Realistic Gta 5 Cars

[Deb Cartelli]

Aquestion many of us end up asking, even the most experienced among us. But whereas the most experienced among us might be caught up in some minor details, the inexperienced or uninformed among us might not even get the broad strokes correct.

What is historically accurate does not necessarily make for good cars in Automation and whats good in Automation is not necessarily historically accurate. As you get into the 1990s, this discrepancy narrows a lot but it can still be a problem.

I am going to start with an era that is beloved to most Americans and one of the most misunderstood when it comes to Automation. Because Automation ABHORS many realistic 1960s American designs. And you know something?

Steel was by and large the most common thing for in fact any car of any nationality of the 1960s to have its body work constructed from. This should be your default unless you have a really good, justified reason for it not to be.

Yes actually. They are actually one major class exception here that will justify aluminum body work. Because while formed aluminum is expensive and difficult to work, riveted sheet aluminum is dirt cheap. And light. So it was actually quite common for box trucks and panel vans of the era to use aluminum body work because sheet aluminum was inexpensive and the weight saved was weight you could use for cargo. And it saved on gas which commercial buyers sorta did care about.

Steel. Not much else to say. As I said before, some trucks and utility vehciles might have used galvanized or stainless steel but I am not to be quoted on that. The main reason you would use either of those is to prevent corrosion and improve vehicle longevity.

Mid engine? Not in any American production car at least but for limited production / concepts it might be appropriate. For instance, the Ford Mustang I concept car was mid engined as was the Ford GT40 race car that won at the 24 Hour Le Mans in 1966.

For utility and offroad vehicles, like trucks, vans, and Jeeps, solid axles were still very common for the front and either solid axle leaf or solid axle coil would be appropriate choices. As a note, solid axle leaf gives superior ride height and load capacity compared to coils in case you car about that . The typical linkage system used on coil spring suspensions generally makes it comfortable however.

Almost all American cars of the 1960s had solid axle rear suspensions, either coil or leaf spring. GM tended towards coil springs; Chrysler tended towards leaves but that is not so important. The point is they used solid axles.

And we made up for our valvetrain tech in displacement. Whereas the rest of the world considered 2.5L or about 150 cubic inches a larger engine, 2.5L was about as small as American engines got. More typically they would be between 3.0L and 4.5L (180 and 275 cid) for straight-6s and 4.0L and 8.0L (240 and 480 cid) for V8s.

Also, most American engines tended to use oversquare designs i.e. having a larger piston bore than stroke. Larger bore than stroke leads to smoother, higher revving engines, and allows for engines to be shorter which was crucial to 1960s American styling which needed low hood lines to achieve their desired look. Normally, the disparity between bore and stroke was only about 5-15 mm (1/5 to 3/5 of an inch) but some engines like the Ford 302 did have a much larger disparity of up to 25 mm (1 inch) with its 4.00 in bore and 3.00 inch stroke (101.6 x 76.2 mm).

Aluminum construction was seen in some early 1960s engines like the Buick 215 V8 (which later became the Rover V8 fyi) but the Buick 215 lasted only until 1963 at which point it was replaced by a conventional cast iron design. Even American sports cars used cast iron engines.

Carburetors were the law of the land. Now not literally of course, but fuel injection was basically just an experiment in the 1960s. Any road car would have a carburetor and it would be running rich. Because gas was cheap and richer mixture means more power!

That being said, American engines of the era were generally low revving. Chrysler slant-6s for instance redlined at like 4000 RPM. An American engine that revs over 5000 RPM in the 1960s would be an exception, not the rule.

TL;DR - SAE Gross horsepower is a rating method where the engine is rated out of the car and with ALL peripherals removed, and I mean ALL. No alternator, water pump, power steering, air-con compressor, exhaust, not even a fucking air filter. SAE Net ratings however, starting use in 1972, rate engines as they would be installed in the car i.e. with all normal peripherals that SAE gross allows omission of.

