History seems to have decided that the start of F&S’s identity crisis started with the launch of the Jikan supermini in '81 but it’s about time I set the record straight. I was there after all.
Take yourself back to '76, Gareth and Matthew were in their mid 70’s and sick of running an OEM and race team. Unfortunately they had no one to pass the joy and responsibility on to, I suppose they weren’t interested in spilling their seed and having a family. Pity, but looking back it gave F&S the opportunity for a serious cash injection. Barely a month on the market they had an offer too good to refuse from a well known Japanese engineering conglomerate. So they waved goodbye in middle of '77 and in came the new owners.
And this is when the excessive creativity began. The shed that we were operating from since '54 was turned into an actual factory, another was opened in Derby just for the Jikan, an engine R&D centre in Lougborough and beginning in '82 a Group C sports car team.
But just before the founders left, we greenlit the MKIII Rattler. And for the first time we had two models, the base Sport and the top spec Turbo. The SOHC 6 was refreshed, out went the back seats and the end result was…well I wont spoil the surprise. It was my first project as the new chief engineer and the last of our cars to have 6 cylinders - the Group C V10 started a still going obsession with 5’s and 10’s.
It was also the only Rattler we didn’t race. Group C ate all our trackside efforts so we hoped Hollywood would fall in love just like they did with the MKII. That was the plan…anyway…
The 1980s were a make or break time for all Arlington-owned brands, with the digital fuel injection revolution in full swing in both Europe and North America. Waldersee, the German-based European division of Arlington, were hard at work redesigning their paramount product, the Ritter, which had captured many a German and Swedish heart with its second generation but had a disappointing third.
This new, fourth Ritter was the second Waldersee car to be blessed with Arlington and Waldersee’s new, international family of inline engines; each had an iron block and an aluminum 3-valve/cyl head, plus digitally-controlled port injection. Suspension was a simple, reliable struts/semi-trailing layout, and the longitudinal engine position also remained unchanged.
Owing to the model line’s popularity in some northern markets, the 1984 Ritter was the launch vehicle for Waldersee’s proprietary TRA all-wheel drive with Torsen center differential. These cars were lifted compared with rear-drive models and fitted with protected undersides. Using the pedigree of the Ritter rather than any rally legends, Waldersee tried to market the capable but pricey Ritter allroader wagons to safety-conscious or intercity-driving Scandinavian and north German families.
This Ritter is pretty much a ‘base’ TRA model: 2.3-liter five-cylinder with 140 hp (Hence T23TRA), five-speed manual, in fact, pretty much everything is manual. Rather than being a mighty sleeper beast (though such a variation also existed as the T32), the Ritter was now marketed as the entry-level premium car that ate sticky situations for breakfast. And unlike the 28i from last round, it can eat hammers and still run.
As the two oil crises receded further and further into the memories of motorists everywhere, demand for affordable performance cars began to pick up again. Predictably, in 1985, KAI entered this market sector with a small and light sports coupe - the K180. The example shown here is the range-topping K180 Turbo, powered by a 1.8-litre 16-valve DOHC turbocharged inline-four developing 180 horsepower with a catalytic converter, or 195 without.
Aerodynamic styling, an agile rear-drive chassis, sprightly performance and a decent amount of standard equipment (including a limited-slip differential) made it a popular choice among enthusiasts on a budget. The later K200 Evolution version boasted a larger 2.0-liter engine developing 200 horsepower with a catalytic converter (or 210 without) and a beefier LSD, but the original K180 Turbo deserves some credit for getting the ball rolling, and restoring the company’s faith in performance cars.
Wouldn’t the company in question be able to just take off/not install the converters in cars destined for Sweden? Or did they not realize back then that lead hurts cats?
A third party importer could not register a car that didn’t comply with the (utterly stupid) Swedish emissions regulations. And to be fair, I actually guess that the regulations would have to be met WITHOUT a cat, since such one would have been really short lived with our leaded gas.
