Create a vehicle which you think is visibly weird in some technical way.
This includes (but is not limited to): vehicles with more/less than 4 wheels, vehicles with tracks/skids, hovercraft, or even standard 4 wheeled vehicles with weird drive layouts, such as the rare RF layout, or Front Transverse RWD.
Rules/Priorities
Technical Rules:
ENGINEERING WILL NOT BE JUDGED. THIS CHALLENGE IS LIMITED TO STYLING.
All weird drive layouts should be evident without looking at any technical pages. This means 3d’ing in any odd drive layouts, (for example RF could not be done by simply adding AWD to a Rear Engine car, and setting the slider to 100% front. You would instead have to 3d in the drivetrain)
Priorities:
3 STAR
Unconventionalism
How weird is it as compared to other similar vehicles?
2 STAR
Styling
Subjectively, does it look good?
1 STAR
Functionality
How does the weird layout help/hurt the usefulness of this vehicle?
In a front-engined AWD car this can be simulated by setting the torque split to 100% rear and 0% front, but in a mid-engined car this is much easier to do - just find an engine small enough to be mounted transversely and you’re good to go. Real-life examples of MR (mid-engined, rear-drive) cars with transversely mounted engines include the Lamborghini Miura, Honda NSX, Lotus Elise, Toyota MR2, Lancia Stratos and the new Alpine A110, among others.
That is exactly what I did. Would it be considered visually evident if the rear tires are thicker and the front are skinny? You could see through the engine bay that it is transverse.
I feel like by “Engineering will not be judged” i should clarify that not only will I not care about engineering, I will not look at engineering.
I’m sorry if this feels a bit harsh, but if a drive shaft is going to all 4 wheels, then it will be judged as an AWD car.
However, the engine fixtures, or alternatively the Modular Engine Block Mod in the Miscellaneous section, with a basic driveshaft coming out of them would be judged as “visually evident,” without being *too* 3d intensive
Something like this, (just from a driveshaft perspective) but with the engine turned sideways, would suffice. That whole engine is just one big fixture
I’ve rated the styling relatively highly not because I legitimately love how it looks or is put together, but because it very swiftly fulfills it purpose stylistically. It. Looks. Loud. The Kanji Okayama bOZO 8x8 Triple is almost certainly the most visually loud and extreme car I think I’ve ever seen.
Dude, if your challenge fails to attract entries then you put out a poorly structured challenge. Please don’t assume that you are owed entries because you made a challenge; that path leads to much disappointment!
I strongly suspect you lost everyone when you included this clause in your ruleset:
Then followed up with this:
Automation allows for many weird engineering designs then backs them up with hard numbers. Your challenge 's ruleset has turned it into a fashion contest with no reference points… For example, the only submission you received is not only wildly impractical but would never exist outside of a car show or movie studio prop room.
I’d suggest you ask for some feedback via a poll or similar in order to avoid this happening again. But, my 2c, if you had limited the weirdness to what Automation provided and given a quasi-realistic target, say “oddball luxury cars”, then provided some stats for people to strive for, this competition would have gathered more entries.
That. I was very interested in the idea until I learned that it’s no engineering, styling only. I’d like to make something stupid work (like my 14k budget barge). So, @ldub0775 - if you’re gonna retry that with engineering, you have a guaranteed entry from me.
Reflecting on this, I realize I shouldn’t have billed this as a challenge in the first place. This really should have been a showcase ala NYIAS.
I don’t think I even ever wanted to run a challenge, I think all I wanted was to see some really stupid vehicles.
If someone wants to modify this formula into something less stupidly niche then have at it. And if someone wants to make a showcase for this kinda thing then I’d be happy to see it.
This was an incompetently run challenge because it wanted to be something it wasn’t.
We’ve all been here before so don’t worry about it. It’s easy to get caught up in the idea of making a challenge without stopping to ask whether the challenge is worth running in the first place!
Just don’t quit. If you make a decent ruleset I’ll enter something for it, as will others, so dust yourself off and try again; no-one will mind you made mistakes in the past, just don’t repeat them in the future and you’re golden!