So the fact that this Carter AFB, 10.2:1 compression, Pontiac 400 recreation only makes 270 hp when it was advertised at 325 hp is no problem to realism at all because guess which method of rating Automation simulates? Thats right! SAE Net

This would be a typical American drivetrain. Almost all 1960s American cars were rear-wheel-drive with the only notable exceptions being the late 1960s Cadillac Eldorado and Oldsmobile Toronado, which were front-wheel-drive. Trucks, vans, and utility vehicles were usually also rear-wheel-drive but four-wheel-drive became common as an option or even a standard during this era for off-roaders and upper-trim trucks.

American cars often have long gearing. The final drive gears (set by the Top Speed setting) are typically between 2.5 and 4.0:1 and gear spacing is usually tight. If you find yourself going above 70 on the Spacing setting, I would be skeptical.

The first American road car to make radial tires standard was the 1970 Lincoln Mark III. Cross ply tires were favored for their inexpensive nature and comfort. Radial tires were an option on some higher-end makes, like the Lincoln Mark III, but in general, you should not be using radials on a 1960s American car.

This is in contrast to much of the rest of the world where radial tires started becoming common in the mid 1950s and another reason why faithful 1960s American designs are hated by Automation. Cross ply tires do not have good handling characteristics because they flex more and cannot be made low profile. Get used to 80 and 90 sidewall tires!

10 or 11 inch (250 - 275 mm) drum brakes were standard on all four wheels and usually also without a booster. Thats right. Manual shittastic brakes! Power brakes were often times still considered options as were disc brakes. And discs, although optional on many American cars starting in the mid 1960s, were usually only optional the front wheels. Some high-end performance cars did have 4-wheel disc brakes that but it was not common.

Not much to say here. Just basically that 1960s American cars typically did not have aerodynamic improvements like undertrays, wings, spoilers, or brake vents unless they were race cars. Top trim levels might have a spoiler and more attention paid to aerodynamic design, sure, but almost nothing else.

First of all, if you by the number of seat belts, many 1960s American cars are technically 4-seaters. Yes. The middle passenger did not have a seat belt. But we all know that is a ploy to allow the car to be classified as a 4-seater for safety regulations when really its a 6-seater because most American cars had bench seats.

That being said, small sportier makes like the Mustang or GTO did actually employ bucket seats in the front and were legitimately 4-seater cars since the rear bench would have recesses for the two passengers by the doors; the middle hump was not really intended as a seat. But it still could be.

Trucks were virtually always bench seats. Cargo vans might have bucket seats though since they would only seat a driver and a passenger and when forward control became a concept, the space usually occupied by a bench was instead occupied by an engine cover.

Power steering

Manual steering was still common in the 1960s especially on small cars but power steering was, however, normally an option. Mid size and large cars usually had power steering by default starting circa 1963.

American cars of the 1960s had sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooft suspension, typically between about 1.1 and 1.5 hz and often on the lower end of that range. The damping coefficients were similarly soft between like 0.2 and 0.3. Sports and race cars are a different story and will shoot for higher marks around 1.5 - 2.0 Hz, but for passenger cars, these are the targets to hit.

Sports and muscle cars commonly did include a sway bar standard, often trumpeted as improving handling and ride quality, the former of which though is dubious claim given the still prolific use of crossply tires and the natural front-heaviness of many such cars.

Even despite being rear wheel drive, American cars (apart from the Corvair ) will also understeer at their limits. This is true of almost all cars by the way, not just American ones. So make sure to have the car understeering.

Its complicated but I think biggest reason was that immediately Post-War, US manufacturers were run by old men in suits if you know what I mean. They were still being run by the goliaths who founded them.

The other big reason is the economics of the era. Conventional designers are cheaper to make and therefore cheaper to buy. And American families were large in the 1950s and 1960s because soldiers on deployment were trading one kind of action for another if you know what I mean - 3 to 5 years of pent-up sex drive. So they got home and screwed like rabbits.

So if someone HAD executed an innovative car properly, do you think it could have been revolutionary? For instance, if Honda designed an Accord ten years earlier and made it more American-sized, would it have been just as game-changing as it was during the oil crisis?

I love to discuss these sort of things. I found german and british manufacturers to be more american in the way they constructed their cars, might be related that Ford and GM both had subsidiaries there. Independent manufacturers were far more advanced by comparison.

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