The Crowd Sourcing Competition [Round 49]

[Aruna]

CSC42 Results

Arion Automotive headquarters, Meeting room 1A, 2020, North Yorkshire, UK.

The designers were due to have a meeting with the Arion executives and design department today, and everyone who was ready got a seat in the room to propose their own vision of Arion’s new flagship hybrid hypercar.

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The ones that didn’t make the cut

@Maxbombe/Arion Columba

The first to be shown to the room was the Columba. Definitely a sleek and striking car with an air of luxury over it. The interior was spacious and gives a real sense of freedom with all the windows and minimalist design to it.

The meeting room was definitely pleased with the design but it turned out the overall dimensions would mean only a transverse engine would fit.

Unfortunately binned for not meeting the rules of mid longitudinal only.

Really wish I didn't have to bin this aaaaaaa, it was super sexy and low slung and R A D!

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@ldub0775 / Arion Falcon

After the Columba and it’s creator left the room, next the Falcon was shown. One of the designers whispered to an executive, who then wandered and whispered to the CEO. It turned out this was not entirely their own design.

They were taken out escorted by HR for a stern talking to…

Binned for lying to their collaborator who had no idea of this car being entered to CSC.

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Finalists

@Riley/Arion Monoceros

Next the Arion Monoceros was presented to the meeting.

The overall design did not really come off well to the design team nor executives, as it didn’t really visualise an Arion, looking like a competitor company’s car in fact. The underpinned engineering of the design however made it the lightest best track-oriented design at the meeting. However, it did not truly convey what the team was looking for in the next generation Arion hypercar, nor did it have any specification for a hybrid system in the proposal.

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@SpeedyBoi & @66mazda/Arion Sagitta 16c

Along came the sole speedster of the submitted designs, truly a dazzling entry.

The executives and design team definitely agreed this envisions Arion styling quite well indeed. The exotic sharp lines paired to elegant flow and an interior fit for a monarch!

Unsurprisingly, being a speedster the chassis needed extra re-enforcements to be up to the 2020+ standards, making it heavy and slower than other on paper by a severe margin, though the design overall really hit well with the higher ups and CEO.

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@Portalkat42/Arion Proxima

After that, the Proxima got shown. Instantly there was a dramatic silence from the entire room.

The Proxima gave reflections of the 1963 Arion Hydrus with a mix of modern minimalism to it, truly a one of a kind throwback design to a simpler time. But the styling was perhaps the only classic element, the internals and interior proposed were quite mind-boggling to most of the team.

Especially the star of the show, the interior! It was truly a conceptual dream that the execs would love to produce, even if it implied a few changes for safety standards here and there. Though the design inside and out was superb there were drawbacks such as the overload of technology, making the board thing it might be too much an ambitious approach to undertake.

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@Tsundere-kun/Arion Virgo

Coming into the show next was the Virgo. Executives questioned the name as the Virgo was already produced as a B-Segment Hatchback previously, but they did not mind at all.

The more modern styling approach was received well, it definitely felt exotic and sleek, but the overall appearance felt more aggressive than luxurious, the interior was very much basic but moving onto the engine bay and exhaust layout along with the rear, the room lit up with passion.

The overall performance provided on paper was good, not ideal or show stopping for hypercar standards, but it did have impressive acceleration analytics along with comfort, though the comfort may have not shown visually.

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@chiefzach2018 & @kookie/Arion Apus

The final design shown would be the Apus. The room sat completely still as they all observed the ostentatious style displayed upon them.

The team agreed wholeheartedly that this vision embodies all tri-elements of the Arion brand, from the exotic sharpness to flowing elegance the two-tone emits, all the way to it’s luxuriously sporty interior. Though it was brought up the Apus nameplate was used for an Arion MPV in the past, so could potentially have a rename.

From the detailed analytics underpinning the design, this one was out of the world in comparison to the rest, having the highest top speed, 0-62mph time, as well as comfort and prestige being highly appealing.

Afterwards, the teams cleared up and executives with lead designers discussed the winning design…

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Final rankings

5th: @Riley’s Monoceros
4th: @Tsundere-kun’s Virgo
3rd: @SpeedyBoi & @66mazda’s Sagitta 16c
2nd: @Portalkat42’s Proxima

And the 1st place winner is: @chiefzach2018 & @kookie’s Apus!

Congratulations to the winners, and to everyone else too! It was an honour to host and I enjoyed looking at the entries and the great performances of the finalists! It was quite a hard selection for the top three. It really has helped me gain an insight to the Arion brand and it’s future vision too.

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[Hshan]

Oh noes, my favourite one was binned! Though other designs are cool too.

[ldub0775]

@Aruna

Binned for lying to their collaborator who had no idea of this car being entered to CSC.

