automationgame.com

In the business of selling real cars, brand reputation is a big thing. While I understand that some sort of brand reputation mechanic is going to be included, I'd like to suggest some ties to it.

Reputation should be based on these categories:
1. Reliability - average mtbf of cars in a given time period
2. Sportiness - average sport "feel" of the cars
3. Luxuriousness - average interior quality
4. Economy - average MPG or KM/L
5. Bias - some markets are biased toward their "domestics", and a penalty for brand reputation is applied. Or, a competing automaker from the same country/market gets a bad reputation, and some of that "negative" is applied to you.

Short-term profit vs. Long-term profit
Say a gas crisis hits when your big luxury sedan hits the market, it'll sell poorly, you'll take a hit to your "economy" rating, and your profits will go down. Assuming you have a choice, you may build or modify a car with the express intent of generating more money.
Things like:
1. Making the car difficult to work on, to increase dealer/shop revenue
2. Cheaping out on parts, reduce reliability, to increase part sales
3. Skimp on interior quality, to save money

All of these will generate short-term money, but hurt bran reputation, which would be somewhat tied to long-term profitability.

A couple of things have been discussed before.

Events like Oil crisis will be in the realistic tycoon game where they follow the course of history.
Of course an oil crisis will affect your sales.
Also, quality for interior and such will be taken care of during designing the car with the Quality-Tech slider. No need to make an extra option for that.

Brand reputation is a factor already to be put in the game. Use th search forum function to find some other topics about this.
Adding things like, making it difficult to work on the cars and cheaping out on parts, dont really seem to add a lot to the game in my opinion. I think by choosing the materials the car is built from is good enough.

I would think that the market for say a econo box would be more focused on fuel economy and service costs while say the full size market would be focused on luxury, and longevity of the car. The game should represent the different markets and their main focus. Lets say in the 40s the econo market would want super cheap cars and very low service costs, but if you make one for low price with higher quality then they ask for you get a boost to your reputation in that market for every one you sell. That would boost sales and your overall reputation as a quality manufacturer.

I'm pretty sure that's exactly what the devs are doing. You basically build up your reputation according to which market you serve, and if you serve them all above their standards, then you'll dominate your competition. That's why we got these ratings for our cars in the updates, the ones for tameness, sportiness, comfort, prestige, and safety - they all decide your companies reputation. It's up to you where you go with your cars.