by @Texaslav
In all fiction, you can go flashy - or you can go gritty. The Line of Duty aims to go very, very, gritty. Set in New York City in the present day, this early 1980s crime drama follows detective Steve Bower in his struggles - not adventures - as he tirelessly labors as just one cog in the machinery of New York law enforcement, attempting to bring just the smallest modicum of law to the lawless while avoiding the fate all detectives know is likely - being killed in The Line of Duty.
Naturally, the studio needs Bower to own some sort of vehicle he uses when - for one of a myriad of reasons - he can’t just hop into a service vehicle. This should not be a glamorous sports car - just something that’s practical enough to get around the city, and big and gutsy enough to both chase, PIT and transport criminals in a pinch. Bower’s wife chiding him about dents on his bumper is meant to be a recurring joke - one of the very few moments of levity in the show.
This isn’t a hero car: This is the car of a weary cop working for an overwhelmed department in a downcast country’s crumbling cultural capital. The studio needs a serious, businesslike look, bulletproof reliability, and preferably something that won’t kill the lead or his spine. Power needs to be adequate - this is helped by fuel prices finally easing for the past couple years.
- Years: Model Year - 1977 or later; Trim Year - 1983.
- Body Type: Sedan, Coupe. 2 or 4 doors only - the trunk needs to be a lockable thing with a shotgun in it.
- Wheelbase: 100.1 inches (2.55m) minimum, 116.1 inches (2.95m) maximum (strict)
- or, 2.6 to 2.9m rounded.
- No Legacy Car Bodies - if you mouse over a body and it says “Legacy Car Bodies” in the Mod Name tab, it’s banned.
- Drivetrain: Adv. Auto transmissions banned.
- Wheels: Radials required. No race tires, no semi-slicks. Tread width must end in 5, never 0. Profile must be 70 or greater.
- Interior: 5 full seats or more
- Safety: Must be any of the 80s ones.
- Price (as per Detailed Stats): No hard limit; I discourage, but do not prohibit, cars that cost less than AM$8,000 or more than AM$28,000
- Years: Family Year - unrestricted; Variant Year - 1983.
- Architecture: No V16s.
- Aspiration: No Twin-Screw Superchargers. No Twin-Scroll Turbos. Turbocharged engines receive a service cost discount of $250.
- Fuel System: No Race intake. Unleaded fuel required; Regular (86 AKI, 91 RON) only allowed.
- Exhaust: WES 6 or better emissions standard required. At least one muffler required. No Race or Turbo Race headers.
- Loudness: 40 or less.
All entries are allowed $25M in techpool costs. This is the sum of total costs for car and engine, as illustrated above.
If your installation of automation has exported the wrong techpool values in the past, you may send a screenshot of your techpool screen alongside your entry, in the same DM. In all cases where such a screenshot is sent, I will double-check your submission’s values with those on the screenshot, and correct if necessary.
If you do not use this feature and the techpool ends up wrong - or if the techpool sum on your screenshot is invalid as well - you will be binned.
Negative techpool values are prohibited.
This section lays out my expectation on styling - which will affect your design score.
Now, first of all, my taste is detail. Not obsessive detail - but the less a car looks like a 10-minute bodge job, the better. This is an easier bar to clear in the boxy 1980s - so if something dissatisfies me, you really haven’t done enough. E.g.: if your car has door trim pieces, it shouldn’t be just one fixture bar of soap. Get some practice in and make it look nice.
Think about the proportions of your car - if it’s transverse, does it look it? If it’s longitudinal, same question - is there at least some dash to axle to make that stick? Have you picked a body that fits what you have in your head? Length, width, roof height. Really try to see if what you’re making proportionally resembles the inspirations.
Finally, you are making a pre-1985 model year US vehicle. I will not force you to comply very rigidly with the sealed-beam rule for the US market - But I am including the explanation of it because complying with these regulations does help maintain period correctness in your look. This does extend to non-American cars - Mercedes had a lot of “fun” trying to jam these sealed beams into its deliberately tall front valances, and pop-up solutions were common on sportier cars. I detail the specific “allowed” US styles in the dropdown below.
