Wed Aug 21, 2013 5:30 am by Der Bayer
Company image will be in for sure because this is one of the most important influences on the customers.
Car shows could be an alternative marketing method for the cars which will go in production soon, boosting demand for that model. I'm not sure about concept cars though. They could boost interest in your brand (like newspaper and TV ads), but how would you take the specific attributes of the concept car into account?
This question made me think of this: Concept cars have to be extreme in some regard (for example better performance stats than usual, cheaper than usual, more space than usual, more luxury stuff than usual...). So they could boost your brand image in one specific direction. If you are known for building luxury cars and build a concept car which is even more comfy than the ones on the market, but you don't want to sell it because it's totally expensive, it could boost your reputation for being able to produce even more luxurious cars.
So the game somehow has to determine what is special and what is not. Here Tech Pool can be interesting: Focussing on specific tech (such as fuel systems, top end or - to keep the example - interior choices) can easily be detected by the game. If you build a concept car which features "future" tech, which you unlocked by research and your opponents do not yet have access to, it's considered as revolutionary. The good thing here is: To get it in production and reliable, you have to spend more money (or tech pool) on it. That might not be possible because the car might become too expensive. But you could still show off what you can do at car shows! No one will be able to notice that your new stuff breaks down after two days. So you can use your recently researched stuff to push your reputation and don't have to build a production car yet. This could be a pretty interesting gameplay mechanic and would make the potential benefit of R&D bigger. You of course would have to pay for the concept car and the area at the car show then, so it would be an interesting choice to pay for room for your concept car and/or for your new production models.
Third party comparisons (aka car magazines): Definitely would be nice to have. The problem here is to develop a system which puts your car into car classes, which the game as it is planned right now probably will not do. Right now, it is planned to have many different groups of customers with different needs. They don't say: "I want a small hatchback!" but more like "I want a cheap and economical car with some space for stuff, reliability and a bit of comfort". If it is possible to reliably pidgeonhole cars in their car class, it would not be a big deal to have some fictional car magazines (with different foci) in the game.
