The Axxus definitely has one of the vanilla splitters that looks like a grille under another splitter. I can’t speak about the Volari though.
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The effect of mirroring is purely visual. If two aero fixtures appear separately in the fixtures list, they count as separate for functional/engineering and rule purposes. In both of these cases, none of the fixtures were mirrored anyway.
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I hardly ever use those aero pieces, and the one time I do, I go overboard lol smh. My car is so slow that i probaby didnt even need one to begin with.
Speed isn’t everything. Cornering is just as, if not more important.
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"That’s a tough challenge! I’m curious to see what creative solutions people come up with. Good luck to everyone who’s participating!
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Round 1: The Bottom o’ th’ Barrel
Stupid o’ clock in the morning. Fretting and pacing turned to fridge raiding, workouts, and more pacing. One thing led to another and Valerie found herself horizontal on the couch, amused by the kaleidoscopic refractions of a half-empty bottle of something potent, waving the quiet apartment’s dim lights playfully in her eyes. This was too entertaining to sleep to, yet also felt like a waste of time to simply watch idly. Trying to avoid dwelling on Alex’ continued absence and radio silence, the only thing she could think of that’d suffice as distraction was looking further into the cars to be exhibited. The robotic song of a 56.2k dial-up modem, the clack of keys entering search terms into Yahoo via a 1024x600 Netscape window, and she had the exhibit roster in one window, reviews and articles detailing the cars in another. Meanwhile her mood had gone from anxious to surly and sardonic, and she felt like eviscerating something…
These are the cars that are legal, but fall into the bottom quartile (or so) of desirability per his, hers, and the couple’s collective criteria.
25th out of 25 legal entries. Kite 2600 sport edition by @mausil
"The first thing I see here, the first time I’m seeing this, is the mismatch between front and rear door handles. As it turns out, this is a rather prescient omen and a fitting symbolic summary of the car. Especially when combined with the quite plain styling, MPV and not wagon proportions, the high degree of genericness in the rear, and the… I’m a few shots short of being able to name whatever disaster is going on in the front. Visually, this is the personification of abject failure.
Perhaps it works better than it looks? Uhm… no. The suspension is brutally firm, resulting in a perversely impressive 9.0 corrected comfort rating (7.7 raw), yet cornering is merely ok to show for it. Exceptional development time (+7 quality) went into a vain attempt to perfect a fundamentally highly flawed recipe, featuring major spring rate mismatch, mac front with multilink rear, and positive rear camber, among other things. The engine features state-of-the art technology - full VVT and VVL - but tuned the same way as the footwork, the result fairly fuel-efficient but neither particularly reliable (78.5) nor powerful (210hp). Not that this front-driver could’ve used much more power anyway, nor would a hypothetical owner be overly upset at having to replace it.
“At least it’s… uh…” She struggled for a solid minute to name any redeeming feature of the Kite whatsoever. Only after getting up to refill her glass did such charitable redemption come to mind: at least it’s not the only choice here.
The third least prestigious entry, the Kite is also the worst-looking by both buyers, by a vast margin the least comfortable (second place is 20.4, over double), and third most sporty.
- TigerLily LXE400 by @PhirmEggplant
“Not the worst looker, but the front isn’t winning any beauty contests either. Nor is there much to say about its stats and performance, most of which are unremarkable if not mediocre. About the only standouts aren’t good ones: second worst reliability and second longest brake distance, albeit with no fade.”
- Mara Kavaler 4.6 UKS AMM by @AndiD
Valerie nearly spat out her drink. “This is a wagon?! Could pass for a van or SUV if you ask me… That said, I don’t think it looks bad, just rather plain especially at the rear. Functionally, what’re we looking at here…? Well, it’s a Mara, and true to form, it has stellar reliability (85.2, tied for second best), costs significantly under budget (27400), and otherwise… huh, it’s actually not bad. Reasonably fast and capable, even somewhat fun to drive despite an imbalanced and wallowy suspension tune and some brake fade. Second-worst fuel economy, and by a small margin the most difficult to drive. Surprisingly good overall, this, just outclassed.”
- Miller Boar SVR by @Ch_Flash
“SVR? Says SWX on the back… Well, regardless, this is quite the looker! Clean, tasteful, well-proportioned and very much period-correct design. Just the right amount of sport cues at the front - meaty front apron with a large lower grill - and back - slender D-pillar light stack and a subtle splitter flanked by parallelogram exhaust tips. As visuals go, we’re off to a great start. Let’s see if the rest of the car keeps up…”
Having significantly perked up from looking at this, she stumbled towards the liquor cabinet, fumbling around for anything that weighed about 750g and stronger than wine. Eight-year Highlands single-malt? That’ll do… –hic–
“Hm, maybe best to just look at this thing rather than drive it. Major suspension imbalance, slushbox driving the front wheels, ample but unremarkable power, weak brakes though fade-free, mediocre grip due to high-profile 215 tires. Like the Kite, uses the latest and greatest valvetrain tech but doesn’t set it up correctly, with a prominent step between camshaft profiles. Not much prestige, safety, or reliability, either. Ehh, sorry, the Show is there but the Go doesn’t keep up.”
