Solstice Performance - "Hypernova"

[TofuWarrior]

"Hello, I represent Upshift Magazine. We at Upshift have been paying close attention to Solstice Performance as of late, and we would like to schedule an interview, if possible."

[Microwave]

Sure, feel free to PM me.

[Vri404]

Now, for a fancy gif.

Fancy

[TofuWarrior]

Anyone willing to do a crossover concept car with Solstice?

*raises hand*

[Oskiinus]

Anyone willing to do a crossover concept car with Solstice?

*raises hand*

*raises hand too*

[Microwave]

Something something 8.1 V8....

[Microwave]

Another little teaser thing for you. As the picture states, this model is known as the "Noble".
All I'm going to say for now is that it has 2 engine options; one of which is tame, one of which is batshit crazy.
Also as a sidenote, I do hope the photo feature ingame gets fixed ASAP, because it makes Photoshopping things ridiculously hard.

[Microwave]

//MOVED FROM OP//

Solstice Motors was founded by a few car enthusiasts somewhere in Lancashire, England in 1949. As much as these people loved cars, they found that there were never any cars that satisfied all their needs. They wanted a car that stood out, was practical and had a good amount of power being produced from nothing more than a 4 cylinder, so they tried to build a car that fit that criteria. They got together some of the best metal fabricators & mechanics that they could find and they set to work. They needed an identity, and the word "Solstice" came to mind. Thus, Solstice Motors was born.
After a year and a bit, their car (along with its engine) was ready. They lent the car out to various people and received mostly positive feedback. The car itself was far from perfect, but it was all they could do with their resources.



The Solstice Adze is the only Solstice car to ever have black as its base colour. In later years, all production cars come standard with white paint.




The Engine
The car's only engine is a 2499cc I-4 that produces 82.3 HP @ 3800 RPM & 123 ft-lb @ 3100 RPM, not bad for 1950.
It features a cast iron crank, has cast connecting rods and cast pistons, it uses a pushrod valvetrain, has a single barrel single carb, runs on regular leaded fuel and has a max RPM of 4000RPM.



The Car
The car has a steel ladder chassis, has front MacPherson struts and has rear leaf springs. All panels are also made of steel. It utilizes a 3 speed manual transmission. In 1950, this was the only transmission option available. In later years you could order a 2 speed automatic.
The Adze gets 24.7 MPG (UK), has a top speed of 95.9 MPH and gets from 0-62 some time in the distant future.

All things here add up to give it an MSRP of $659.20 (1950 price, of course. This price is equivalent to roughly $6510 today).

[Microwave]

The Solstice Equinox... more info coming soon.

[Speedemon]

HEY! You now have 1000 posts!

I can't tell really which car model that is. It looks a lot like the small 90's sedan or 90's/00's coupe.

[Microwave]

Not the Equinox yet, but I thought you'd all be more interested in this...

Presenting, the Solstice Hypernova.






Understand that this is the company's real first go at a hypercar.
Originally, this car was going to have a V-12 but this proved impossible due to engine bay space limitations. There was no compromise. Even if we removed the AWD system, our engine would still not fit. Because of this, we decided to power the car with a 3.5 Litre Twin-Turbo V8 engine, known as the "Flare". In the end, we managed to make the flare produce a similar amount of power that the planned 6 liter V12 would've.
(Sorry if my engine makes you cringe because of bad turbo tuning or something, even after two years some stats still confuse me)


The Hypernova is also the fastest car Solstice has ever built. While it may not be as fast around Green Hell as some of our competitors, it still is lightning fast by our own standards. This is partly due to the fancy new pushrod suspension system which makes our car slightly more aerodynamic. The airfield track time is also very impressive by our standards, as the Hypernova manages to get around the track 9 and a half seconds faster than the 6th gen Fleetwood concept.




And finally, market statistics. This car is (surprisingly) very competitive due to the fact that it would be priced at around $160000 which, all things considered, is a very good price for a car of this nature. We have done some calculations and we have predicted that we would be able to produce around 9 cars per day, which seems like a pretty reasonably amount. This means that the car is more than likely going to end up in production by mid 2016.



For those that are interested, here is the design menu. I really want to hear your opinions on this car, what you think about; the looks, performance, tuning and so on. Constructive criticism is welcome.

