Coz I’m on a roll with these tangential posts:
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Yeah, my car was considered even though it drinks more than Kimi Raikkonen and I didn’t finish it’s ad.
Did I not say that the Dynamite D6 was the Wildcard to end all Wildcards? A completely crazy vehicle not designed to win, but to get an interesting review.
Twitchy and hard to drive? Believable. Running carburettor takes away one of the driving assists, so that didn’t help. Good fuel efficiency for old tech? Glad I made some people nervous and proved Dynamite’s saying correct, you’d be hard-pressed to make better mileage with better tech in these.
At some point, I’m going to have to go through and make some behind-the-scenes lore for Dynamite and their Letter/Number scheme. Especially because they’re the perfect wild-card company.
Let’s face it: Storm is my main company, Sinistra is my alternate main (hasn’t featured much here, doesn’t yet have a forum thread for good reasons), Minerva is my “we haven’t bothered to change our cars since the 80’s, but people still buy them.” company, and Dynamite is my “What crazy idea can we do today? I know, let’s put this on that and see if it sells.”
I’ve had a couple other flash-in-the-pan company names, some that were dropped after one use, others that just haven’t had a reason to resurface. Devillain is one that hasn’t had a reason, because a car carrying that name (after all, it won a CSR round) has to live up to standards.
appearently Honda CR-V doesnt really suit for this round. did you expecting something like Pajero Sport since you really concern about going to off road? some common country side dirt road isnt that bad
Second batch is out! Final results will be up very shortly!
Miro DK3-X @Fayeding_Spray
The DK3-X, designed like some Japanese concept car and engineered in a similarly odd fashion. The engine is a 1.8L I4 Turbo, making a puny 130hp, and apparently built for a race car, as the engine internals are extremely expensive racing-grade parts, like titanium connecting rods, and a CNC machined billet steel crankshaft. My jaw had to be picked up from the floor after this. I asked the dealer about this in a phone call, they confirmed, and said it’s the reason why they don’t have any in stock now. Guess i won’t be buying this.
GSI Mountebank @oppositelock
This car is conservatively styled, to say the least. It’s beige and a bit dated, but definitely not ugly. It has 276hp, made from a 3.0L I6 Turbo, giving the Mountbank great performance, and good gas mileage, with 32MPG. It’s AWD, and has a 6 speed auto with an LSD, and a semi clad undertray, resulting in an alright offroad capability. The interior features nice leather seats, and standard infotainment and safety packages. It’s pretty practical and costs $24960. This car looks like a solid all-rounder, so i’m keeping it in my bookmarks.
JHW Tinariwen @JohnWaldock
Erm… this is a three door hatchback. It’s a strange car, that has a Geared LSD most commonly seen in sports cars, a single clutch sequential gearbox,and offroad specific tires. It’s very capable offroad, as it also has a skidtray and fancy active swaybars. It also has 208hp, 35MPG, yadda yadda yadda…
It’s a three door hatchback. A weird three door hatchback. Not what i had in mind, that’s for sure. I’d love to know what this car’s purpose actually is.
Valta Fjall 2.0T R @Cheeseman
So this is what is trending in Europe right now, interesting looks for sure. It features a 2.0L I4 Turbo, making 207hp, and a 6 speed manual gearbox. It’s AWD, has an LSD, and… what are these? Sports compound tyres. Oh, so that explains why it’s not good at offroading, at all. The interior is the usual stuff, with an advanced safety feature package and… launch control. What is this? A Nissan GT-R? Suspension is quite fancy, with adaptive damping and sway bars. The fancy suspension didn’t make it easier to drive though, as it sometimes behaves in a weird way. Sorry, but i’m not really interested in this.
CM Huron MX @thecarlover
The Huron looks like a proper SUV, with a clean, modern design i quite like. The engine is a 2.5L I4, capable of 190hp. As usual it has a 6 speed slushbox and AWD, along with a manual locking diff and a semi clad undertray. The offroad capability is quite good as a result. The interior is pretty much the same as the last car i’ve seen, except for the launch control. This car is remarkable for its great practicality and cargo space, not for its fuel economy though, at a mediocre 26MPG. At a price of $22680 i can consider it though, as it is pretty solid.
