818 renderings?

This car promises to be a great performer but the styling is extremely disappointing, especially after the fantastic proposals produced by the design competition, started early last year. Unfortunately, Dave Smith and the FFR folks ignored the results of all that and went with (in house) Jim S’s old tired design from months ago. Those of you who have followed the competition from the beginning know what I am talking about.

If you can imagine this car without all the racing graphics and cool paint scheme, it is nothing special, indeed it is a huge let-down and a wasted opportunity.

Furthermore, Dave had posted repeatedly that Jim’s design was dead and NOT going to be used. He did not tell the truth. There is no kind way to put this.

I have been part of the community discussion since the beginning on the FFR site but decided to drop out today after seeing the final image. (Subsequently, I have been banned over there for expressing this negative but honest opinion - a bit late since I already had dropped out :)

So be it. This car could have been exciting visually (and an original statement too) but that is not going to happen. If you don’t care about body styling then this is probably unimportant to you but if you do then this is a sad day. Moreover, it raises serious issues about the misleading statements coming from FFR about the body design. The truth matters.

I appreciate the update. I cant wait to see more video.

olpro wrote: This car promises to be a great performer but the styling is extremely disappointing, especially after the fantastic proposals produced by the design competition, started early last year. Unfortunately, Dave Smith and the FFR folks ignored the results of all that and went with (in house) Jim S’s old tired design from months ago. Those of you who have followed the competition from the beginning know what I am talking about. If you can imagine this car without all the racing graphics and cool paint scheme, it is nothing special, indeed it is a huge let-down and a wasted opportunity.

I think it looks great. Even in the picture without the racing graphics and cool paint scheme.

I think it looks better than most or all of the entries to the contest. As for "the truth matters", I guess we'll just all have to vote against FFR in the next election. Oh, no, wait...

All I'm going to say is that if I were to build one of these, it wouldn't be because of what it looks like, and that rendering does nothing to change that.

I want one bad.

That is tasty.

olpro wrote: This car promises to be a great performer but the styling is extremely disappointing, especially after the fantastic proposals produced by the design competition, started early last year. Unfortunately, Dave Smith and the FFR folks ignored the results of all that and went with (in house) Jim S’s old tired design from months ago. Those of you who have followed the competition from the beginning know what I am talking about. If you can imagine this car without all the racing graphics and cool paint scheme, it is nothing special, indeed it is a huge let-down and a wasted opportunity. Furthermore, Dave had posted repeatedly that Jim’s design was dead and NOT going to be used. He did not tell the truth. There is no kind way to put this. I have been part of the community discussion since the beginning on the FFR site but decided to drop out today after seeing the final image. (Subsequently, I have been banned over there for expressing this negative but honest opinion - a bit late since I already had dropped out :) So be it. This car could have been exciting visually (and an original statement too) but that is not going to happen. If you don’t care about body styling then this is probably unimportant to you but if you do then this is a sad day. Moreover, it raises serious issues about the misleading statements coming from FFR about the body design. The truth matters.

uh......what the hello kitty are you talking about?

In reply to JKleiner:

Wow, that's uh, not very... good? The naked frame looks amazing but that body looks nothing like the contest winner and is frankly, well, kit-car-ish. Looks like it's 15 years old already. Color me disappointed.

Certainly the realities of production dictate what can be done. That's why show cars never make it into production looking like they did when they were introduced. Many of the really cool looking contest entries just couldn't have been realistically produced. I give F5 credit for a simple clean shape that will lend itself to what each builder wants to create without being too radical or single purpose. Need to finish and clean up a few projects so I can start an 818!

In reply to Javelin:

Have to agree. I am sure the performance will be great but the styling is not inspiring. It looks nothing like any of the design concepts from the gallery let alone any of the winners. I guess I was completely misread the coverage in GRM that said they were using the top 3 submissions and then doing a 4th that was a combination of elements from the other submissions?

reminds me of the 999 motorsports car which I also happen to think is hideous

http://performancedrive.com.au/999motorsports-supersport-track-car/

In reply to Argo1:

It doesn't even look like they tried tho? Sure some things change from concept due to reality but if you can use the designs or had to deviate shouldn't you be honest about that with the people you were interacting with supposedly on the design?

I was at the reveal of the three 1/4 scale models that resulted from the design competition. Dave and Jim had their full-size mockup of this thing in the next room. In person, it had potential, but fell flat for me. I think I'm on video somewhere saying this had the most potential of the then-four designs. I stick by that. But that potential has not been realized. The rendering you see is an updated version of that months-old body.

I'll give Jim credit - one of my critiques of his design had to do with inconsistent styling around the side of the nose and that has been improved. Any more than that, I can't tell from this single picture.

What really needed to happen though was a more fundamental rework of the body design. To be honest, in person it lacked an overall artistic concept. It was an under-mixed amalgam of small design ideas that didn't really fit well together. Examples - the nose vents were lifted straight off the GTM, without being scaled to match the smaller body, or modified in any way to match the significantly different curves of the 818. Those rear wheel arches were, in person, massively out of scale, belying the featherweight concept of the 818(kg). And there were intakes and vents everywhere, to no purpose. Square vents next to curvy fenders. Inconsistent.

