An illness destroyed my plans for a weekend and I got so bored that I have started working on a mod despite I was not planning any new mods. A few years ago I visited a technical museum in Brno and learnt about a defunct Czechoslovak manufacturer, which built some really cool FWD budget cars in 1930s. The cars had a completely independent suspension and a rack-and-pinion steering which is ideal for LFS physics. Therefore, I decided to recreate an endurance rally version, which won the 1100cc class of the famous 1000 miles of Czechoslovakia race back in 1934.

The progress is extremely fast, because both the visuals and the physics of the car is really simple and a lot of tricks and details were reused from my older works. I was not able to find any blueprints, therefore model is approximated according to some historic photos and photos of IRL replicas (only five racing cars were made and none of them survived till today).

Progress: finished 3D work, fixed smoothing groups, added minor interior details, movable wipers and historic retractable side indicators. Defined suspension according to bare chassis photos and technical drawing from a user manual (the racing version had stock chassis with tuned engine and extremely light aluminium body). Various sources state different specifications. Top speed ranges between 130 and 150 kph, engine specs ranges between 26 and 38 kW and I found three different weights: 510, 620 and 800 kg. I have decided to tune the 2-cylinder 2-stroke 981cc engine to 34.6 kW which I think is a good compromise (tops about 140-145 kph). The 510 kg is too light, because the stock chassis without body had 500 kg according to the manual. The value 800 kg is too heavy, because it is a weight of a stock car. Therefore I have decided to use the 620 kg as the optimal value. The physics of the car is crazy - it is different from any LFS mod I have tried. Despite those funny tires, it is agile but sometimes it just oversteers without any warning. I will have to tune it a little. The force feedback feels realistic (the car has almost zero feedback and does not kick much even when punished by some horrible potholes).

Progress: started with mappings and textures. Generated interior cloth textures using basic Gimp patterns and crafted a wooden materials from a photo of my new wooden cupboard.

Progress: more textures. Added a skin support and aligned movable windshield wipers with a translucent dirty texture.

Progress: created LOD2, LOD3, a steering animation, a wheel texture and some dirty racing skins. The mod is almost done.

There is still an issue with a sudden oversteer, but the mod is finally released for public review and testing. Color combinations are fictional, because none of the cars survived till now and I was not able to find any data about the original colors. The replica cars are silver, but according to the old grayscale photos, it was something darker. The only colorful image I have found is a painting from a "technical atlas" of an old ABC (a classic Czechoslovak magazine). Therefore, the green color could be accurate.

the dirty skin looks so cool, perfect for rally

Quote from Epicproes :

the dirty skin looks so cool, perfect for rally

Thanks IRL these cars were designed for long-range races which used ordinary roads. And most roads were dirt roads back in the 1930s, so the cars got really dirty during races.


Image source: https://auta5p.eu