shows how relatively “simple” looking older cars are actually pretty intricate designs.

[Knugcab]

Thanks.

Well, I could not stand the slab sided look so I did a compromise and fooled the eye with this molding fixture. Not quite like the original, but looks more like a R16 and less like a bathtub now. Well. The R16 looks like a bathtub ,but still…

[Techerov]

I need to do something like this but only with Motortrend’s COTY, starting in 1949. I think it would heavily impact (in a good way) my lackluster designs. This is a great thread.

[abg7]

And with Motor Trend being an American publication instead of a European one, it would surely showcase the gulf in design trends over time between the two markets.

[Techerov]

And me being American, having an odd taste in lackluster American iron, the COTY’s have a lot of that stuff, like in 1983, the Renault Alliance winning.

[Knugcab]

I would gladly follow such a thread.

Unfortunately, I got a power cutout when I tried to update this thread last night, trying to redo it now…

Finding interior reference pics as correct as possible is a bit hard with the R16, it seems like small details in the interior often changed, and sure, the car was made for many years, so… This exact dashboard seems to be an one year only detail, for the first model year, and since I try to replicate the cars that actually won the award, the early ones, that’s what I aim for.

I don’t know if this fixture is supposed to be a R16 dashboard (since this parts pack contains some french stuff) but it’s at least quite similar. The upholstery was simulated with the “Enthusiast leather” texture. Not really the same but at least somewhat similar.

Gauge cluster is a combination of this housing…

…and this, much more ancient instrument cluster, but with the surrounding set to transparent. You have to be creative sometimes.

There is a surprising lack of 60s/70s 2-spoke steering wheels of the type without any defined hub area. Yes, I know about the Mk1 Golf-esque wheel but that’s a bit too modern IMO. Now, if someone gets an idea for mods here, go ahead. This is more or less the closest that exists…so well, going for this anyway…

[Knugcab]

The layout can’t be replicated in Automation (so I had to fiddle a bit with the bore/stroke to be able to fit the engine), but the R16 has the typical french layout with the engine behind the gearbox, intruding into the passenger compartment, so a little “hump” for that is present in the car.

It seems like the seating arrangement in the 16 is a kind of “2+1” split bench seat where the centre armrest can double as (probably everything but comfortable) third seat, so I tried to replicate that as good as I could.

A bumper bar was used as the grab handle on the dashboard.

Another type of bumper bar as the brackets.

[Knugcab]

I must say that the 16 dashboard layout is a bit weird and that I don’t understand it, so I will go for a rather simple detailing, but there seems to be a little glovebox anyway so I made one…

Found some somewhat similar door cards in the 50s/60s parts packs…

Some detailing, nothing special…just parts looking somewhat similar.

Seems like the 16 had a parcel shelf, so I made one. Good, then I don’t have to model the whole luggage compartment.

So…what should one say? At least to me, this is a 16. Maybe not a flawless one, but a 16 nonetheless.

Now it is Fiat 124 time, one of the cases where the actual body exists…pity that it is a rather flawed legacy body, but we’ll see what I can cook up.

[Knugcab]

Yeah…nah. I took a look at the legacy body and…it is really terrible. Much worse than I remember it. After an attempt to fix the hideous wheelarches I started looking for another body, and transforming the Simca 1100 into a Fiat 124 is probably less work than just getting the arches to look right on that still rather flawed body.

It is easy to believe that the Simca 1100 is a smaller car than the 124, but fact is that this body has a wheelbase some centimetres longer than a 124.My main concern is that it is a bit too round in the rear…

One thing that probably is easy to miss on the 124 is the small “eyebrows” it has over the lights, yet I think that is probably one of the more important features that makes it look like more than just a box on wheels.

So…did my best to replicate them with this fixture.

Another important feature: the grille is not straight, but has a “dip” at the bottom. Notice that we are back to traditional round headlights - they are not dead yet in some years to come…

This fixture is sometimes very useful if you’re building classic cars with horizontal grille bars.

If you shut a seam, remember to open it up again to not get a messy look. “Drago” from Forza Italia Dragon badge pack looks a lot like the square 60s Fiat grille badge.