Light Regs
Now, I’m not actually going to take a ruler fixture to all headlights to ensure that they’re all entirely size-correct, but the general shape guidelines need to be followed. If you are unsure if your headlight setup is acceptable, send (PM) me a screenshot along with the name of your body, and I will tell you if anything needs to be changed. I reserve the right to penalize or outright bin entries that are not in compliance.
Your best bet is to look up for USDM cars in the 70s and early 80s looked. Note that aside from the actual headlight, indicators, fog lamps, parking lights etc. could be arranged in any way you wanted around the headlights. The inspirations at the end of the posts as well as the examples directly below should give you an understanding of how this works. An alternative path to take is to present your car as having either hide-away or pop-up headlights; all of those are ‘legal’, and if you are submitting the car with the headlights “hidden” you don’t even need lamp fixtures. If the headlights are “exposed”/“open”, they still have to comply.
The twin 7-inch round light configuration was introduced in 1940; by 1980 it was mostly used by imports, as circular headlights remained in vogue there. In Automation, most round headlights are 5.75 inches by default (and would thus need to be upsized by a factor around 1.2) though some are 7 inches from the start.
The quad 5.75-inch round lights were first permitted in 1957. They, too, were mostly used by imports by 1980 - notably ones which were replacing relatively tall composite-headlight units used in their home countries, though some used such lights natively as well. Lots of round headlight fixtures are the right size by default; in particular, all of the vanilla “double headlight” fixtures without cover glass are legal. Another user of this headlamp style was the Chevrolet Corvette - from 1963 until 1982, all in hide-away guises.
Use case and example
1980 Mercedes 280SL (as you can see, the lamps are mounted inside what was clearly meant to be a composite headlamp setup)
The quad 165x100mm rectangular light configuration was introduced in 1975; it was used mostly by American cars of all shapes and sizes, as well as Japanese cars. There are three clear go-to vanilla fixtures to go to in this case - a single rectangle that’s useful if you want to space out the lights, as well as both a horizontal and vertical “set” of lights; all are sized correctly by default, but make sure that the versions you’re using don’t feature a glass cover.
Use case and example
This is legal…
…And this isn’t. Because America, I guess.
1977 Cadillac Coupe De Ville. Note all of the extra lights (turn signals etc) around the headlights; there are no restrictions on them.
The twin 200x142mm rectangular light configuration was introduced in 1979; it was used mostly by American cars of less esteem, as well as many sports cars with pop-up headlights. The default rectangular sealed-beam fixture is just a single version of the dual-light setup above; to make it the correct size, set its scaling to 1.21 on the X axis and 1.42 on the Z axis, or thereabouts.
Make sure your car has lights (headlights, taillights, turn signals), wipers, side mirrors - you know, make sure it looks like a car that could exist. Given the following priorities, a pretty one is preferred.
You are not required to hook up every light properly with automation’s lighting feature.
Do not make the car look like something it isn’t, either via fixtures or advanced trim settings. If you lose the roof on a fixed-roof body, use ATS to raise the suspension by 10 whole inches, or somehow manage to have your car only have 2 visible doors when the body sports four - you’re out.
Interiors are not required and will not be judged in this TMCC - as usual.
THE CRITERIA
Design
As mentioned in the above style guide: detail and cohesion beat out outright flair or “fixture count”, and looking both period and good will help the show’s believability tremendously. On the other hand, an ugly car would turn drama into lampoon - not our goal.
Reliability
A twofold and pertinent priority. The car must be reliable to be believable as a faithful daily, and so that the studio doesn’t require a bunch of replacements. The good midsize of the time could swing either in the innovative or the ol’reliable direction of marketing and engineering - and the latter is indispensable here.