I am so sorry, I hate myself so much, and I regret everything

side note: I never got the one from skye. which is why the one submitted is shit, and why i hate it so much.
I do not expect anything to change rankings wise

[ldub0775]

also congrats to the winners!

[kookie]

Wooooo!

Big thanks to Aruna for hosting this round, lotta cool designs from people

Zach and I are busy brewing some ideas, we should have an update soon… stay tuned!

[kookie]

Unfortunately after two weeks we cannot put our plans into motion, real life got in the way.

We apologise for this inconvenience and would like to pass it on to @Portalkat42.

[Portalkat42]

uhhh, well let me get through my SFAX entry first and hopefully by the end of the week i’ll have something.

[mart1n2005]

Any news here?

[Hshan]

Schrödinger challenge being itself.

[Portalkat42]

I’m still working on it. gotta get the rest of the visuals made and finally get the post up

[Portalkat42]

CSC43: Videopolis Now

October 5th, 1986. Midlands Corporate Headquarters. 14 Commercial St, Manchester UK

Prologue

The CEO of Midlands sets down his cocktail as the boardroom slowly fills with the company's department heads. Once everyone is settled, he turns his chair towards them, "You're probably wondering why I've gathered you all here on such short notice."

“To tell us all that we’re being fired?”

“No, shut up Carl. Where here because of this…”

He hits a button on the remote he’s been holding. The lights dim as a projector screen unfurls from the ceiling behind him. On the screen is a vhs recording of some of the main blocks of MTV programming and footage of some college dance clubs. The younger staff seem quite intrigued while the older members are confused.

“Why are we looking at music videos?” Pipes up the head of Engineering.

“Because this is the zeitgeist we have to capture. The youth market is booming and ripe for the picking. We’re in need of a small sporty car, so why not kill two birds with one stone here?” the CEO shoots back. The head of accounting just shakes his head and laughs, “What makes you think there’s actually money to be made on a car actively targeted toward young adults? They don’t have the money to be spent on things like that.” The much more junior head of marketing tries to jump into the conversation on a more positive note, but is cut off by the argument that has arisen between the CEO and senior staff. She just looks over at the equally as young head of design and they both shrug, preparing to wait until things calm down to add in their thoughts on the matter. Suddenly the almost shouting match is brought to a halt by a sharp clearing of the throat from the back of the room. One of the interns is there, tray of drinks in hand, who is the spitting image of the target demographic they’ve been discussing and has heard the whole discussion. Having got the whole room’s attention, she calmly but confidently says, “I’d buy a car like that. I bet a lot of my friends would too. And…uh… while we’re at it, why don’t we have a competition for the design? I’m sure we’d get a decent amount of submissions, and it would tell us what they really want in that kind of car.” She pauses and looks down, thinking that she’s stepped over a line, but looks back up suddenly at the sound of enthusiastic clapping. It’s the CEO, and shortly the heads of marketing and design, who are giving the applause.

“Bravo! Bravo!” the CEO booms," See, this lass gets it. Somebody give her a raise or I’ll just do it myself. A design competition is exactly what this project needs, and it’s exactly what we’re going to do."

Your design brief for this CSC is pretty simple. Midlands, a mid level premium brand based in the UK (think the level of quality of Mercury. Not quite as cheap as Ford, but not quite Mercedes level luxury. They’re closer to the latter though), is looking to capitalize on the upwardly mobile youth of the '80s with a small, fun car that fits into the entry level gap in their model lineup. And as shown in the scene above, they’re deciding to run a design competition to get the youth that they’d be selling this car to to give them their wants and ideas.

In typical Midlands fashion, the car is planned to be the rather unconventional set up of rear engined, partially because that’s just the layout Midlands does with their cars, but also to go along with their mid '80s advertising campaign showing how much more space there is in a car with that layout. They also don’t want it to be obvious from the styling that the car is rear engined. This means that cabin forward designs and huge side intakes are frowned upon. This is meant to be a small, fun, sporty car, not a supercar.

Example youth market cars

Note: The cars below are not from the '80s, but are good examples of Youth cars nonetheless

Besides the car design, Midlands is also requesting that each entry include some content on the inspirations behind the design. The CEO and head of design at midlands want to see the thought process behind what their target market is making. This is in addition to the traditional forum post and should take the form of a moodboard. This should have some text, either along with the board or on it, that helps describe how the content of the board relates to the design of the car and explains the thought process behind it. The board below showing the average customer that Midlands is aiming this new car at shows what is expected for this part of the challenge.

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Midlands design language

Midlands is a UK brand, so please make sure your car is right hand drive!

I can and will bin because of this because no company wants to have to make a completely mirrored interior just because their designer put the steering wheel and pedals on the wrong side. Not at this price point anyway.

