This car isn’t the quickest. However, it sure has a presence. With a low-slung body and decadent interior, the Margina looks classy and refined, without breaking the bank. Designed for the North American market, it features a 2.8 L inline 6, engineered for a smooth ride and the peace of mind that this car will always get you to your destination without fail. It also earns a respectable 26 mpg. All yours for just $19,999!
(no offense but) oh my god the 5 mph bumpers are battering rams on this one 
1983 Wells 500 (C-Package)
Only available for the po-po…
Mileage sucks ass..
But it’s gonna catch you fast.
This is the Base version of the sporty Marlin. It has all the necessities and just a tad bit more. This Model especially was ordered with the optional High Output 3L V6, making around 150 hp and the Speedmaster 5-Speed Manual Transmission. With a weight of only 1.2 Tonnes it is in no way slow, so you will be able to catch up to those around you, while not needing to buy a large V8.
Frükt & Nøtt AS presenterer:
1983 F&N Fedora
Paint job: Two-tone Blue-Jeans Blue
Engine: 242ci V8 SOHC EFI | 160 bhp, 206 lb/ft
0-60 mph: 8.9 seconds | Top speed: 125 mph
Gear selector: 5 speed manual overdrive
Alloy Wheels | Power Steering
Seats: Padded leather trim, 3-way adjustable
Electric windows | Stereo Soundsystem, 8-track player
MSRP: $15,000
It’s 1983! V8s are slow AND inefficient. People are still paying money for brown-on-brown-on-brown color schemes for some reason. Synth music is flooding the airwaves.
Enter the Durendal LeGrand. Mediocrity never had such a noble name. It’s 4.0 liter V8 also makes 160 hp, this time fed through a slushbox for easier driving. Fuel economy is squarely meh. Price is pretty cheap.
Apparently my computer also thinks it’s 1983. These are the only two pictures I could take of my car before the game crashed. Enjoy! lol
The following people have submitted full entries:
@breadtheloaf
@Capri78
@missionsystem
@bdub1
@l0jli
@Ananas
@DuceTheTruth100
@GassTiresandOil
@Knugcab
@mcoupe
@moroza
@shibusu
@Tragedy
@VeryCoolGuy
The following user has submitted a .car but needs an ad:
The Hoffman 250 is a respectable midsized sedan from West Germany. It offers solid performance, seats five passengers in relative comfort and comes with two engine options. This example is fitted with the optional 2.7L 5 cylinder engine with 142 horsepower, the 4 speed automatic transmission and full time four wheel drive system. It offers a unique driving experience and engine performance, as well as versatility in inclement weather. As an upmarket imported vehicle, it costs $27,700. It is unique yet inconspicuous, the car for an owner who wants something that blends in from afar, but feels different up close.
Huh
The following additional people have submitted full entries:
@TheYugo45GV
@vero94773 & @yurimacs
@sambatt
whereas @supersaturn77 has 12 hours to post an ad.
MADE JUST FOR YOU
Delray presents Aventura for one more year of its midsize marvel. Made with budget-conscious buyers in mind who refuse to give up the finer things in life. Like its Audax sibling, it rides on high-quality suspension components and features improved anti-rust treatments over previous iterations. A powerful engine and smooth automatic transmission make driving effortless, no matter what trim you opt for. Plenty of stylish customization options exist to make the Aventura you want truly yours.
What are you waiting for? Visit your local ADX brand dealership to learn more about Aventura and other Delray, Audax, and Xeta models. There’s bound to be one just for you.
This is a car known for confusing marketing tactics.
As a Delray, it’s a midsize.
As an Audax, it’s an “intermediate” or “urban midsize.” And also only ever had two doors.
Under its brief stint as a Xeta, it was an “executive compact.”
In export markets, it was once again just a midsize.
The Audax BC platform was weird, man.
This is the most bare-bones basic spec available for the USDM short of a radio delete, since you couldn’t do A/C deletes by this point. No tapes, no power steering. Just two benches, a column shift automatic, and a fat V6 making decent power and decent enough economy.