Value
The production doesn’t want to waste money - and, moreover, the character needs to be believably “overworked and underpaid” - thus, incapable of affording outright imported luxury cars. As of the current ruleset, we don’t have a hard price cap - even more reason to watch yourself when it comes to your approximate cost.
Prestige
Part of the theme of the show is keeping your dignity and honor in a world that gives no quarter and frankly, sucks to live in. The car must be similar: Showcasing a decent amount of prestige and honesty despite being under-“loaded”.
Service Costs
The last thing you need are literal movie props that eat through money and time by being costly and difficult to service, or (for example) having daunting tires specs. Best stay away from that.
Spaciousness
The car has to comfortably fit a mildly police detective, a possible side character, however many detained criminals, and as much mission-relevant junk in the trunk as possible. A larger interior and more flexible seating arrangements (wink, wink) will also be good for camera work.
Practicality, footprint and a holistic measurement of passenger and cargo areas will all be considered for this stat. If you have an unusual trunk, or maybe a rear-engined frunk - feel free to send me instructions on how to measure your car’s cargo space; I cannot guarantee I will honor it if your ask is too greedy.
Drivability
The studio has already ruled out really large fullsizes, so this priority is just a bit moot - still, though, it can’t hurt to have a car that drives well. This also makes believable some scenes where Bower catches/takes out criminals in faster, flashier cars because he can control his better.
Environmental Resistance
In this era of cars, rust was both expected and dreaded - especially in a coastal Northern city. Both from a story point of view and a movie prop durability point of view, this makes good weather protection pretty valuable, though perhaps not essential if the car compensates in other ways.
Fuel Economy
Fuel prices have gone down significantly since the Crisis of 1979, to the point that midsize cars are once again selling well even with V8s - however, if the value of the car and its parts are both important to the studio, so must the value of its fuel be.
Comfort
Both the actors and the real-life character wouldn’t want a car that really breaks their spines, especially for a performance envelope that doesn’t require low-profile 16in wheels or harsh springs. Keep it Yankee-soft, y’all.
Safety
A safer car means less stunt driver and, God forbid, cast member injuries. While it’s not as high a priority as the other criteria on here, it certainly won’t hurt.
Performance
While extremely quick cars explicitly won’t be rewarded, inadequacy will absolutely be punished. If you can’t easily outrun a Lincoln Continental Diesel, you’ve done something wrong. It’s the 80s, not the 60s; sped-up footage is no longer acceptable to create chase scenes.
. .
Sportiness
The car doesn’t need to be sporty at all from a plot point of view - but it’s a small bonus if it handles well enough at the limit to ease the few stunts it will be doing.
Offroad
Continuing on from the EnvRes priority: New York City and New York State are not exactly warm cities. Offroad and maybe the snow part of the traction tests will be factored into judging to gauge operability in inclement weather.
Note: If a stat or aspect of the car is not listed here, that’s no reason to dump it to salvage the other stats. Eventually - and doubly so for the finals - the cars will be judged holistically, and any shortcomings your cars may have will bubble to the surface. You all have been warned.
INSPIRATIONS
Dodge 600
Peugeot 505
Buick Regal
Ford LTD Crown Victoria
Pontiac 6000
Ford LTD (Yep!)
Mazda 929
Datsun Maxima
Chevrolet Malibu
SUBMISSION RULES
- Submissions open on March 13, 2026, 11:59 pm CDT (UTC-5)
- Submissions close on April 3, 2026, 11:59 pm CDT (UTC-5)
- The naming scheme is TMCC41 - (forum username) for the car model and engine family. Trim and variant are free.
- A complete submission includes a .car file sent to me - @Texaslav - via Discourse PM between the opening and closing of submissions, as well as a post in this thread with at least one picture of the car no later than 12 hours after the round closing.
- 3/12/2026: Removed CHMSL rule; Added extra rules on aspiration.
- 3/27/2026: Extended Deadline