CargoPod @laffinghyena
What is this? Someone must have mixed the emails up. Wait, it’s supposed to be a crossover? Oh. It has 339hp. Yeah, what is this supposed to be? I’ll just delete this email.
Komodo Helvetica @koolkei
This car is named the Helvetica. You know, like the font on your PC. Weird name aside, it looks like an average Japanese SUV, that is until you see the rear, which is pretty weird, to say the least. Still, not awful. It’s powered by a 3.0L Inline 6 making 176 horsepower, coupled to… a 5 speed manual. You know, i’d rather get a Times New Roman, maybe that comes with an auto.
Maesima MQX-4 Tz AWD @rk38
This is what a call a good looking car, the design is fantastic. I really like it. Its engine is a 2.0L Inline 4, making a healthy 182hp. It’s AWD, has a 6 speed auto, and a pretty mediocre off road capacity, because of the open diff, and semi clad undertray. The interior is also mediocre. It does 30MPG and is practical enough. Cost is $20440. Again, a good value for money offering, i’ll keep an eye of it, even if just for the fantastic styling.
(NoBrand) Kalahari @ramthecowy
This car i don’t know the manufacturer of. Like, the name wasn’t included in the email. It’s a nice looking car, especially the rear, which has a quite original design. The engine is a 3,0L Inline 6 making a substantial 229hp, with another weird gearbox, a 5 speed sequential. It’s AWD, and a manual locking diff, giving it good offroad ability. The interior features leather seats and… uh. It has a cheap 2 speaker radio. Did they get interior design tips from Znopresk and Scarab? Also, this one is $25060. Which is over my budget.
DSD E-X @Darkshine5
This car is TINY. Like, really tiny. It looks like a squished SUV, it tries so hard to look like an offroader but it is really just an FWD, even though it has a manual locker and fancy swaybars. It has a 2,8L V6 making just 143hp, and a 5 speed manual. I doubt i can fit a shopping bag in this with 5 people inside. So not a car for me.
Kimura Cavatina LXt @titleguy1
The Cavatina looks sharp and refined, it’s a good design that i quite like. It has a 2.3L Inline 4 Turbo making 221hp, another one of those single clutch 6 gear sequentials and AWD. It also features a skidtray, so the offroad capability is fine. The interior is bog standard but slightly higher in quality, with an advanced safety package of apparently subpar quality. Fuel economy is decent, at 32MPG, and the car is quite practical. The MSRP is $23380. This was also a difficult choice, but i’m keeping it.
Adenine Ambience @phale
Adenine knows how to make an elegant, simple design, and the Ambience is a good example of that. The new EcoTrekker trim features a 2.4L Inline 6 Turbo pushing 226hp, and a 7 gear single clutch sequential, i didn’t even know such a gearbox existed. It’s AWD with manual locking diffs, and has good offroad capability. In the interior you can find standard seats and infotainment, and an advanced safety feature package. Reading through the spec sheet it seems to be using a full aluminum body… This car is quite practical, and does a remarkable 38MPG. For $23360 this sounds like a good enough deal to consider.
Trail @doncornaldie
Again, a car whose manufacturer is unknown. Do the dealers even know who make these? Anyways, the Trail looks like it’s squinting, and i don’t really like that. The engine is the usual 2.0L Inline 4 Turbo, with 143hp. The drivetrain is the usual 6 speed auto with AWD… i just took a look at the price. This car somehow costs $16940. Corners must have been cut somewhere, right? This car has an interior that would only be called “luxurious” in Soviet Russia. You know, a car being cheap is nice, but this is a deathtrap. It’s as safe as playing Nerf with a nail gun.
Mott Works Apollo X @rcracer11m
What is red, tiny and really ugly? The Apollo X! Even its engine is tiny, a 1,6L Turbo Inline 4 that through being really high strung makes 202hp. Looking at the drivetrain confirmed my fears, this is another one of the rally hatchbacks. It’s a rally hatchback from a children’s cartoon, it even has a hood scoop and huge chrome exhaust tips. Is it necessary to say i’m not interested in this?