At least it moves pretty good.
BIN ROUND
Lots of effort goes into making a show - can’t have some asshole piss all over it with an unnecessary controversy or generally shitty props. That’s why the prop department’s potential choices, as with most beats of the show, were overseen by a panel of ethical, perception and quality experts who screened all the choices for known issues.
One of the prop guys is a (supposedly) happy Sinatra GXL owner and offered that up as the show car for a modest price. Turns out he was just trying to get rid of it - it’s a nightmare to drive, with poor, unsmooth low-RPM running, oversteery suspension (despite a 185-205 stagger); not very comfortable, not very reliable, not all that economical even with the 24 valves it has…And the screening guys immediately flagged it for a run-in with the EPA.
*Honestly, even without the WES 5 bin, this car just kinda blows. The only quality is on the engine and the only extra techpool is on the carburetor and exhaust - so the car just painfully leaves lots of money on the table. No other car is less drivable - the poor suspension tuning (FFS people, use front toe in) and hard compound kill it despite the staggered wheels, and no other stat is that good except the price.
BINNED FOR FAILING WES 6
The Delray Aventura can be stripped down to basically no equipment at all - and that is how it’s pitched to the prop guys. It’s sadly not impressive to them. The 4.3-liter V6, in spite of being advertised as having balance shafts, is still hopelessly rattly - likely as a result of a badly balanced or overweight rotating assembly. Its perimeter frame is an affront to God stiffness-wise, in spite of the frantic safety enhancements made to modernize it, and the tires simply do not hold blacktop - giving up shy of .58g. Honestly, whoever forced that rattly mess of an engine in this wobbly mess of a car to still put out enough power to take it over 120 mph should proceed to the nearest church service and repent before the Lord of whatever it is they were smoking.
After all that, the final nail in the coffin is the contracted prescreeners notifying the prop department that this Aventura’s V6s occasionally leave the factory trimmed too rich to meet efficiency. Is it fixed with just a twist of a screwdriver? Yes. Is it enough of a potential scandal tgo give this show bad publicity? Also yes. Begone from me, I never knew you.
Honestly, I was interested in seeing how well or how poorly this thing would do as this round’s cheapest car. While this is binned for being WES 5, its real issue is prioritizing raw cost over… Well, being a good car. You take this submission as is, remove all the penalties for being “worst in X category”, make it legal - it’s still below midpack. However, make some cheap changes - like trading the ludicrous amount of safety quality and advancement with just a unibody or giving it tires that work - and it’s suddenly a viable finalist, literally around P2 to P4. As it stands,the Aventura is like the Perodua city cars you would have seen on Top Gear - if not for being the aaaaaabsolute cheapest, nobody would look at them twice.
BINNED FOR FAILING WES 6
This “Fruit and Nut” car is definitely more nutty than fruity, but it still looks pretty good - sporty-looking despite being easily in the top 3 largest cars. Unfortunately, it suffers from old bones-itis, with its ladder frame chassis having insufficient crash protection - and its reliability, while acceptable, still leaves something to be desired, courtesy of subpar quality more than anything else. Now, on their own, these things do not disqualify this competent old-style front-driver - but the prescreen team flagged the Fedora as having poor tire availability due to the fronts being a special 215/65R16 tire - likely for traction’s sake.
I don’t adore this car but I like it fine; in the end, had it not been binned for too low tire profile, it would have landed solidly in the midpack. Aside from the tires (made necessary, from my review of the engineering, by a high-speed oversteer tendency easily fixable by an underbody) this car’s cardinal engineering sins to me are bad techpool distribution (+8 engine family techpool for a -1 quality iron engine?) and a copious amount of both balancing mass and cast heavy internal dead weight in the engine. All that being said, this car is the only one I am sad about binning of this lot.