Midlands Models

!986 Ceres GT

1981 Eos GXP

1971 Libra Twin-cam

1976 Selkie Rs2500 (left), 1969 Zephyr LXR (right)

1973 Ceres GT

And from the future

1996 Astraea GT1

1991 Eos GXLM

The Midlands badge is made of two fixtures, both from the base game. They get resized as shown for the primary front and rear badging.

The model nameplate for Midlands cars goes on the right side B or C pillar and is backed by a base game square badge stretched to fit the name.

The trim level is placed on the right hand side of the rear, usually above the right tail light.

The primary font that Midlands uses is the Grand Sport Font, but never, never at its default size, which is way too big for most applications. It’s usually resized to about .75 or .5 of its original size. This goes for all of the primary badging on the car(Model name, trim level, etc).

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Requirements

Everything set to 1988

Keep the engineering realistic

Budget: $35k

Quality sliders are only allowed to be +/- 5. Minimal usage of negative quality is expected. Otherwise it can be seen as cheapness, which a premium car should never be.

Bodies

-nothing over 105 inch (2.667 m) wheelbase
-sedan or coupe
-no more than 3 doors
-must seat 4 (minimum 2/2*, but 4 full seats are preferred. Also no 1/3* or other half seat shenanigans)
-must look like it’s front engined

Engine

-must be N/A
-must be rear engined
-no inline 3 engines
-premium unleaded fuel
-must have a CAT
-minimum 2 mufflers
-Awd is allowed, just don’t do the meme of rear engine fwd. it needs to be at least a 50/50 split if you do awd.

Naming

Midlands vehicles are primarily named after figures in Greek mythology(Eos, Ceres, Zephyr, etc), though naming your design after stars and other celestial objects also works.

Model name: CSC43 - (YourUserName)
Trim name: Name of the car
Engine family name: CSC43 - (YourUserName)
Engine variant: Name of the engine (Should be along the lines of 2.3 L i4 or 1.6L V6, simple enough so i can know at a glance what’s in the car)

Your submission must have an interior design, at minimum in example pictures from irl cars, but really, it’s a design challenge. The interior is part of the design and can be used to add some quirky '80s flair to a relatively tame external design

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Priorities

-design cohesion
-youthfulness
-drivability

-realism
-sportiness
-interior quality and design, including entertainment. This is the MTV crowd after all.

-fuel economy
-reliability
(it is still a young person’s car after all, they don’t have a huge fuel and maintenance budget)

-prestige (It still needs to be a car that the buyer considers trendy and wants to show off to their friends)

-price (it’s a small car meant for the yuppie and trendy crowd. they have the budget, either their own or their parent’s, to spend a bit more initially)
-practicality (it’s a rear engine 4 seater coupe ish thing with a frunk. automation has no clue how to calculate for that)

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Deliverables

You can send me these either here or on Discord, whichever is more convenient for you. Just make sure you state that it’s your CSC 43 submission in your first message.

-.car file
-design process document(a.k.a. your moodboard)

And of course don’t forget to make a post here with all the juicy details of your cars.

Challenge Begins June 19, 2021 @ 12:01 am EST

Challenge Ends July 10, 2021 @ 11:59 pm EST
(essentially midnight)

Have fun! X3

Oh, and here’s a fun '80s playlist to get you in the mood for this challenge

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmXxqSJJq-yXrCPGIT2gn8b34JjOrl4Xf

[Portalkat42]

Ugh, idk why the formatting got screwed up the way it is. Just open up all the drop down menus to see everything.

And feel free to ask for clarification on anything in the challenge

[Fletchyboy100]

@Portalkat42

-must be rear engined

3 of the inspiration models are Front Engined.

@Portalkat42

must seat 4

The Toyota MR2 is only a 2 seater.

It seems like the cars used for inspiration contradict the ruleset.

[Portalkat42]

They are there for style inspiration of youthful small cars from the '80s. Not because of what engine and drivetrain layout they have. Inspiration does not mean the company wants a duplicate of that car.

[Knugcab]

You say “sedan or coupé”. However, I somehow get the idea that a shooting brake shape would be somewhat fitting to the audience (and the inspirational BMW is borderline close to it too). Are they completely out of the question?

[rbiemer]

RHD and an interior? Not my strong points… But, I think I am going to see what I can build.
This will be a very interesting challenge and absolutely fun to work on. As long as that playlist doesn’t give me too many flashbacks.

[Portalkat42]

Those are very much allowed. I’m just not wanting true hatch backs like Golfs and Civics and such.

[Portalkat42]

Also, because the formatting is being even dumber and deleted some of the pics that were supposed to be under the Youth Cars Examples tab, here’s the rest of them. At least all of the Midlands pictures made it in.

[Portalkat42]

And It decided to delete out the Customer mood board as well, so idk what’s happening. Here’s that as well

[kaybee]

is there a pu/et/material/etc. limit for this round?