In a sport wagon competition, it nails the wagon part, but 14.7 Sportiness - dead last - doesn’t work.
- Acrobat Algernon SSW 4.2L V8 by @Flingang
“Oy, that’s a loud color to be proclaiming an underdone collection of featureless expanses. The shape is rather boxy, though well proportioned, and both the front and rear have good visual cues, just look under-done; the whole, color aside, is underwhelming. Still, it has a chance to redeem itself with function. Does it?”
"… I would think that 350hp to all four wheels through a 5-speed manual should be a great start, not to mention a full 1.0g low-speed cornering and a still-respectable 0.92g at higher speeds. And indeed, its Sportiness rating is among the best, 40.7 while first place has 43.1. Body lean of 6.5 degrees is a bit much, though. Worst fuel consumption, at 15.6L/100km (15.2mpg US). Second-highest prestige, at 60.3. And it’s comfortable, too - 45.2 corrected - though on the harder side to drive.
For me, that doesn’t quite make up for the design, but it’s got a few things going for it, and I could be talked into this one if Alex happens to like it."
She yawned at the traces of sunrise making their way through the windows. The long night ended on a good note - even at the bottom of the barrel were some decently good cars, and the rest to be seen would be even better.
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The end is near for me
Hm, I get it if the Kite isn’t a very good build, but what’s wrong with a McP/ML setup? BMW E36 is the first car I came to think about running that setup (among many) and that feels like a car in the right segment this time…
That setup makes sense in RWD applications, but less so in a FWD setup.
It gets referred to as Multilink suspension here, but not sure how it compares. Also, the reference link is not working.
The Ford Focus (of which the first generation was launched right around the late 90s, as well) immediately comes to mind with a strut/multilink FWD layout. (EDIT: Ope, and somebody just beat me to it…) As do a lot of FWD midsizes at the time and especially later… Mazda 6, anybody?
The descriptor of “fundamentally highly flawed” wouldn’t really apply to the suspension type combo - apart from the fact that in this game front McPh suffers from a somewhat too severe comfort penalty - but as it applies to the rest of what is described, I don’t think there’s much to contend about.
would short-long arm suspension (as seen on the GG/ford CD3 mazda6/fusion) be seen as more similar to macpherson strut or double wishbone front suspension?
From what I see from the pictures I can find, the 6 has a DW front suspension. Now I am not very familiar with all the generations of the 6 so I don’t know if I am looking at the right one.
However, AFAIK at least the Saab 9-5 (maybe newer 9-3 too?) uses a McP/ML layout, with front wheel drive, so they are out there.
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The GM Zeta platform had a strut front and multilink rear end, but it didn’t come out until 2006.
In fact, there’s nothing wrong with this suspension combo in general - it’s just that the Kite squandered any potential benefits it might have brought with very poor tuning.
Oof, that’s me told! I looked it up and the Mazda 6 does indeed have DW (also known as SLA) front suspension - and with the lower control arm split into 2 links, no less. It looks like there was a lot of effort put into making it a very “vertical” package, which makes sense for a transverse-engine application.
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Is that because the paint doesn’t have flakes, or because of the color itself? I thought I saw people say that a paint without flakes is better for photos. I’ve been in two competitions which people complained about the paint that wasn’t looking good, which I thought was because of flakes, and now I come here and the car doesn’t have a good color probably because it doesn’t have flakes. I don’t know anymore, it seems that I’m falling under the class of car builders which no matter what they do, their cars always don’t have a good color.
But what’s gone is gone, I wish good luck for the rest of the competitors out there. It was good when it lasted.
I think moroza means the color is good, the rest isn’t
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This. I make it a point to ignore paint minutiae, being all too aware that monitors and GPUs can vary. In any case, I like bright blue; the comment concerns the overly plain design.
Correct.
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My bad, I didn’t realize you said “aside”. And to be honest, I expected to be eliminated like that, because I’m not really good in making station wagons at all, especially when it comes to Quick Fire Challenge. I had to think out of the box, and I thought I was going to be in the average, but turns out I was wrong.
The better competition I’ve ever been ranked, I was ranked like 13 of 19 participants that weren’t disqualified, and there were like 6 disqualified cars or something, so I believe I really suck in competitions. The thing I learnt about that is that I could make a single design change that would change everything, and maybe I could’ve been in the top 10 or something.
Well, at least this challenge was worth a try. Hopefully I can try to see what the other participants did, so I can stand corrected in my future designs. Thank you for hosting the competition, it was good when it lasted. And good luck to the rest of the participants!
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