BINNED FOR UNACCEPTABLE TIRE PROFILE
The prop department took one look at this vehicle and decided not to go for it - but the prescreening report flagged it anyway. The prop guys just didn’t like the way the Stanton looked - but the contracted industry researchers had to drive it. What they found is a tiny ladder-frame car (in other words, an unspacious deathtrap) with a so-called “big block” engine where all of the size is in the stroke, leading to a crankshaft that has shattered on many a customer car when pushed hard. Even when this engine works, though, it is sluggish in throttle response, expensive to service, and has an underdeveloped digital injection system, and eats a lot.
This vehicle is, sadly, a lacking effort on almost all fronts. Setting aside the design and body choice - where a short wheelbase, no overhangs and a blown-out cabin morph together provide positively atrocious proportions - the main culprit for its failing scores on multiple high-roller metrics is the entrant’s allergy to using quality sliders. The Cobra 325LX is a sub-$14,000 car that squeezes in an autobox, ABS, multipoint EFI, premium exterior, a V8 with all forged internals (but made out of all cast iron with literally like 80lbs heaps of balancing mass)… You get the point, it’s monstrously overwrought. Add to that the particularly egregious choice of giving it less cooling than 50 in a reliability-focused challenge.
BINNED FOR VERY LOW EVERYTHING
The prescreening report also notes that the Novara Marlin was not recommended due to its poor dependability - stemming, again, from a novel injection system that was not sufficiently developed. The Marlin’s problems don’t run as deep as those of the Stanton, but the production team doesn’t see enough of an appeal to the wonky little runabout to object to its inclusion - especially not after seeing its ridiculous quad exhausts (all fed by one pipe).
The Marlin has the second-lowest reliability in the challenge, with almost 3 points less than the “next worst” car. Aside from that, it barely even feels like it’s made for this challenge: it’s small, it’s difficult to service… It’s like it’s trying to lose.
BINNED FOR LOW RELIABILITY
Finally, the prop guys reject the Hoffman 250 out of hand for being fucking expensive. At AM$27,500, it’s flat out the most expensive car in its class and then some. Everything inside the car is aggressively nice, all the clicks are right - but for this kind of money, a car with lesser Feng Shui appeal could have bought massively, aggressively more functional reliability, size, safety, comfort(!) or power. That and the fact the production can afford 2(two) of these suckers basically puts it out of contention.
I had debated for a while whether to bin this car for high (but technically legal) cost, or to let it through and then place it last because the excessive price puts it under the bottom of the barrel. It is beaten ignoring price by seven cars, four of them at or well under the AM$20,000 mark. I decided to process this as a bin because as a four-star priority, failing here should hurt you as much as failing at reliability does.
I know why this entrant built this car so expensively - it’s because of the devs’ communication that +5 is the baseline quality of the games as well as the baseline techpool, which the game’s identifying numbers simply refuse to reflect - showing the disconnect between challenges, where your ET and at times PU/MatCost is amortized by previously built tooling and familiarity, and challenges - where none of those things currently exist.
BINNED FOR EXCESSIVE PRICE
This initial culling is not daunting - merely a usual step for the experienced showrunners, separating the (maybe) wheat from the (deeefinitely) chaff. These cars didn’t even have to be vetted by the actual screenwriter or lead actor - but later on, things will get a whole lot more… Involved.
TO BE CONTINUED
Ah. I even remember specifically noticing the tire profile rule before starting the build. Evidently I forgot about it somewhere along the way. Oh well, GG. And with this quality of reviews for the bins I’m certainly looking forward to the rest!
I liked the Hoffman…
But yeah, that price is WAY too much for a car that will do stunts and will get destroyed in the process.
MAIN ROUND
Never believe the naysayers claiming film isn’t magic - even at its worst, it’s more ‘disgusting dark arts’ than mundane. Even after removing the absolute outliers (in a bad way) from the pack, the potential vehicles for Det. Steve Bower to drive are numerous and diverse in most ways - except, of course, the non-negotiable three-box bodystyle. Tasked with giving the showrunnners five cars they feel will serve both the character and production well, the prop guys sift through the lot of them - a dozen in all.
