hi
i thought of adding more unusual bodystyles to the game, for example the Fiat 600 Multipla, a rear engined RWD people carrier with a flat front and a very curved back; a Davis 3-wheeler, a streamlined car with 3 wheels, and a very small turn circle; the Peel P50, a microcar made on the isle of man that was supposted to fit the roads of the teeny island and be cheaper than walking; the Messerschmitt KR200 / KR175, a 2 seater microcar (a rare design) with a similar point to the peel p50 but made in germany; and the Citroen 2CV (i think what it is) the bodystyle is unusual as its pretty rare in the motoring world
While those bodies would be fun, its better to make bodies that cover a larger variety of possible designs first before doing the real specific stuff. Also stuff like the Peel P50 and anything without 4-wheels won’t work within the scope of the game.
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Most of what you talk about are bubble cars, and honestly there are 3 big issues with adding tiny bubble cars which pretty much rule them out:
Firstly markets
Lets assume technically your new bubble car was able to be added to the game perfectly as you hoped. It still has little crossover to demographics other than the niche wanting this style of car. Indeed the generally exist for a license or tax reason, not because they fill a demand better than a more traditional layout. Its not even like you’d be adding a new trim of an existing engine for your ingame company, as these are motorbike type setups IRL, and so you won’t be able to avoid the development costs of an entirely new platform.
Secondly tech:
To get in the weight, budget and regulatory needs of such bubble cars, they employ very different tech to larger regular vehicles. The most obvious is motor, mostly they are aircooled which you can’t do, mostly very small in low cylinder counts (single or twin commonly) which you may only be able to do if the small engine DLC concept takes off after game launch, and mostly they are backed by motorbike type transmissions (which don’t really correspond directly to the sequential already in game) and drive layouts that don’t like up with a normal transverse or longitudinal, often with chains, belts or some other kind of flex coupling (or in one case I know of, nothing at all, the whele was hardmounted to transmission, but only connected to body by a pivot and sping)… They also rarely have steering, windows or other features that directly act or compare to regular cars. They use novel systems which are much cheaper\simpler\lighter, and generally exist in such a way as to be less user friendly and something you put up with in order to have a bubble car. However this again doesn’t have in game analog, basic\none doesn’t do credit to things like “windows don’t open” or “get out and push for reversing” as to fairly compare to a small actual car. Likewise little of this would share tech pool with cars or the various other things.
Thirdly game engine limitations:
Automation can’t support anything other than 4 wheels as is, and it currently requires a fixed (fairly large) area for suspension options next to those wheels in order to offer the diversity of choice for a fun game. Likewise it models seating in rows permitted, so you could in theory put a 3 seat bench in the very smallest car. Engine bays are also fixed, while more IRL bubble cars are very much built around their power plants, with things like maintenance costs not scaling to a “engine bay fill” but rather being offered by different access angles\panels for each item, or the ability to quickly take the body off or motor out (often without the need for equipment to lift it) or in one case of one 4 seat ATV I have seen in person, but rolling the vehicle onto its side (which 2 people can do, and it had rubber blocks to prevent damage on any fairly level surface). This also applies to the “handling”, with some using round motorbike style tyres, or having noticeable corner improvements when the “driver” leans hard into corners… being sometimes >0.25 of the total weight.
There is however a area of middle ground that avoids issues 2 and 3. Modern Japanese Kei cars:
Kei cars
These feature normal car like technology the game already has, regular interiors and car like handling… just smaller and to comply with local regulation. It doesn’t fix the first issue of markets, and the game would need far more scored data to differentiate who would consider a "kei truck’ vs somebody looking at a regular pickup without doing something very arbitrary like adding new body types (so instead of a sedan or ute, it would be kei car or kei truck, and markets could have penalties derived therein), as its very hard to describe why a kei car is really not suitable to commute on the highway in empirical terms… it has the power to do so (with reasonable economy in fact), yet they feel unstable (especally in wind), often rev hard and are downright scary around big cars or trucks that can often easily not see you. None the less, aside from the market scoring, you can certainly mod a kei car body into the game if you so choose, and it will work great in both Automation roleplay, and to drive in BeamNG.
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I’d like a Viper body 
Corvette has a good Viper body in the Kee engine that might make it to UE4 sometime.
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One more thing to consider with unusual body styles is that they are iconic and unique; which means they are instantly identifiable from any angle. In a game about designing my own cars… I want the most generic bodies available, stripped of everything that makes them what they are.
Automation already has quite a few bodies that I can’t use because you’re practically forced to plagiarize the original design in other to remain era correct, regulation correct, and aesthetically pleasing at the same time.
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