Confessions of an Automationeer, Part 20: Anikatian Taxis

Confessions of an Automationeer, Part 20: Anikatian Taxis

CSR48 set new standards in story-writing and real-world relevance. In a nutshell, it was another period piece, and the winners of this round nailed the brief for it better than the opposition. So, without further ado, here is how it unfolded. This time, however, I will cut to the chase and briefly summarize CSR, without too many frills in the write-up.

CSR48 brought back pleasant memories for me; it had echoes of CSR27, in which the task was to submit a police cruiser for a small city's police department as a replacement for their existing fleet. To that end, CSR48 had a similar premise, except that instead of a police department, a national taxi company was requesting new vehicles for the 2001 model year. Given that the company in question was located in the newly democratic fictional country of Anikatia, the cars not only had to be durable, but also highly affordable. And with the fleet split into three divisions (general-purpose cars, large vans with more seats, and upmarket deluxe taxis), finding a business plan would possibly be more challenging than expected.

I wasted no time creating an entry, and true to form, threw the kitchen sink at it by giving it a direct-injected turbocharged engine with a water-to-air intercooler. The resulting car, the Fleet Industries Wayfarer, was a whopping 15 years ahead of its time, with its emphasis on downsizing and economy. It was cheap, too, but would it be enough?

The Wayfarer - the future of fleet vehicles? Not quite.

As it turned out, it wasn't. It was immediately rejected during the first round of cuts for being too complex in a round focused on mechanical simplicity. However, many other promising entries suffered the same fate, either for this reason alone, or for simply being too expensive, or both. Likewise, anything that wasn't comfortable enough for its business plan ended up being given the cold shoulder. By the end of the first round of cuts, just ten entries were left, but the elimination process had only just begun - and it would get even tougher from there.

The vans that didn't quite make it: the Curtis and TV1 SF-8

Of these, just three cars were deemed worthy of being suitable replacements for the national fleet; the rest were not quite as comfortable and/or affordable long-term as the fleet manager had hoped. This left a trio of vans, all of which were spacious enough to replace every regular and jumbo taxi in the fleet, along with most of the deluxe taxis. In the end, after a long, agonizing decision, the Ouarzazate (named after a Moroccan city) was declared the winner, but only just; the Curtis was more comfortable (although it was more expensive in the long run) and the TV1 SF-8 more advanced (but not too advanced). The Ouarzazate was so well-rounded in all aspects that the opposition hardly stood a chance.

The Ouarzazate - Cheap, efficient, reliable and spacious enough to be the new mainstay of the Anikatian taxi fleet.

Thus ended one of the few fleet-themed rounds in the history of CSR. But the next three rounds, also period pieces, would raise the bar even higher in all respects... A summary of those, however, will have to wait until my next post.