This handsome Scandinavian is in the running immediately because it’s just the single best overall car in the studio’s price and size range. The Ion, for all its idiosyncrasies, is a rock-solid premium midsize that looks stylish, drives well (and quickly), doesn’t eat much… There are some questionable gaps in amenities, but the total package easily counts the Ilaris car into the running for the hero car role. Priced handsomely but not extortionately at $20,000, the Ilaris sets a pretty clear yardstick - if you’re more expensive than this and not better at the role (and nothing is), there’s no point in you.
ADVANCES TO FINAL ROUND
The Saarland Bischof is the cheapest remaining vehicle in the running. The funny thing is, it actually does possess that elusive power steering that the Ilaris lacks - and is built very solidly all around. There’s an automatic transmission, there’s modern safety, the interior doesn’t creak. Sadly, the Bischof’s chassis tuning is cut rate - already harsh geometry is forced to contend with an undersprung and overdamped spring and shock combination. The engine, as well, is a poor fit for the slushomatic - likely a fuel economy consideration, the 115 hp and almost as little torque force the shrunken-down 2.5-liter six to deliver 4-cylinder performance - to the tune of a miserable 13 seconds to 60. This isn’t completely out-of-segment, but it’s definitely sad. That sadness extends to many places on the vehicle, and the firm’s deliberate marketing of itself as austere would read too much like a caricature in the show.
This car is very close to being very good. However, it drives very poorly and very slowly, courtesy of both the hard tires and anemic engine - and to add insult to injury, there is literally not a single car in this bunch less swanky and prestigious - not out of a particular fault on its part, but because of a dazzling lack of even a single point of flair beyond the robust construction.
ELIMINATED
The Voltari Halcyon is immeidately noted by one of the prop people as a car that fixes most of the issues with the Saarland - it’s fast enough to be acceptable at least, it drives a lot better, it’s slightly less unglamorous - acceptably so. However, the price for that is quite literally just another nine grand. It takes that much to go from a boring and slightly unacceptable car to a boring and acceptable car. The almost futurism-inspired looks of it, too, are very early-60s, and not even in the cool Dukes of Hazzard way. For all those reasons, it’s a pass on the Voltari - that and the clear-cut schema of this being straight-up worse and straight-up pricier than the Ilaris.
It was mentioned this entry was rushed, and I can honestly see it. Lots of sliders close to/at 100 or zero - including the lambda=1 slider, which was at 100 when it could just as well have been at zero, losing 1.5 mpg for no reason. The ‘aim’ of the build was clearly to be the most reliable and drivable car in the comp without much regard for the consequences - and it trails two other cars for the former accolade.
ELIMINATED
The Ariete Seltera stretches the ballpark of what makes a family sedan - and takes on more of a sports-sedan role. With all-wheel-drive and a Roots-supercharged 220hp “big six” engine, it’s the fastest and quickest-accelerating car here - with a more-than-stout 7-second 0-60 and sub-16-second quarters, both usually sports car numbers to have for this era. It’s also remarkably good at all the little things in life - the most comfortable of the cars on offer, very safe, decently economical, and very fun to drive thanks to the manual. Thanks to that all-wheel-drive system with three(!) geared differentials, it would be extremely handy in winter, mud and countryside scenes. Perfect for the show, then? Well, the price of it is a downright offputting $23,500 - the most among all cars evaluated; the gearing is very imperfect, likely a consequence of trying to extract as much acceleration as possible out of the all-wheel traction; the eight-track is whatever-quality; and sadly, this sports sedan is hardly a looker, having the feel of a 1960s or early 1970s British luxury car hammered into 1980s boxiness - too stodgy, not gritty enough. As much as it is a better car than the Halcyon, it’s outdone by the informal yardstick that the prop guys have in the $20,000 Ilaris, which - while lacking the numbers and crispiness pop of the Seltera - is endlessly more modern and efficient design and engineering-wise.