Crosser GLX @MarcoAlla
What can i say about the Crosser’s design? It looks dated. The rear end makes me think of some 90’s minivan, it’s not pretty. The engine is a 2.2L Inline 4 Turbo, making 166hp, it’s AWD and has… a 6 gear manual. It also has a Viscous LSD, a partial undertray… while i was looking at this car, the dealership called me.
They called to tell me it was out of stock. Oh well, i didn’t like it anyways.
Now, with all the cars checked, i’m left with 11 good choices:
Griffa Triseon 2.3TL4 @szafirowy01
KWA KX1 @abg7
Horyuji Tanigawa X-Sport 2.0 @CadillacDave
Smooth C-ross @AirJordan
Gamma Briggs @Nomade0013
Baltazar Kilimanjaro 2.0 Premium @Leonardo9613
GSI Mountebank @oppositelock
CM Huron MX @thecarlover
Maesima MQX-4 Tz AWD @rk38
Kimura Cavatina LXt @titleguy1
Adenine Ambience @phale
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What a surprise! I was right in thinking i wouldn’t stand a chance.
Couldn’t contain myself at that point! lol… I’ll have you know that even though it’s not luxurious you get excellent quality parts, 10 year warranty and free winch just in case the sporty handling is too much for you and you end up in a ditch! 
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I couldn’t make my ad, but here is how the Briggs looks like.
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i took Sport Utility a bit literally.
I was choosing between partial and full but you know the story… for little cost I got good economy and brisker pace 
what’s not to like
Exactly my thoughts. Weird drivability may have been down to the fact that I completely forgot about tuning the brakes and therefore the drivability was not quite up to sratch. I did say, very sporty, oddball European crossover though 
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I feel relieved to have made it past the first round of cuts. I wasn’t convinced about the idea of a hot hatch on stilts, even though my KX1 is as powerful as some actual hot hatches.
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I really enjoyed this round… But feck me every time I think I have nailed the brief it turns out I didn’t, not by a longshot.
Tangential: my brother has been modifying nerf guns by swapping the motor and power source out. Suffice to say projectile velocity, trajectory and stopping power have all significantly increased to at least standard paintball gun levels 
I can’t wait to get my hands on them.
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motor? what?
i have modified my lil bro’s nerf gun 
but i only added ‘padding’ to the spring and clipped off the pressure limiter.
it only made the projectile twice as fast… significant. but still not dangerous. but a paintball equivalent powered nerf gun… that’s a WHOLE 'NOTHA 'LEVA
Yeah, so my brother kind of goes nuts, when he decides to do something he goes the whole way. He also removed the whole safety mechanism so basically now you have to be extra careful not to attempt to fire if the chamber’s jammed, and not to leave the motor spinning so it overheats and, I dunno, explodes in your face. On the plus side now there’s no drain of current, so it’s all battery to motor at max power. Suffice to say it’s all warranty voiding stuff
The grace factor here is that it still fires foam darts, so while the velocity has increased to paintball levels it won’t leave a welt or break skin/bones like you can with a paintball. However it’s still not good to get hit: my brother copped a dart from his upgraded Stryfe to the face and he couldn’t feel his face for half an hour.
Maybe we can attempt to video the result once I see him next week.
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And here I thought I was crazy at some point for modifying a piece-of-crap paintball gun to shoot nerf darts. It’ll raise some welts, but reloading is slow. Think “Muzzle-loading flint-lock” levels of slow.
As for why, mostly a bet between a group of friends that not even I could make something to raise welts with foam darts. (Context: I’m typically the inventor/mad-scientist among my group of friends. If it can be modified, I’m bound to try it, and things that claim “no user serviceable parts inside” are always fun to poke about in. So, when four of my friends decided that they’d bet I couldn’t raise welts with foam darts, I set about making something that can.)
Safe to say, $20 well spent on parts to earn $60 from the betting pool. And a reminder to my friends that if you give me a goal, I will try to achieve it, and it will probably be quite unpleasant.
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Be careful with that stuff strop…by modifying a nerf to paintball velocity/specs you may actually be breaking the law and modifying a toy to a class M trigger operated weapon which would require a firearms license…aint aussie firearm laws great!?
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