CSR 28, A New hope for Indonesian car enthusiast
Greetings everyone, my name is Bayu, 28 years old and i live in Bekasi near Jakarta’s border. I’m the owner of Urb’s Cafe and Urb’s Snack Truck that specializes on Beef Burger, smoothies and Ice Cream. What makes my franchise unique is, we never really have a menu since we let our customer create customizes their own order with lots of varieties and we are using a big box truck instead van sized one. Though i already own my own franchise, i still stay and work with my parent still help their work of being a big wedding organizer business in Jakarta to help finance my business, since my business is still limited to Malang, Surabaya, and Kuta, and i’m not satisfied yet. Soon enough, a new branch will open Jakarta, Yogyakarta, and Bandung but not in this or next year since i need further planning.
This year in 2016, ASEAN(yes, this good for nothing regional organization still working for some reason) just signed a deal to remove any tariff on any cars that are assembled in ASEAN member country, and less taxation on car sales. this is their plan to lure more investor i believe. even though i’m not really interested in political economy or the politic itself, this is kind of a good news for me, since it’s possible for someone to produce a car that is outside of the usual comfort zone(aka BORING), plus i never really had my own car for many reason.
I’m quite picky for cars that i like, boys will be boys they said. Indonesia’s situation right now makes import car hard to shine, due to how big the barrier is, along with how low the average consumer’s buying power is. Thanks to displacement tax, anything bigger 1500cc will be hard to sale. While displacement isn’t everything, it seems that no automotive manufacturer is trying to make a sporty trim with a higher power output, what you get from a sport trim in here is only lips, spoiler and badge with no performance upgrade whatsoever and the engine power output is basically same as the other trim or only a little higher. Another problem i see is the lack of car features because of price cutting, quality also gets killed alongside it. And the most horrible one? Safety features also get ripped just for cheaper price, let alone airbag, driver assist like traction control and ABS is an option for higher trim and sometimes they don’t even offer it! Some of them even use 2 point seatbelts for the back seats, and i even heard that their airbag is triggered 1 sec AFTER the crash. From what i see, a 90’s car is more durable than any new cheap car and on par in case of safety. This trend, i believe, has already been running since 2006 after the birth of our very first cheap car.
However, i feel like this is the time to find a car for my own, car that really suit me instead of what’s available to me. Besides, there’s Jakarta ASEAN Car Expo(JACE) in December for any car that produced in South East Asia, there should be plenty of selection. Here are the 3 car category that i wanted.
Bro SUV
Most of the times i use my dad’s 2010 Mitshubishi Pajero Sport 4x4 with manual transmission, he is a big fan of off-roading but old age already got his knees 3 years ago, Jakarta traffic jam and manual transmission is too harsh for his knee, plus he would rather drive himself. for now he drives 2011 Mercedes Benz E 250 that used to be a rental car for newly-weds since it has automatic transmission.
Back to the Pajero Sport, before and after dad switched to the Mercedes, i drove it a lot, especially when i’m working with my dad, since i’m sort of my parent’s second in command in case my dad/mom needs me to go somewhere to pick or look something up they need and it become more and more frequent after dad barely uses his car. I like to travel outside the town with my friends just for our “boys times”, most of the times there are 4 of us including me and sometimes 6 or even more. believe it or not, this thing’s fuel economy is quite unbelievable, about 10km/l on crowded road and even more when i’m able to cruise in a very stable speed(with passengers!), not the most powerful, but 160HP with 300Nm Torque is enough for our shenanigans, and for a plus side, it can go through flood and mud without any problem, with the help of ride height. It’s quite good for an about Rp560.000.000 SUV in 2010(converts to $42k in 2016) and very fancy, even for a car that was produced in 2010, touch screen radio with GPS isn’t something you’ll see often even for that price range in that year. I dont mind having my SUV since they can carry a lot of people without problem, though i can borrow my dad’s car in case i need to carry more than 5 people.
The all rounder Performance Wagon
I’m a giant fan of Nissan Stagea 260RS and Audi RS6 Avant Quattro C6, who doesnt want monster engine that can run wild and can carry 5 people with bigger cargo than sedan/hatchback in public road without problems? Sadly i’m born 10 years too late for the Stagea since importing used car is illegal and back in 2011 when i was asking to a local car importer for RS6 Avant Quattro C6 he ask about Rp 5.5 Billion for on the road price, you can get Porsche 911 GT3 RS or Lamborghini Gallardo with that you damn robber! Just because no one buys it and it has a V10 doesn’t mean you can rip me off, sadly price negotiation didn’t end well, even though i believe the RS6 Avant Quattro price doesn’t go for more than GBP 95.000 but, hell they asked too much, same with other import dealers. the price they were asking pretty much doesn’t even go lower more than Rp 5 billion, wonder why.