This is honestly a very nice build from an engineering standpoint, and a bit of a “field definer” - due to having some of the best values in certain metrics, it raises the upper limit and “the bar” in general for other entries. I suspect, however, that too much attention here was heaped on outmaneuvering the field in the one-star offroad priority - hence the addition of the all-wheel-drive system. Now the system is not that expensive or heavy on its own, but combine it with the choice of monster quality on helical diffs - and oh, brother. And then there’s the mushy-in-roll-angle suspension tuning, HD steel rims, and… It kinda goes downhill from there. I also have something to say about the engine: It’s pretty well-made, but there were conflicting priorities in making it: Skimping out on the three-way cat, and putting a Roots supercharger on. Those two were mutually exclusive for this era: Surviving with a two-way meant choking the engine, leaning out the fuel, putting on log headers - all things that enshittify the engine’s volumetric efficiency and make it run hot to boot, which is something you cannot do with a hot-air (un-intercooled) blower.
ELIMINATED
The thing is, the Ariete sports sedan was really fun to thrash with all that speed. The natural next question, then, is: Can that be had for less? The closest thing to an answer is the Wells 500 C-Spec, the car of choice for some of the nation’s craziest PDs. At $15,500, this 215-horsepower V8 bruiser is almost as fast as the Ariete but more reliable in its speed, its four-speed automatic and 300-treadwear shoes allowing for what is the overall best performance (combined acceleration and handling) in this entire field. The problem, of course, is that the same engine is also responsible for the vehicle’s abysmal fuel burn and heavy weight “for what it is” - as well as its questionable reliability, being equipped with untested ABS technology, mediocre aluminum-head gaskets, and one of the by far less developed central injection systems. The engine boffin among the prop guys also lambastes the “all wrong” approach the company took to configuring the engine, which looks closer to a concerted kneecapping of a sports engine than the proper conception of a police cruiser engine. There’s a lot of cam, but simply porting and polishing the heads and intake here would easily yield 40 more horsepower without compromising economy or emissions. Dual exhaust, too, is extravagant to say the least for a car that’s trying to be good value for money. Overall, the C-package is a more appealing proposition than the Saarland, and it is surprisingly swanky, but that’s not exactly enough to break into the shortlist - not by a longshot.
I’ll be honest, this is the first Ducethetruth entry in a long time I found enjoyable and fascinating to review. A Diplomat-style stealth jet is a nice left-field approach in this competition. The problem is a priority mismatch: “buying” reliability-costly features like ABS and aluminum heads and thus hobbling the one metric that might erode the car’s actual value advantage.
As this forum’s resident engine building enthusiast, the engine in this vehicle is the real problem item. Billed in the ad as a hot engine in a sleeper car package, this thing has a Compact intake sized at 100% utilized flow. If you’ve used Compact intakes for any length of time, you’ll know they work best at 55-60% and there is no penalty at all for it; this car loses 20hp to this blunder, and 20 more hp to not having a performance head. It has too much cam and not enough fuel trim, which means it loses both power (owing to the high compression forcing timing pull at this fuel level) and fuel economy (owing to poor low-rpm efficiency). Finally, dual exhaust it carries around 2 three-way cats; it could easily make do with one three-way or even one two-way given it’s meant to be cheap. The result is a vehicle that loses out on tons of reliability, purchase price advantage and economy and thus is close to last place in rankings where it /could/ have been a contender.
ELIMINATED
With something as exciting as the Ariete still desired even if that car’s a bit too impractical for the production, the question then is: can something near as fast and good to drive be had for less? The Uchida Margina is a decent answer to that question. This car costs as much exactly as the Ilaris Ion, and it’s a lot closer to the Ariete rocketship in performance, also sporting a manual to that end - and, instead of high power, relying on low weight. Genuinely, with its exceptional service record, good comfort, economy etc, the Margina seems like an ideal compromise between the Ilaris Ion’s rationality and the Ariete Seltera’s fun. In the process, however, its appeal as a cruiser is compromised somewhat - its safety suite is very poor for its price bracket, and - perhaps in an effort to maintain good manners in commuting (and avoid overpaying for brakes that feel sufficient), the tires themselves are downright tiny at 175-width, meaning it’s as bad at cornering as the Seltera is. The real nail in the Margina’s coffin is its look, however. Most of the prop guys are already turned off by the unpainted plastic blobs front and rear, and when the lead actor passes by and jokes about hoping that’s not his star car, that’s the end of that.