[strop]

Well now, this is like a breath of fresh air. I mean, there are a heap of aspiring super and hypercars around now, but for a company with an established track record elsewhere to take the plunge and come up with something decent is remarkable. In particular M-AWD format is actually a little trickier to engineer than MR. My own company is drafting up early prototypes of a similar thing for the first time (basically trying to go one up on the Rennen Kusanagi which it had a go at tuning, more on that later), and so I'm in a pretty good position to cast as critical an eye as possible on this one.

But first, the styling. I like what you've done with the side vents, and the touches consistent with the Solstice design language. I am however not entirely certain about it when it comes to the narrow headlights and tail-lights in the vent in that specific way. And the rear actually kind of reminds me of an aftermarket Scion FR-S, which I'm not sure is the effect you were after!

As for the performance: the engine has a pretty nice power curve to be honest (considering the current state of turbos in Automation that is). Compared to my 3.4L turbo V6, it's a bit less powerful and less reliable, heavier, a lot less economical, and more expensive... but also a lot smoother. I'm fairly sure that there's a little room to move if you want to tighten it up a bit. I'm also not convinced of the value of a 7 speed double clutch in a car that has a top speed of 216mph, unless one of the gears is an overdrive gear for economy purposes. It seems that your main issue is a lack of high speed downforce, which really puts a damper on the higher speed cornering and would shave quite a bit of time but at the expense of fuel economy and top speed. Are you also using active sports suspension? It's very good at making a car bridge the gap between the worlds of daily living and performance but for pure track times it's horrible because it's heavy.

Finally, what size factory do you use? My company can only ever use 'tiny' so even if my car's faster around the track, it ends up being a fair bit more expensive because of the extremely limited production. That said, I'm interested in taking a closer look and possibly putting it on a protein diet if you'd like LOL.

[Microwave]

Ok, I'll go through your comment in order here

- I decided to use M-AWD because I wanted a reason to have 700 horsepower, if it was MR it probably would've spun the tires half way round the track due to my poor tuning skills.

- Thanks for telling me what you think about the looks. To be perfectly honest, the main lights on the front and rear ended up looking like they did because I couldn't think of another design, also another reason being that I prefer my cars to look clean and simple, rather than total clusterfucks of fixtures.

- The engine is a bit laggy, which is of course the opposite of what I wanted. I'm feeling a bit dumb now because I just realised after reading your comment that I could've in fact used a V6, rather than a V8, which would've allowed me to have an engine with more displacement and less-laggy turbos (not to mention the weight and fuel economy benefits it would grant me). To be honest I'm probably gonna go make a V6 version right now and see how it performs compared to the V8 in a variety of different aspects.

- As for the gearbox, you're probably (definitely) right. I should've made 7th an overdrive gear because of the abysmal fuel economy it's currently getting.

- My car hasn't got any lips or wings, so I couldn't do much in terms of downforce. There aren't any spoilers in game that really suit the rear of the car. Also, whilst we're on the topic of aerodynamics, I don't really know what I'm doing when it comes to downforce (I get the basic idea) so I didn't want to play about with it too much.

- I think I set the factory to small 2 or 3, but don't quote me on that. 9 cars a day seemed appropriate for a car of this nature.

I'd be more than happy to send you a copy of the car, and I'll do just that in a sec. Thanks for your feedback, it's what motivates me to make and post new cars on the forums.

[Speedemon]

This is me:
Makes hyper car.
Goes to forum with confidence.
Sees what you made.
Confidence shattered and starts crying.

You make very competitive cars! I should probably just spend some time on automation just so that I can find out how to make cars like this.

BTW when is the next generation of the Fleetwood coming out?

[Microwave]

Lol, that is usually how I feel. This is my first attempt at a hypercar purely because there is a lack of hyper/supercar bodies in the game. Usually I load this body with the "I'm going to build a fuckin' rocket" mindset, I create half of the front fascia and decide that the body sucks and I don't wan't to finish it.

My advice to you and to everyone would be: just pick random vents and grilles, look at the way they are angled and try to find other vents those angles. After that, aim to make a common design language. I can't really describe it, but that's what I find to be the best way to go about making cars in Automation.

Anyway, as for the Fleetwood, there are no immediate plans to build a seventh generation. Although, if you would be willing to create a fanmade car...