Seriously, I am usually very relaxed about such rules both when it comes to other competitions and to reviews for the TJ magazine. Now, this is something that I saw as an opportunity to make it a bit challenging to fulfill all the stupid regulations (that has always been a challenge for the real automakers too). So maybe I am a bit anal about what seems like stupid things, but why not just accept them for once? I doubt that I will care very much in future competitions anyway.
If it clashes with your lore, just make a clone of the engine variant without a cat, send that one to me, how hard can that be?
If the problem is that you are not able to meet the (quite generous actually, I could have been stricter but why kill all the fun) emissions standards without a cat, @interior , I have a suggestion for you. I am not trying to be a jerk now but one tip is to not drown the engine in fuel like you very often do. This is nothing personal but actually just a suggestion that I am trying to be helpful with. I have recieved more than one car from you where the engine tuning is very much off. Cars that can have quite complex choices of fuel system considering their era and price class, and yet they gulps gas like a thirsty hippo without having a power output that justifies that. If the problem is that you can’t meet the regulations with no cat, see this challenge as a golden opportunity to learn more about engine tuning, because if you want to, it is very much possible to succeed, just fiddle with the engine until it can pass regulations. Remember again, I am not trying to bully you, TBH I suck at engineering cars, but I still think that it is only positive if we can help each other out with what we actually know in this community, even if it involves being brutally honest.
If my rant was totally unnecessary because you are able to meet the restrictions without a cat, I honestly can’t see the problem in just cloning the engine variant and removing the cat.
Idea: If the emissions regulations are successfully met without a converter, but the poster decides to put one on anyway for lore reasons, is there any harm in that?
As long as they communicate they are doing this, it could be tested quite easily by removing the cat and seeing if it’s still good.
True, but if we see it in another way, what would anyone gain by doing this, what would the difference be other than the fact that I will have to fiddle with other peoples engines when they could as well send one in that is already fulfilling the regulations?
My two cents: I have made a full true to life replica of a Group B engine, performance and all, no cat, and emissions were like 1600. So the 6000 emissions limit is very generous IMO. You get better flow - so better performance - without a cat, so I really don’t see why people are so attached to it? Just rip it out and retune the exhaust if necessary.
I see the “it doesn’t fit my lore” argument… but counter argument is that you gotta adjust to the lore presented in this challenge, which is “selling a car in Sweden (as best as it can be modelled in the game for this challenge)”.
“HI there, host. What is the harm in allowing a user to violate your rules and make you alter their submission to see if it fits the rules anyway?”
The burden is on the submitter to conform to the rules of the contest, not make the host do extra work to make a non-compliant submission fit the rules. The harm is setting the expectation that hosts can/should do this in the future.
You can even include creative means / reasons to adjust a ‘stock’ production car for a specific market into the story. I was surprised how much I enjoyed that aspect in Vic’s past CoP challenge.
The NC (which stands for ‘Nueva Corbeta’) along with the NG, were the next generations of ITA’s models. They were created to replace the aging Goleta III and the venerable Corbeta (which maintained it’s antiquated chassis and body since it was launched in 1968). The NG was launched in 1980, and the NC the next year.
Learning from previous experiences with the Corbeta, the NC was designed from inside out. With a new 3L V6 with MFI, developing 170hp, and hydropneumatic suspension, it aimed at the mid-size luxury sedan market, which was growing exponetially. Although the NC was considerably shorter than the Corbeta, the wheelbase was roughly the same, granting considerable improvements to drivability and confort.
Design-wise, the NC stood out from the competition. Aerodynamyc shape, integrated and painted bumpers, fold-down headlights with hidden washers, among other characteristics, showed the importance ITA gave to this model. After all, it was expected to compete with the top brands in Europe.
Sadly, the car came to be during turbulent times. In 1982, the Falklands conflict severely damaged exports. Although production went on, most of the cars ended up on Argentina, where it didn’t sell well due to the high cost of production.
