Then again, it is built on the second-smallest of the Moore body sets, so prestige and safety take an obvious (and sizable) hit.
Seventh, not bad. Was the Saetta really brought down mainly by the tyres? I thought sports would be too much, and I didn’t even bother to check, damn 
Also…
…as it always should 
Funny way of saying almost era-appropriate tires.
As of my research the Lancia Stratos (980kg - 190hp) had 205/215 tires (some sources claim 205/65R14 all-around)
Similar cars had similar tires. Some sources claim the 1976 - 1979 Lamborghini Silhouette (1250kg - 260hp) had 195/285 tires.
Okay, so first off, the tires were oversized for application, not for realism. I called them oversize because they made the car score worse.
As for period-correctness, the vehicles you mentioned are a purpose-built V6 homologation special and a V8 supercar. Even if we accept the premise that your car is in that league/class, that still wouldn’t explain why these tires aren’t sports compound - anything going on a Lambo or a Stratos would have been.
Lastly, if - again - we assume your car was meant to be a Stratos or Silhouette rival, that just reinforces the fact you overshot the brief. Even an NA Esprit is sort of overwrought for this challenge.
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Guess i spent too long making the convertible bit look good and not ready any tuning tips in the game 
I’ve not mentioned the Silhouette as a rival of my car, but to show an example of ridiculously wide tires on a car with a similar power/weight ratio. The Silhouette being a supercar is debatable. Many sources call it a sports car and I’d agree on that.
After more research I am not so sure that the Silhouette actually had 285s in the rear. Since the Lamborghini Miura P400, which was definitely a supercar, had 205’s all-around 
Even the Miura P400S had 215/225 tires. 
So I agree, the tires on my car seem to be overkill. 
I am eager to learn and wonder what tire combination would you have applied to my car?
Oh and btw the reasoning behind the medium compounds is because the Drivability, Fuel Economy and SVC were better with them, which in my calculations outweighed the measly profit of 1.4 sportiness (when using 205/235).
I believe it with the Silhouette, actually. When Lambo moved the big Countach onto 15-inch wheels for the LP400S spec, they did famously replace the rears there with stupidly wide 345/35R15s - and the Silhouette shares a similar bodykit.
My pick for your car would be a sport-compound 195/65R14 square setup. With the correct (read:aggressive) toe setup, I get +0.9driv, +1.5spt, +1.2cmf, and -1.4mpg with svc unchanged. I claw back an extra -0.3s 0-100 kph and +0.05g low-speed grip, as well as -5m braking in 100-o kph.
4 Likes
Looking at it after a while of not having seen it I can’t see why I thought it looked right. I can partially put the ride hight down to thinking too much of a late model MGB but even compared to that it looks high. Away from the major issue of the fixtures refusing to associate with each other or the body was there anything in the mechanicals that stood out as particularly poor?
QFC48: FINAL FOUR
4th Place: @Knugcab - IP Warbler 1600e GTX
The Warbler 1600e GTX is a car for the sophisticated recluse. It’s very pretty, it’s somewhat peppy, and it costs no more to keep on the road than a normal car. You buy it and then you have it, to be appreciated without any onus to actually interact or exert effort on the owner’s part. The fact that it’s the most comfortable vehicle among the final four definitely, definitely helps, as does the hatch with its practicality boost.
The reason the Warbler remains the junior market leader is because most people who are into sports compacts aren’t easygoing going-on-40 types with nothing to prove. The passionate, connected individuals that actually buy this stuff will be disappointed at this hardtop generating a double-digit power number and an equally double-digit acceleration to 100 kph. There is also the small matter of this car - the least-sporty (courtesy of a steering box) or performance-y, and the least prestigious of the four - also fetching the highest sticker price. As a Eurosportscar, then, this gives up the top spots to better contenders.