The Margina (which I keep mentally referring to as the Uchiha Madara, and I never even watched that show) was almost a victim of a contaminated spreadsheet htat zeroed out some of its more attractive values. After I fixed that problem, all that stands between it and the shortlist is, indeed, the look of it. It’s a small car with huge, unwieldy bumpers that feel like a caricature of how supposedly awful 5MBs were - and the rest of the car just reinforces that battle of sleek versus blocky. In terms of actual technical blunders - which do not, mind you, ruin the car, they just hamper it - we have too heavy engine internals (Our favorite! Are you building the engine for its actual car purpose, or for tuners to make 30 pounds of boost on it?) and the categorically poor choice of basic 80s safety - too techpool-barred to be any cheaper than the standard set.
ELIMINATED
@Tragedy - Victor Montgomery;
@GassTiresandOil - Durendal LeGrand;
@missionsystem - Birmingham 6000
There’s a lot of pressure in the prop department to go for the domestic “volume leader” vehicles - they lead in volume for a reason, after all. Of these, two are V8s, one a straight-six. Two are midsizes that cost the same, one is a fullsize that’s just $200 more. Two have carburetors, one has a single computer-controlled injector. None have alloys, ABS, rear drums, overhead cams; all are rear-drive and have automatic transmissions. Yep, domestics.
Of the three, the Durendal LeGrand is deceptively modern. It’s the lone injection car, features a tiny engine (a four-liter pushrod eight with bore center distances smaller than the Victor’s actual bores*, and has a fully rust-proofed unitized body with four-wheel independent suspension. However, it’s the least overbuilt one, with only “okay” dependability, and is actually unacceptably thirsty thanks to an overly short final drive (which fails miserably to deliver acceleration that’s at all exceptional). The tires are a disappointment; Where the rest of the field gets its tires from pretty top-of-the-line manufacturers, this one’s rubbers are oriental in origin.
The only sixer of the bunch - the Birmingham 6000 GXL - is more economical, but not by much. Four years after the last fuel fiasco, the typical US consumer has returned to his typical gas-guzzling ways. Of these three cars, this one drives easiest and best, thanks in part to its modern rack-and-pinion steering - though its frame is still only partially unitized. The rest of the car is built with absolutely monumental conservatism, with wide tires, heavy crankshaft counterweights - so it’s jarring to also see a cam almost as hot as that of the C-Package Wells (that also didn’t need anything of that nature).
The full-size Pontiac Bonneville Victor Montgomery is arguably even more conservative, though. This vehicle is a fullsize, ladder-frame animal that delivers unprecedented space, six seats, and just enough maneuverability to be “enough”. The prop guys do lament its “galactic” dullness, though. It lands somewhere in the middle on dependability, too - though, it’s not surprising given the exceeding amount of metal and features packed into this price and the better-than-Durendal fuel economy.
In the end, the Montgomery as the only full-size, and a good one at that, and the Birmingham as the better midsize, both pass muster and are shortlisted. The Durendal gets passed over largely due to the “unthorough” nature of its engineering - all of the ingredients there could have combined to form a better car, but they don’t.
I’m holding the Durendal back here; of the three “good affordable cars”, it scores the worst due to the reasons outlined above. The short gearing is an entirely unforced blunder: With a 4-speed automatic and a 4-liter engine, top gear should have like a 170mph to 220mph theoretical top speed, not like 140mph. There is nothing about that you can argue with. The single-point should have more quality on it. The mixed materials, at least in this round and on this game build, are literally heaps worse than just going all aluminum (yes, to be honest I also think this balancing decision to be dumb). The other two cars have their own faults - ones that they will answer for in the finals, like the other finalists will - but that’s a good problem to have right now.
