QFC47 - Fast 4the Family (Submissions Closed)

[GAlexZilla]

Setting the Scene...

Singapore Nov 1998. Notably a place with some of the highest barriers to car ownership in the world. Exorbitant prices as the result of artificially raising cost of ownership. Not only do you pay twice MSRP, there’s Import Tax, a general Goods and Services Tax, Registration fees, and so on.

To further prevent congestion in the tiny city-state, the government implemented a COE system in 1990. A COE (Certificate of Entitlement) gives a person the right to own a car (For 10 years with option of extending at an even higher price) Without it you will not be able to register your car. There are limited number of COEs and bidding for one happens only twice every month. Market forces did their thing and COEs are at times one and a half or twice the car’s original cost.

During the 1998 asian financial crisis, demand dropped and COEs cost less than half they used to. Nov 1998, a category-4 (2L and above) costed 23,000SGD compared to the near 69,000SGD it was on Nov 1997. Our couple along with other circumstances deemed now is the time to buy a new car. They will visit the 1998 Singapore International MotorShow at Harbour-Front World Trade Center to take a look at what the world offers them. Speaking of our couple…

Alexander Lim is a young aspiring physician. Recently married to Valerie Huang, the couple is expecting a child sooner than later. Alex drives a 1990’ 300ZX. When he’s not doing his residency at the hospital, he’d go cruising in his beloved car, sometimes with Valerie. He’s also tried dipping his feet into street racing, going on saturday nights to Lim Chu Kang, sometimes just to watch and sometimes to have some fun.

Valerie meanwhile, joined her father’s law firm after graduating university. She aspires to take her father’s place in the long term but is slowly climbing the ranks for now. She too like going fast, taking after her father who own several sports cars. Though she prefers something more “skillful” than who could go faster down a straight line. Therefore, she goes to the twists of what used to be a race track called ‘The Gap’

Since they are expecting a child and planning for another, The couple realizes their coupe is not gonna cut it al all. A car would cost an arm and a leg unfortunately, however, Alex recently finished his residency and is becoming an attending physician in Neurology. Valerie too is soon to be a junior associate at Morikawa Chambers & Huang. Both want to splurge a little to celebrate and expecting a raise in income, All of which points to likely getting a new car especially when the 300ZX’s COE is expiring soon.

They thought about getting a sporty sedan, but they planned on being active with their kids, camping, surfing, biking, and other activities that require a significant hauler. An SUV should be enough, but both Alex and Valerie still wanted a sporty car for weekends. After calculations, paying the PQP and extending his 300ZX’s COE on top of all the cost of getting a new SUV is just financially unfeasible for the couple. So he thought, why not get an estate? It’s got the space we want, it’s usually based off a sedan, preferably a fast one so both could still enjoy having a sporty car.

Combined Priorities

Design

Gotta keep up with the looks. Even if the car is slightly older model in production only for a year or two, perhaps a forward thinking design could help its age perception. They are stuck with this one car for a while.

Safety

From hauling their future kids to Alex's street racing, there are a lot of reason why the two agree on safety as a significant priority in their car of choice

Drivability

Both Alex and Valerie have no difficulty in driving and managing a not so easy sports car, but this would be their ONLY daily driver which could be annoying and tiring if its not that easy to drive.

Sportiness

Valerie could appreciate a fast car, that's not like her dad's speedboat. Alex wants a sport wagon, and surely a street racing sports wagon would need some sportiness.

Comfort

Both Alex and Valerie can agree on comfort being a significant priority though they acknowledge a sporty stiff car wont be the most comfortable in the world. Besides, in the near future, they're expecting to manage a toddler and a baby, they'll need all the comfort they can get.

Fuel economy

Although they want a sporty car with a powerful engine, again, this will be their only daily driver. A better fuel economy than the competition might be the icing on the cake for a build. That tiny decision tipping factor.

Alex's Priorities

Straight-line Performance

0-100, 80-120, Quarter Mile Times.
He's gonna go full blast down 40 Tiang on some weekends with his friends. Having this could really get him some wins.

Price

Though Alex's family is well-off, He still think's their money as separate from his own therefore this purchase feels like it has a bigger financial impact.

Reliability and Service Cost

Just like pricing, He could afford servicing but if the car would just break once every month or two, its hard to rely on it as a daily driver and pay the elevated sports car service costs.

Prestige

His family hasn't always been wealthy, He grew up middle class so your average maybe slightly premium car would be more than enough for him.

Valerie's Priorities

Handling Performance

Cornering G's, Brake Fade
Meanwhile Valerie's exciting rush comes from corner carving up and down '99 Bends' of South Buona Vista road.

Prestige

Valerie has quite the exquisite taste given her upbringing. She sees no reason to downgrade now, especially if this is the only car they'll share

Price

Money is of lesser concern to her, though keep in mind, Singapore's car prices do leave a larger dent and still warrants some financial caution.