[Knugcab]

Even if it looks like a box, the Fiat 124 has some not-too-easy to replicate side molding, and I have fiddled a lot with this so it has been hard to show the process because it is very much trial and error here, and maybe I have done it a little bit too appearant on this car, in an attempt to adjust the more bulging sides of the Simca. Let’s start trying to understand the design with looking at its predecessor, the FIat 1300/1500 “Juventus”.

It adopted the “soap dish” styling that was made popular with the Chevrolet Corvair and taken to its extremes by, for example, NSU. A dominant ridge just below the windowline and rounded off shapes above it. There is a whole article about this styling theme that I suggest you to read, because it is really good and there is a lot to learn from it.

Automotive History: How The 1960 Corvair Started A Global Design Revolution -...

With the 124, Fiat was moving to a boxier design, that was becoming fashionable by the late 60s. Still, it is obvious that the design have evolved from the Juventus. The car is more squared off, but there is still a ridge at more or less the same place. Under that ridge, you actually have an area where the sides are inset compared to the rest of the body, which fades out at each end of the car. At the bottom of the car, we are pretty much back to normal again. This is, as I said, much more complex than it looks, and I am taking some artistic freedom here, so it will not look 100% like an 124, it will be more of wizardry that hopefully makes a totally different body similar enough to trick the eyes…I am still convinced that this will be easier than trying to get something good out of the legacy 124 body.

This fixture, to fill up the gap that the inset makes.

This fixture, to make the actual inset. And this is where things get fiddly. There are a limited numbers of shapes, that is unwilling to conform around the wheel arches, needs to be placed so they overlap in the right manner to not mess up the reflections totally, and…well, at least for me it is still very much a matter of trial and error, that was driving me slightly mad.

Once again, to fill up the gap.

This one, as the bottom of the ridge.

And this one, as the top. And don’t sweat that it looks rough, adjustments will be made when I know how I want to do the door gaps.

Fiat 124? Hm, maybe, but I still see more of Renault 8 and ZAZ in it I guess. So, making the ridge a bit more subtle might be in the future.

Next step: Correcting the window openings. The Fiat has a relatively airy greenhouse, something the Simca does not have, and you can here see the difference between the unaltered one (back) and the one I negataped away (front).

Used this fixture to build up the new window frames since they are set a bit outside the B-pillar on the real car.

New windows made with patches set to the translucent material so it can be adjusted with the window transparency slider. A tip is to be careful when aligning them, slightest overlap will be visible.

Covered the upper door gaps from the Simca with thinned out bumper bars, sometimes they work better than patches IMO.

A bit more 124-like now, maybe?

[Fayeding_Spray]

god damn this is impressive to follow.

[Happyhungryhippo]

its slowly starting to look like what it is supposed to become, the Simca to Fiat transfer is quite a challenging detail work, and it seems you succeeded with that.

[Hshan]

I think you’ve got the wrong pic in the fragment about window frames - there are two in a row that look the same. As for the car transformation, I feel like keeping the lines very subtly curved, like on the real Fiat, might help - although I’m not sure if that would really work on such boxy Simca body.
BTW, out of curiosity - isn’t it a red 125 on the photo?

Very interesting and inspiring thread. Basically recently - having no time for the game itself - I come to the forum to glance through the forum games (numbers and car guessing) and follow this.

[Knugcab]

1. Fixed that now (but since I had to recapture the screen, there is a sneek peek of what is now going on.

2. Yeah I have thought about the same thing…we’ll see if I can pull it off. The Simca body is boxy but so is the Fiat…

3. This is the more upmarket Fiat 124S that easily is mistaken for the 125, since on the outside it had the flush mounted door handles from the 125, and a twin headlamp front, but using round headlamps instead of the square ones from the 125, but it is still built on the shorter 124 body. So, the model that became the Lada 2103 (like the regular 124 became the 2101), more or less. Now, I guess you’re used to seeing the Fiat 125P which makes it even more confusing, since I think that one used round headlights which made the front end very similar to the 124S?

4. Thanks!