Confessions of an Automationeer, Part 73: Supernatural Beings
A recent visit of the Community Redesign Centre thread revealed a few cars from other users that I realized could do with a visual and/or mechanical makeover. Among them was the Di Inferi Ozen Coupe, a two-seat grand tourer that thought it was an actual supercar. So I set about turning it into one - or at least, that was the theory. The result turned out to be much better than I expected - and here's why.
My first job was to fix the Ozen's minimalist aesthetic. For starters, the proportions of some of its frontal features seemed off, to say the least. Specifically, the main grille, side intakes and headlights were all too deep, giving the car an exaggerated and somewhat cartoonish face. So I made them slimmer, as well as adding a lower grille between the side intakes. I also added a hood bulge between the engine bay cooling vents.
Along the flanks, I swapped the stock mirrors for larger items and flipped the brake cooling vents upside down, while also adding a set of side indicators. At the rear, I moved the rear window line further forward to replace the original car's hunchbacked look with something more reminiscent of a jet fighter's canopy. In addition, I reshaped the rear fascia to accommodate a pair of rear fog lights, replaced the exterior color with a brighter solid blue, and changed the wheel design to a dual five-spoke arrangement.
Under the skin, the changes were even more significant. The original engine was a twin-turbocharged V8 with a conventional cross-plane crankshaft, but in a nod to the purist ethos I was pursuing, it was converted to a naturally-aspirated flat-plane unit delivering 540 horsepower - still sufficient given that the Ozen would end up lighter than it once was. Moreover, the stock dual-clutch transmission made way for a six-speed manual gearbox with a shorter final drive ratio.
Power is nothing without control, however, so I gave the Ozen a set of wider tires (by 5 mm at each corner) and retuned the brakes by resizing the rotors at the front and rear, while also changing the brake bias to suit the new setup. To complement this, I made some aerodynamic adjustments that would work in conjunction with the suspension tune I had planned for the Ozen. Speaking of which, I decided to go for fixed-rate steel springs in place of the original car's active setup, and tuned it to provide more responsive handling.
Given that the Ozen was meant to be a premium sports car, I deemed it necessary to install safety and infotainment systems commensurate with its positioning in the market place. To that end, I upgraded the safety suite to a more advanced setup and swapped the stock infotainment for a true premium system. No further trim changes were required, however - a testament to the Ozen being originally built on a sound set of underpinnings.
All these changes made the Ozen more of a purist's machine than before. As such, I called my version the Supernatural, in reference to its naturally aspirated engine. It was certainly slower than the original version, but it had a much more old-school, analog feel in comparison - something rarely found in modern performance cars.
Above and top: The Di Inferi Ozen in its original form.
My first job was to fix the Ozen's minimalist aesthetic. For starters, the proportions of some of its frontal features seemed off, to say the least. Specifically, the main grille, side intakes and headlights were all too deep, giving the car an exaggerated and somewhat cartoonish face. So I made them slimmer, as well as adding a lower grille between the side intakes. I also added a hood bulge between the engine bay cooling vents.
The revamped nose of the Ozen, with a smaller grille making it look less like a caricature of a sports car.
Along the flanks, I swapped the stock mirrors for larger items and flipped the brake cooling vents upside down, while also adding a set of side indicators. At the rear, I moved the rear window line further forward to replace the original car's hunchbacked look with something more reminiscent of a jet fighter's canopy. In addition, I reshaped the rear fascia to accommodate a pair of rear fog lights, replaced the exterior color with a brighter solid blue, and changed the wheel design to a dual five-spoke arrangement.
The side profile of the redesigned Ozen, with a shorter glasshouse and flipped side vents.
Under the skin, the changes were even more significant. The original engine was a twin-turbocharged V8 with a conventional cross-plane crankshaft, but in a nod to the purist ethos I was pursuing, it was converted to a naturally-aspirated flat-plane unit delivering 540 horsepower - still sufficient given that the Ozen would end up lighter than it once was. Moreover, the stock dual-clutch transmission made way for a six-speed manual gearbox with a shorter final drive ratio.
Power is nothing without control, however, so I gave the Ozen a set of wider tires (by 5 mm at each corner) and retuned the brakes by resizing the rotors at the front and rear, while also changing the brake bias to suit the new setup. To complement this, I made some aerodynamic adjustments that would work in conjunction with the suspension tune I had planned for the Ozen. Speaking of which, I decided to go for fixed-rate steel springs in place of the original car's active setup, and tuned it to provide more responsive handling.
Given that the Ozen was meant to be a premium sports car, I deemed it necessary to install safety and infotainment systems commensurate with its positioning in the market place. To that end, I upgraded the safety suite to a more advanced setup and swapped the stock infotainment for a true premium system. No further trim changes were required, however - a testament to the Ozen being originally built on a sound set of underpinnings.
All these changes made the Ozen more of a purist's machine than before. As such, I called my version the Supernatural, in reference to its naturally aspirated engine. It was certainly slower than the original version, but it had a much more old-school, analog feel in comparison - something rarely found in modern performance cars.
This is the view you'll see of the Ozen Supernatural as it overtakes you on the road - but not for long.
This was quite a fun project for me to undertake, helped in part by the car not having a very large number of fixtures for me to work with. In truth, I have already carried out similar turbo-to-atmospheric conversions on a few other cars, either of my own design or sourced from other users, but this was my most satisfying one to date.
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