Low score for US-style family cars.

[Raticon]

I am trying to make a US-style family car from the 70's/80's but i can't get it right and i'm looking for tips. I can make decent/good variants with 120+ in score in my target category out of most cars but here i'm at a loss.

I get all the signature things of the place and era.
Big n' lazy V8 around 5 - 6 Litres, 3 speed slushbox with "adequate" gearing, solid coil axle rear and McPherson up front. Tune the suspension between comfort and drivability and put some basic/standard interior and 8-track or AM radio in there, and i struggle to get over 90-ish score in "family" basically however i tune it, but i get decent scores in "Family premium" and sometimes "family sport". It's quite easy to get a decent "family utility" out of a wagon with a V8 or V6 though.

If i change the engine to an I4 or Boxer 4 the score comes up quite a bit though. Does the game always calculate V8's as more of a "premium" engine regardless of the tuning and you are supposed to go for a smaller engine for everything below premium segments?

Oh and the typical Gasmean family also seem to loathe any car with a 3-seat bench up front and seem more happy with a 2+3 setup for some reason. When i think about it, i don't think i've ever seen any car get a better market score when installed with a front bench seat. Why is that so?

[Killrob]

Yes, V8s are more prestigious and only fit the Family Premium segment, which you would see reasonably high scores for with luxury interior / premium entertainment. Try to go with Premium interior, standard entertainment and an I6, that should help.

Regarding the seating, I want to pose a counter question: what are the benefits of a front bench in your opinion? I can think of a lot of negatives, but the only positives that come to mind are "1 more seat".

[Raticon]

Thank you. Will try out a big lazy I6 instead and go from there.

I don't personally think of any major advantage of a bench more than basically just 1 more seat, no. but considering how prevalent they were in larger cars (mainly US ones) in earlier days i figured the average car buyer then must have seen it as a big benefit, or they wouldn't have stuck benches into almost every car that wasn't a sports car over there.

There isn't anything wrong with the game as such, it's just me trying too hard to apply the real world logic of the average joe in 1979 apparently detesting the thought of a family car that didn't have a front bench, big V8 and a column shifted automatic into the designs in the game.

Looking forward to the next GETD!

[Pete]

The US car market has never been driven by what works best. Fashion, and what big car manufacturers are able to produce extremely cheaply, has always had more influence. Technical advances, like the Buick alloy v8, withered on the vine because it was a little more expensive to make, and in an already grossly overweight car, does it REALLY matter if the engine is heavier or lighter?

The Buick v8 is a great example, since it eventually found enormous success in the UK as the Rover v8, and got sold back to the Americans packaged in RangeRovers, as a premimum product.

The US design philosophy was to try and reuse the same iron v8 and live axle in every model, stack em high, sell em cheap, and make money on the sheer numbers.

A lot of it comes down to fuel prices. Where fuel is expensive, spending a little more money on a family car with more advanced engineering makes economic sense. It pays for itself quickly.

I will say that in game, the various countries seem to be a bit too similar in their tastes. It is too easy to make something that sells everywhere. I have mentioned before that its possible to get a 4 cylinder FWD car to sell as a muscle car, so I think the various markets need more complex demands. Why shouldn't one country have low avaliability of high octane fuel, much less concern for fuel economy, a preference for much larger cars in almost every category, and a preference for v8s and large displacements regardless of other factors? That would be great for people that want to build classic american stuff.

Perhaps the car stats should be calculated seperately for each country? Prestige, comfort, and drivability are pretty subjective anyway, and could have totally different criteria in different nations.

Oh, and the benefits of bench seats in the front are twofold. Firstly, in pre seatbelt days, you can cram more than 3 people in, especially children. The other benefit is when combined with a lack of centre console or gear stick, you can easily slide over the seat and exit by the passenger door. This adds a little bit to the practicality of any car, because you can exit on the kerb side, avoiding opening a door into a busy road. This is a selling point for delivery vehicles. Even now, many vans have the gear stick coming out of the dashboard, just to make it feasible to move over to the passenger side.

So, less comfort, more utility. Should be prefered for delivery and budget utility vehicles.

[dogwalker1]

Originally posted by Pete:

Oh, and the benefits of bench seats in the front are twofold. Firstly, in pre seatbelt days, you can cram more than 3 people in, especially children. The other benefit is when combined with a lack of centre console or gear stick, you can easily slide over the seat and exit by the passenger door. This adds a little bit to the practicality of any car, because you can exit on the kerb side, avoiding opening a door into a busy road. This is a selling point for delivery vehicles.

They could also be more practical when dating (anyone remember drive-ins?)

[Killrob]

The difference (factors) in game between 2 seats front and 3 seats front is as follows (and I think this is an accurate representation of reality:
2 Full Seats: 1.00 Sportiness, 1.00 Comfort, 1.00 Prestige, 1.00 Safety, 5 Base Practicality, 0.7 Engineering Time
3 Bench Seats: 0.98 Sportiness, 0.95 Comfort, 0.95 Prestige, 0.90 Safety, 7 Base Practicality, 1.0 Engineering Time

I.e. it does what you'd expect: more practicality and an additional seat. I think many reason along the lines of "it did exist, so it must be good", nah, I disagree with that. :P One thing that might need looking into is giving more practicality bonus for more seats, but that is already part of it anyway.

[accent]

The main point to take from that is, just because real cars were made a certain way doesn't mean that was actually the best way to do things. Good marketing and brand building and efficient production facilities to cut costs will also have a role in it, so cars don't necessarily have to always be super good, but that side of it is not in the game yet.

[Raticon]

Those calculations look decent for the front seats, and the added engineering time seems accurate as i assume a bench is more expensive than 2 simple seats, but i agree it needs a slight bump upwards for practicality, and sportiness could easily go down to 0.90 or less in my book. The last time i did some "wild" cornering in a car with a bench seat i was skidding all over the bench. Not cool.

I'm also on assumtion that fashion must be the big player here, and no it's not really a matter of "it existed, it must be good", more like "almost every car in this era had it so people must have liked it". It's like wood paneling on big wagons, SUV's and minibuses in the same 70's/80's era, for some reason many people thought it was cool and got it, to the extent that if you imagine a 70's wagon you see those wood panels, but today you would be a laughing stock if you built a new crossover and slapped some (fake)wood on the side of the car.

I hope we'll have random events in the campaign that might tough upon "fashion and trends", so you'll probably get a random popup with something like:

"Bench seats are now all the rage in Fruinia, and every dealership get the question if their models come with a bench seat" (+10% desirability for cars with 3 front seats, -10% for 2 seats)"

or something for select car models like family, utility etc, and maybe a random 5-10 years later

"Bench seats are a thing of the past, and buyers are shunning cars with benches and opting for 2 seats instead" (-10% desirability for 3 seats front, +10% for 2 seats)

[bba525]

Originally posted by Killrob:

I think many reason along the lines of "it did exist, so it must be good", nah, I disagree with that. :P One thing that might need looking into is giving more practicality bonus for more seats, but that is already part of it anyway.

I think it's more the idea that "they whole sold a lot of them, so it must be good."

I grew up in that era, and people wanted cars that could seat 6 people in the 50's and early 60's in the USA. Other countries, not so much.