Confessions of an Automationeer, Part 32: Building for the Bargain Basement

Confessions of an Automationeer, Part 32: Building for the Bargain Basement

Even though my favorite cars to build in Automation are often performance cars, especially supercars and hypercars, they are by no means the only types of vehicles that can be built in the game's car designer. In fact, the vast majority of forum challenges tend to feature much more affordable mass-market machinery. CSR63 is a case in point, since the entrants for that particular round of CSR were tasked with building an early-00s entry-level commuter car for developing markets costing no more than $8000 after the addition of a 10% markup. Thus, the pre-markup price could be no higher than $7200. With such a tight budget, it was nigh-on impossible to design, build and submit a car built to Western standards, and so many sacrifices would have to be made for the sake of eligibility.

My entry, the LAP LQ1, was built with a low asking price in mind - $7700 to be exact. Despite only having a simple single-point injection system for its engine and a four-speed gearbox, it had a fully rustproofed bodyshell and chassis, something that several other entrants' cars lacked. Even at such a low price, this tiny subcompact also came with a basic stereo. Without it, it would have been a rolling torture chamber. And while it did not have rear disc brakes or driving aids, few would expect such a cheap car to have any of these items, even though they would be useful at times.

Cheap yet surprisingly cheerful inside and out - the LQ1 in a nutshell. Or is it?

Despite the (en)forced cost-cutting measures I took, the LQ1 made it easily to the second round of judging, where the remaining contenders would be test-driven. The resulting review of the LQ1 was quite favorable; in fact, the only reason why it wasn't a finalist was the fact that ABS was merely optional instead of standard, and was omitted on the test example to save costs. Other than that, it was merely an average performer, with nothing that stood out in the buyer's view.

This round reminded me of CSR32, which also required entrants to build an entry-level car, but used the Kee engine and was set a whole decade later. Due primarily to the very tight budget for the era ($11000 including a 20% markup), I felt that I could not build an eligible car back then, and so decided to skip that round. Recently, however, I attempted to build a car that conformed to the very strict rules for that round. What I ended up with was a car that was indeed eligible, but only just, and even then, it wouldn't have been very competitive in most respects. In particular, getting the car to return >47 US mpg (the required minimum value) would have been a struggle, even with direct injection, and when all was said and done, it barely exceeded that threshold.

Another Kee-era round with a similar premise was CSR54, in which the trim year for entries had to be set to 1985. This time, I actually submitted an entry, and despite only having average fuel economy, it did reasonably well, although in most respects (except for its surprisingly good performance) it did not offer much of an advantage over its rivals. However, given that I already made a recap of that round, I will not describe it further in this post.

In short, designing a budget car in Automation is challenging, but it will also be enjoyable - if you are prepared to cut costs and make sensible choices in the design and engineering phase. However, the extra possibilities in the UE4 version have made the idea of developing such cheap and (hopefully) cheerful machinery much more attractive than it once was. For the next post in this series, I'll elaborate on how CSR became a giant free-for-all. Stay tuned!