3rd Place: @Ch_Flash - Lesovo Ceres 1800 GT
The Lesovo Ceres is the only convertible that we can call a market leader in 1974 - but given that only 5 of the 30 cars (1 in 6) reviewed to begin with bore the honor, the proportion at the top and elsewhere is relatively consistent. On the design side, the Ceres is painfully… complete, feeling like a unique, fresh and yet eminently believable design - and though partially thanks to the convertible rebalance it handily wins the prestige battle, as well. I could just pinch its metal cheeks. It’s the only two-seater in the finals, but the two occupants are very well-protected by 70s standards. The price is the second-lowers of the final four.
Where the Ceres lets itself fall apart is, literally, where the rubber meets the road. The wheels are much too large and heavy, with 15-inch steelies being the order of the day - and with similarly-oversized rubber to match. Just going down 2 inches on both components would have saved lots of weight with few downsides - to the tune of 60 pounds. Further in, the struts (a pain in the ass common with the IP) and their uneven-with-the-rear tuning spoil the comfort, which is second-lowest of the four where it could have easily been the highest. And, going past the front suspension and getting to the engine… That thing just can’t propel the car fast enough. With a 0-100 time of 10.3 seconds, it’s the slowest straight-line performer remaining, only edging out the IP overall by virtue of handling. There is a lot that can be forgiven for the sake of a sexy convertible. Unfortunately, with this example, a lot of things had to be forgiven.
2nd Place: @Tsundere-kun - Cascina Oleandro 4C
The athlete among the remaining entries, the B4 V4 sports coupe from Italy has a frankly astonishing trump card: It’s the cheapest. No shit. AM$11,000 and it’s yours. For that, you get a full-independent suspension with almost gokart-level handling, and an engine with four cams that blows away the other three by actually sitting comfortably above 100 hp, with a whopping… 110. Take note, everybody who decided to go with 160-200. And that’s good for 7.6 seconds as well. This basically matches the powertrain characteristics of a Chevy Cosworth Vega. Compared to the eventual winner, the Oleandro is safer, more comfortable and more prestigious.
So why isn’t the captivating Cascina itself on top? Well, it’s more of a result of the winning car’s unique talents than any of this car’s faults, but the Oleandro does whiff a couple areas. For one, it isn’t as good-looking as the rest, with a kind-of-empty rear and a kind-of-busy front. It’s a bit needy for service, though still under the 1k mark, and it does give up the reliability crown to the winner. Personally, I think this car would have been better off with a bit less stuff and more quality - it’s not as chic to have all the most advanced technology if it’s not yet refined to a mirror shine.
1st Place: @donutsnail - Paige Sora Sport 2000
Competing in the sports compact market with an econohatch takes balls. Paige did it without even flinching. You know what this car’s edge was? Nuking everything else in the segment from ORBIT in terms of practicality. Nothing comes close. In fact, I investigated and found that if the Paige were offered in a lighter 3-door variant, that would have done better overall because it’d still be beating around 80-90% of the rivals. at hauling stuff. That aside, the Sora gets to 100 kph in 8.3 seconds - which isn’t far off from 3 liter Capri territory - and does so on a tide of Skinner-carb low-end torque. Grip is unexceptional but also more than adequate, and as for cost of living - you could just not repair it at all and it’d still outlive you somehow. It doesn’t hurt the Paige’s case that it’s also the easiest pure-RWD car to drive out of all encountered - or that it’s got bitchin’ hot decals on the side and generally looks like an aroused terrier.
No car is without sin, but the Sora’s sins are all sins of utility. That drivability value is partly achieved by humping throttle response into oblivion with balancing mass. The small-ish cam helps, which is why this OHC 2-liter only makes 100 horsepower dead and peters out about a mile before redline. And, like I said, the hind doors make it a bit heavier and more expensive than it actually needs to be…The fact of the matter is, though, the whole point of Eurosport is that the “sport” part is tacked on at the rear. The man who wants some fun in his life will not, generally, buy a 200hp homologation special or kit car. He may buy a pure sportscar or convertible, but likely one where the experience is still a bit compromised to make the car in question better to live with. But what most buy is exactly this. A regular-ass car with an off chance of burnout and a decal across the flank.