Reliability and Service Costs

Again, Just because she can afford servicing, doesn't mean she likes having it in the shops every several weeks.

Technical Requirements

Model and Trim

• Trim year: 1998
• Body: Wagons only
• Minimum Wheelbase: 2.6m
• Maximum Wheelbase: 3.0m
• No Legacy bodies allowed
• Maximum Aero Fixtures 1 for each front and rear both must not be invisible/fully transparent.
• Interior: At least 5 Full Seats (2 Front Seats, Bench Middle)
• Wheels: Radials only (NO SEMI SLICKS)
• Techpool: Bodies +7. Everything else default +5
  
  

Engines

• Variant year: 1998
• No V16s
• Fuel: 95 RON
• Minimal WES 8
• Loudness: LTA Standards Maximum 62dB (50 Automation loudness)
• No Race Parts

• To combat the unusual weight distribution of the Wagon bodies, You are free to use the weight distribution slider.
  THE ADDITIONAL COST OF USING THE WEIGHT SLIDER WILL BE IGNORED! WE WILL TAKE THE PRICE BEFORE THE SLIDER IS CHANGED FROM DEFAULT AS YOUR CAR’S APPROXIMATE PRICE!
• Comfort will be recalculated to remove Torque and Gearbox modifiers
• Drivability will be recalculated to remove the Throttle Response penalty.
• Price limit: $38000
• Must be road legal (not too strict in scale as long as its present)
• Interiors are enouraged though not required
  (seats maybe a dash maybe a steering wheel just so an outline of an actual interior is visible shouldnt be time consuming or hard but hey its not judged)
• Realism: Somewhat realistic, what do I mean? As long as you can stay within “this could’ve easily existed with the technology of time”, you’re all good.
  A single real life example would be even better, though it gets blurry if its a one of prototype that barely worked or cost 3 cars equivalent to build.
• Keep Min-Maxing at a reasonable level (like not -15 and +15)

Submissions

• Model and Family names: QFC47 - Forum Username
• Trim and Variant Names: Free
• MUST have at least ONE picture/ad posted in the thread for submission eligibility.
• All submissions are to be sent to DM @GAlexZilla
• Submissions open on 2024-07-28T06:59:00Z
• Submissions closed on 2024-08-11T06:59:00Z

Changelogs

• Techpool changed from Default to mostly Default Body+7.
• Price limit changed to $38000.
• V16s disallowed.
• Added Minimum and Maximum Wheelbases.
• Added Comfort and Drivability recalculations.
• Added Maximum Aero Fixtures
• Added Free Weight Distribution not included in the car’s final approximate price

V Inspirations V

E55 AMG Wagon

RS4 Avant

328i Touring

Legacy-GT Twin Turbo

Stagea Autech

R34 Faceswap Stagea

Legnum VR4 Type-S

Crown Athlete Wagon

[Texaslav]

• Maybe change the destination DM to your own forum name?

• On the topic of body family: you mean 1998 or older, right? We can’t operate on one single year of families.

• I am concerned about the price limit: 58 grand is a lot, and won’t be equivalent to real-life money. Have you tested any mules to figure out if this much money is necessary to build something like an E55 AMG rival?

• Jesus Christ, owning a car in Singapore sucks! That is one nightmarish description.

[GAlexZilla]

So... this is my first time hosting and it's quite a steep learning curve especially when you come from the design part of things and not the engineering side. Big thanks to @moroza for coming up with most if not all the backend number crunchers. Without his help this challenge would probably unacceptably take another week to be up.

Regarding deliberation, the areas that I’d like some input on are;

• Price Limit & Tech Pool since I am still not certain about that. A decrease of max price and increase of TP was in the back of my mind for balancing.
• Diesels The option of a diesels simulation system (Found in ARM30) is on the table and I’d like to know if people are fine with it or if its too much complexity. (Though there is 1 diesel in the Inspo)

That is just to my awareness so absolutely feel free to add on more concerns.

[GAlexZilla]

• Ah, That was me originally but it was decided that funneling all entrants to one person was the efficient way to go. We did not put a ban on V16s and Moroza has the DLC whilst I do not.

• Yeah I meant Model and Family not Body. Whoopsie my mistake.

• For fun I’ll throw in a “See how much it would cost to own your creations in Singapore!” at the reviews section later.

[bdub1]

for this, id definetly agree with lowering the price, and instituting some kind of tech pool budget
the family sport premium market (closest to this demographich although it wants a sedan) has a budget of 40k, so perhaps around there would be best
to balance, you could institute a techpool budget, to allow for customisation and more options, especially if its above the stock +5 everything budget
As for diesels, id say probably not for this segment abd the sporty side

[GAlexZilla]

Yeah Im leaning toward that. I was just not satisfied at the clarity of my knowledge to actually go with custom techpools as of now. That price was a large stepdown from a couple mules that ended up costing 71-75k, I’m thinking 50k at most or 47k which would be even more useful with a custom techpool.