Yes, Audi Indonesia sell the latest Audi RS4 Avant Quattro with price mark about Rp 2.6 Billion, i love to have one but with a lot perfomance gap between the RS6? Meh. Situation doesn’t even help dad mocking me with “just buy Honda Odyssey or Mitsubishi Grandis if you want Stagea”, yeah they’re nice in term of fuel, features, and comfort but not with perfomance. With all this stupid cheap MPV trend that mostly advertises fuel millage that are 60% off from the reality (20km/l? keep dreaming with that build quality) and high ground clearance(HAHA! Dont have anything to boost in your car? Probably still gonna scrape those random concrete speedbump) it’s gonna be hard to find any wagon with decent perfomance, current sporty trim gimmick won’t work on me sadly. I just want a pratical wagon that are able to give me that pull excitement.
The Fun Sport Machine
When we talk about good new sports car but not super car in Indonesia, most people are gonna point us to either Civic Type-R(which seems lost his prestige in last 15 years), MX-5(is always the answer, right?) or the ToyoBaru 86/BRZ(aka Takumi disappointment). Three of them basically the under Rp 800 Million ($60k) sports car with less 200HP. which basically kinda falls into the entry sport car category outside this country, probably. They’re nice on track and quite good outside the track to some extend, but it’s gonna be boring if you compare it to late 80’s Indonesia sport car legend, BMW E30, Mercedes Benz 190E Cosworth and Mistubishi Galant VR4. While they’re not punchiest sport car in the global market, they’re more than enough here. while they also has everything that a performance oriented car should have. Back to 2016, you wont get any car like that, perfect example, with price mark under Rp 2 billion($150k), mostly because all of that unnecessary features that has already become a standard today or they become something that’s very exclusive even just for weight saving features.
When im looking a perfect car for this, probably i’m not gonna really care about track times, we only have one track that is a poorly maintained circuit aka Sentul circuit. You cant even really enjoy the highways for high speed too. from what i heard, the Audi R8 can go up to 260km/h, but with a lot of shaking due poor road, i don’t know if someone will dare go more than that, but maybe im the one who’s gonna try to push my luck, if i have car that is able to reach 250km/h and go further without problems. though it not gonna be the most fuel friendly car, but whatever. The only thing that maybe that i can really enjoy from having this car is, red light drag race at a random junction, but racing random ricer car with fart cannon or stupid biker that think his stripped bike make them have a speed boost isn’t that fun. my dad Pajero Sport is more than enough to smoke most of them, for the note, i brake check them slightly near the next red light if i have decent gap for extra funsies and indirect mocking.
General Rules
For my budget maximum budget is $90.000, i can only buy one car, so feel free which category you want to choose. i’m gonna have more tolerance for the price of a sports car, slightly less tolerant on a wagon, and not so tolerant on an SUV. so if you are going to make an expensive SUV, you better make it really worth it, or else it’s just scrap and i’m gonna pick the sports car
We have tax based on displacement, although this year car tax sales is much lighter and more simplified by removing tax based on car body type. but the tax is still potentially ruining car price.
Under 1300cc: no tax
1300cc-1500cc: 10% tax
1500cc-2500cc: 20% tax
2500cc-3000cc: 40% tax
Above 3000cc: 125% tax
Car must have at least 50% price mark up
For your car price: (your default car price + 50% price mark up)+car tax based on your price
Looks is important so my dad won’t mock me, bonus if you don’t use normal colour like black, white, silver and any common car colour that you can think of since i kinda want different colour than most car
For fuel that available we only have 4 option for gas, use this as running cost reference instead using in game fuel cost:
Premium, 88 RON, Rp 6500/litre ($0.49/L)
Pertalite, 90 RON, Rp 6.900/litre ($0.52/L)
Pertamax, 91 RON Rp 7.600/litre($0.57/L)
Pertamax Turbo, 98 Ron, Rp 8.700/litre($0.65/L)
For fuel millage, SUV and wagon is gonna be a big concern, but not really for the fun sports car
Indonesia’s road is really horrible, if you use German road standard, too many non standarized speedbumps and poorly built bumpy road is gonna be nightmare for low vehicle so i hope most car have 170cm ride height
For tyres, 255 is the maximum width with at least 40 tyre profile, wider and thin tyres is quite expensive, besides thin tyres not gonna handle well on bumpy road.
Road matter related again, make sure you tune your car for road, not for tracks
We’re in tropical country with 35°C as average during normal afternoon in the city. Too many super cars overheats during a traffic jam so i hope you have extra 20% cooling airflow just for safety measure
No tolerance on any price cutting measures AKA no minus quality
both engine and car reliability is 65
No car body years limits
Naming:
Car model: CSR28 - username
Car trim: any
Engine family: CSR28 - username
Engine variant: any
Deadline is 15 December