VICTOR, BIRMINGHAM ADVANCE TO FINAL ROUND
The only two-door on review - the technological and downsizing craze of the 80s leaving most other family cars prioritizing 4-door designs only - the Coston Bazen looks cheap, and it looks sporty. Sadly, it’s neither: at $17,000, it’s a lot more expensive than the above-mentioned “value pack” - and it packs this buzzy, high-idling carbureted 12-valve four-cylinder which vexes the prop guys with its ability to shake trim apart without getting the car moving with any sort of haste. Top gear is too short, screaming at 3500 RPM at 65 mph, and customer reliability evaluations are spotty at best. The chassis is well-reinforced for safety, and nice to drive to boot with manageable oversteer and a handy limited-slip and ABS - but with this engine, and the level of amenities the car has, it is not worth it.
The Bazen doesn’t feel made for this challenge. The engine is a high-strung buzz bomb in spite of only making 50 hp/l, there’s no reliability to speak of (cooling airflow under 40!?), money is wasted both on advanced 80s safety and enough weight optimization towards lightness to compensate for it, money is spent to move the weight distribution from 56/44 to 53/47 - it’s like two engineers were brawling at the computer, where one was trying to win the challenge and the other was trying to make a Cosworth Vega. For what it’s worth, the sportification of the chassis is done well - but the funds-wasting, contradictory engineering choices just ixnay this thing’s credibility.
ELIMINATED
Did somebody drop a boot around here? Certainly feels like it. The prop guys can’t place this pinko marvel - a large midsize, basically fullsize actually, sporting a hood scoop, a supercharged four-pot that belongs in a light aircraft and sometimes pretends it runs on fairy dust with how lean it is, and a reputation for dependability that would make a Kalashnikov blush. It’s got big 225-section bear paws, huge brakes, modern steering and four-wheel independent suspension - all sold for less than the unremarkable Coston they rejected. It might be uncomfortable and harsh, and the pressurized carb might meter fuel so sluggishly that transient response may as well not exist, but the ADAZ is overall fast, it handles and drives well, and it looks properly mean. It’d be a disservice not to shortlisted.
ADVANCES TO FINAL ROUND
A last-ditch effort to push an exciting to drive car into the final lineup results in this midsize getting a once-over. The results are… Startling. The Viskan, with a light body and a similarly weightless overhead-cam V6 engine, is determined to be far and away the best-handling car tested so far, and the easiest to drive among the non-ABS hopefuls. It’s also terrifyingly safe, thanks to a unit body design process that appears light years more advanced than that of the competitors. It’s very swanky and comfortable, simple as a brick to service, and Viskan’s engineering prowess earns it major props everywhere. A killer, then. The price is offputting - $22,900 - but it stands head and shoulders above the Seltera and Margina in execution, so it gets the nod.
ADVANCES TO FINAL ROUND
All things to all men, then, are on the shortlist. The modern competent midsize, the two domestic volume leaders, Ivan Drago on wheels, and an uncrushable spaceship that finally scratches the fun itch. This diverse cast of five vehicles, a yawning $8,000 between the most expensive and the cheapest, all strive to become Detective Steven Bower’s personal conveyance, to be bought in several numbers by the production. The prop guys are eyeballing the rest, too, as villain, ally or background vehicles. One thing’s for certain: it’s morning in America in the prop department, because the selection process took all night and the department is now out of coffee.
TO BE CONCLUDED
Thanks for the review!! I definitely suck at tuning my engines, I need help in that department (and others) lol. I was excited for the challenge and the fact that you were hosting it, because i know you pick cars apart from top to bottom. I find this all constructive and thankyou once again!
Tbh it’s not about sucking, it’s about time. The best engineering paths never get uncovered on the first pass - I didn’t find what your engine needed the first time I checked it, either. Always look again. Always hold and wiggle a slider. Like I said, this car did make me smile.