[mart1n2005]

Might be an odd question, but who is actually running this challenge then?

If we are sending the cars to someone else are you going to actually do the reviews yourself?

[Kyorg]

Honestly I think a budget in the 30000s would be completely reasonable for what you’re describing in the brief. A budget of even 50000 is gonna get you supercars, which given that they can’t afford the yearly cost of an SUV is absurd to consider. 58000 is V12 money.

[hjuugoo]

I think Moroza and GAlexZilla are co-hosting this

[DoesStuff]

I read it as “we can afford an SUV if we don’t keep the 300ZX. but hey, considering what we want, why don’t we just get an estate?”

[Knugcab]

You’re onto something, keeping some restrictions on the budget might be a necessary thing to both keep things challenging, and to give some emphasis on the “somewhat realistic” part. Too much budget and the “realistic” build may not have a chance against something twin turbo V12 hand built interior quality spammed through the roof. Especially considering that the inspirations are a bit scattered, a tighter budget would maybe also be less confusing. A 328i and an E55 AMG is not really the same league, it feels like.

[moroza]

In early discussions, Alex and I were both looking at high-end things - E39 540iT, Benz AMG, Audi RS6 Avant, and the like. Later on, there was some discussion about a value underdog being one way to win. I’m junior co-host here - Alex has final say - but for what my 2 cents are worth, I’d like to see supercar-grade stuff, up to and including V16, including diesels. This or not much later was the heyday of high-proof diesels - E400 CDI, 740d, various VW V10 TDI - and I was hoping to see at least one lower longer wider Q7 6.0 TDI-like thing in the 50-70k AMU range if not higher. Oh, how a gearhead can dream…

Alex, your call.

[Texaslav]

I would caution against including supercar-grade stuff by virtue of the brief (the sports-grade stuff is already close to supercar-priced in story, and our young couple would be ill served by such pricing)

And I think there should be a hard no on simulated diesels in a QFC. We already have Road Kings as a current diesel-permitting challenge.

[Vento]

Hey who wants to design my car which i’ve engineered

[AMuteCrypt]

Regarding techpool and price, I would loosely suggest the default if you wanna keep it simple.

As far as price is concerned, however, remember: Sandbox’s prices are based on mass production. When calculating approximate price in sandbox, Automation assumes that costs like tooling and engineering are spread across large numbers of vehicles. The more you move towards premium and luxury, the more abnormally low Automation’s prices are. 58k in Automation buys a whole lot more than 58k does IRL (accounting for inflation to 2012 dollars).

[supersaturn77]

In my opinion…

Diesels in a QFC isn’t a terrible idea, but I find it hard to mesh with the brief. If we were back a few when the goal was a good truck? I would spring on it. But a sport-premium wagon? Maybe it’s the America in me, but I just don’t get it.

QFC is all about default TP. A lower price might keep things more on edge - or keeping it as-is might make for an interesting mix of entries either at the limit but pushing everything they can, or being cheaper but offering less in some department/s.

Interiors ought to be a tangential thing - i.e. lacking one won’t lose points or anything like that.

That’s all I’ve really got to say, hope it helps some!

[AndiD]

@supersaturn77

QFC is all about default TP.

My 2 cents: I understand QFC as being about a simple straightforward brief (including but not limited to default or at least fixed TP) and priorities / judging criteria (including interiors not being part of the scoring effort), allowing a low barrier for entry and a quick judging process (in 140 characters or less per car, as the original idea was).

Not saying that the dual set of criteria need to go - that can be a nice twist for this QFC… but IMO this should be the only twist beyond the basic QFC idea.

[Kyorg]

How can it both be looking for diesels AND a V16 supercar? There is also literally one real car ever made that would fit that potential brief. This needs to be pared down imo. None of the cars in the inspiration list even come close to what you are suggesting we build, and frankly what you are asking for existed only at the price point that Arabic princes were custom ordering them. A pair of Singaporeans in the 90s simply would not be able to afford a Ferrari 456GT, especially as their second car after a 300ZX.

[moroza]

I accept the argument that QFC needs to be kept simple, and fake diesels aren’t. Furthermore, while there is a niche where they work (E400 CDI wagon, for example), they’re too far removed from the brief. No diesels.

As for expected price/performance level, we need Alex’ input. We both agreed on “high end” at first, and I’m not sure how far we’ve shifted from that. I had in mind Alpina Biturbo and Brabus-level things, not quite blank-check-from-the-sultan like that Ferrari, but with E55 AMG and RS4 in the middle or even back of this pack. V16 would be a minor stretch.

1996 Brabus T V12

[donutsnail]

I believe that Brabus is also a blank check from a sultan scenario, as it appears only two were built on special order and one of the special customers was Michael Schumacher. God only knows how expensive that was.

@moroza

but with E55 AMG and RS4 in the middle or even back of this pack

If you want these things to be in the back of the pack, better remove the 3 Series and all the Japanese examples from the inspirations, and maybe rewrite the backstory accordingly.