FUN STATS
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Everybody had a monocoque and a manual gearbox.
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One car had a manual steering box (Recirc. Ball). Two had a Hydraulic R&P. The rest all had a manual rack and pinion.
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Just three vehicles opted to use a stick rear axle, including the winner and another finalist; the rest opted for IRS, with eleven wishbone rears, 13 trailing-arm rears, and three strut rears.
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Just seven cars had 4 doors or more.
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Three cars were MR, four were RR, and the rest were front-engined; three of them FF.
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An astounding 14 out of 30 cars went with a limited-slip differential. The Lesovo was the only finalist with one - ironic, considering it was the slowest one.
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With regards to rear brakes, discs of some form showed up on 17 of 30 cars.
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Eight entries, including one finalist, were fuel-injected - of which one was SPEFI.
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Two cars ended up using an exhaust reactor; the rest successfully rawdogged emissions.
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Nine cars have under 100 hp, including 2 finalists. Just 6 cars get over 160 hp - none of them finalists.
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The mean design score was 5.77/10.
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18 cars faced scoring penalties due to flubbing at least one scoring category so massively that a zero would have actually been too generous. This is to be expected - but something of note is that three of the finalists are among the dozen “unpunished” cars.
THE END
17 Likes
Considering I went for the Datsun 160J (albeit the rare fuel injection model since budget made room for that) as engineering inspo I am satisfied with the results. IRL the simplified engineering made it fail to succeed the 510 as the sports compact when all the fine engineering that made the 510 so clever went int the too heavy and broughamized 180B.
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What an entertaining round this one turned out to be! Here’s hoping the next one carries on its lofty standards.
So looks, and both approx. and service costs were my main pitfalls. Guess that’s what having to shoehorn a straight six in a hatchback gets you.
Sooo basically I could’ve entered a 1600 Veloce, give it sport compound tyres, and it would likely be in the finals, I guess? Nice.
Interesting final reviews, I like how they refer to the rest of the cars.
Minor correction: the ADAZ was not RR. Was it the only AWD of any type?
I don’t think any of the other entrants opted for AWD, so if I’m not mistaken, yours may indeed be the only one in the field so equipped.
Actually, looks aside the car was pretty well-engineered. It was still too slow, though, and I would venture to say that opting for a small 4-cylinder instead of a big 3-cylinder would have helped you gain much better power even without increasing the displacement or weight much.
That, and I would change the weight savings approach. As it stood, you had tiny brakes with very sporty pads, which wrecked comfort, alongside an all-cast internals engine. Opting for just a forged crank and rods, but getting 8 to 9-inch brakes with less aggressive pads probably would have served the car better while maintaining better comfort and drivability. In addition, you wouldn’t have to spam the bottom end quality as much just to get rid of reliability penalties.
Indeed, it was alone. Most other people probably didn’t dump enough quality into drivetrain to even see that you could do it. I actually haven’t tried modifying your entry, unlike many others; Was there really ever that much of a advantage to the AWD? I’d figured that you did it for the brand and flair of it, drivability aside.
It gave better Drive than FWD, better Sport than RWD with square tires, and lower SVC than rear-drive with stagger. I wanted it to hustle in Beam with a keyboard (and it does!), but mostly I thought it’d be cool to make a “what if a Zapor were made into something world-class desirable”. It’s part of a larger alternate-history project that goes beyond the scope of Automation, loosely defined as “Russia done right”. I have a few reimaginings of the GAZ M1, M72, and Lada Niva as well.
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The reason for 15-inch was purely esthetic, I just thought 14-inch looked to small 
and the Ceres is supposed to be a kind of low spec car from Archana with steel wheels, cloth interior etc.
Thanks for a very high quality challange, 5 cars from this challange has been featured by Mr Chips on Automation official Instagram.
The new round of QFC has been posted.
3 Likes