I too was initially hopeful when I looked at this rendering. It looks pretty kick-ass. But then you realize that the camera angle, massive wheels, fancy graphics, and lopped-off top serve to make the car appear lower, wider, and meaner than it actually is. The 818 has the issue of being a stubby, narrow little car, which is very hard to make "pop", unless you "cheat" by doing these visual tricks. It'll take a good design to light people's hair on fire without these cheats.

Render this in silver (or better yet, the flat gray primer/plastic that was on the mockup I saw) with realistic wheels, from a 5'6-5'10 eye point, and you'll see the vanilla in it. The overall picture is very important - designing it by looking at one corner at a time is how you get an ugly mishmash of conflicting ideas...

I'm really hopeful that the street design they release at SEMA is killer. But to be fair, there's been a lot of build up in this process, and the results haven't matched it.

olpro wrote: This car promises to be a great performer but the styling is extremely disappointing, especially after the fantastic proposals produced by the design competition, started early last year. Unfortunately, Dave Smith and the FFR folks ignored the results of all that and went with (in house) Jim S’s old tired design from months ago. Those of you who have followed the competition from the beginning know what I am talking about.

Not to be completely rude to a new guy around here but there is a major difference between whats possible in render software and whats actually possible to produce in fiberglass.

Heck some of those designs had negative mold space, non single piece mold plausibility and flat out weird geometry. I will take it all back, and you can complain here, when you actually build a car instead of talking about it on the internet then add in production and cost implementation. Its not like they paid you for your design work.

Rant off.

Also I like the design, specifically if the doors were glassed in and the cage stuck a bit more above rear. I hate doing doors on kit car, worst part of any build.

In reply to peter:

I like to see posts more along the lines of yours with specific constructive points where the design could be improved. I am sure that the design is not completely cut in stone at this point. They will be monitoring the feedback and usable suggestions might lead to some tweaks.

Well at first glance it looked very familiar and I was right.Take the headlights away and you have one of these.I'll Take the Porsche.

olpro wrote: Furthermore, Dave had posted repeatedly that Jim’s design was dead and NOT going to be used. He did not tell the truth. There is no kind way to put this. ... Moreover, it raises serious issues about the misleading statements coming from FFR about the body design. The truth matters.

I have often found myself agreeing with olpro over on the 818 forum, when I was active. He's not going to win any diplomacy awards, but if you can see past that, he has some valid inputs. And for those not in the know, he actually has designed actual cars, back in the day. Hence "ol pro".

Back to the point.

Dave Smith is a charismatic, enthusiastic car nut who runs a massively successful business. Completely awesome. But after drinking his Kool-Aid for a while, I've taken a step back a ways. This body was supposed to be dead, but SEMA is a long, long ways off, the FFR Open House is not, and the natives are restless. This dust-off is generating much-needed attention and hype for a project that must be successful.

I see the business sense in releasing this rendering, but as a potential buyer and having spent far too much time in and around the body design competition, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth that this zombie has been raised again. IIRC, the original was universally panned by the 818 community. Warming it over, adding graphics, and sending it back out comes across to me as either thinking little of your (potential) customers ability to digest car design, or wantonly ignoring them in the hopes of attracting more (potential) customers with a red herring.

I'd happily buy Dave a beer and sit around chatting about cars the next time I'm in his little corner of the world, but I don't trust his aesthetic judgements (and have told him so in person) and wonder why this image was released.

Argo1 wrote: I am sure that the design is not completely cut in stone at this point. They will be monitoring the feedback and usable suggestions might lead to some tweaks.

I believe that the "street" body, to be revealed at SEMA, is set in stone. I used to think that feedback and usable suggestions were taken seriously, but my confidence in that statement has been eroding for some time.

Glad you liked the post.

I really don't think the design is that bad. Of course, I haven't seen it in person or from other angles. As far as original designs from F5 it is a big leap forward from the mish mash warmed over GT40 copy GTM. That design leaves me flat.

I'm not wowed by the looks. In fact, put me in the disappointed camp. It doesn't look BAD per se, but I wouldn't put a poster of it in my shop.

I'm sure it will be a great drive, and that makes up for it to some degree, but it isn't cool enough for me to hunt down a wrecked wrex and pay that premium.

I have the utmost respect for Dave and his company, and I can't imagine how hard it would be to live up to the hype around this car's creation. If the media circus had never existed, I think we might all like this better than we do.

my $.02

In the beginning several said the body contest was just a poorly and thinly disguised marketing ploy. Looks like those guys were right.

A lot of people drank the kool-aid and FF got a lot of free publicity.

ultraclyde wrote: If the media circus had never existed, I think we might all like this better than we do.

This....it all boils down to peoples expectations, and meeting them (or not). In business, as crappy and underhanded as it may sound, Ive always tried to "underpromise and overdeliver". If they had simply said "Hey, were designing a new roadster to be built around an Imprezza drivetrain, and its gonna be small and fast", and left it at that, we'd all probably be in love with the renderings posted earlier...we had nothing "better" to compare it to. But having seen what was supposed to be the design inspiration beforehand during "the contest", we now all had (probably unreasonable and unrealistic) expectations about the car. I truly admire Factory Five for getting us all involved, it was a pretty great idea. I just hope it doesnt turn around and bite em in the hootus if the public doesnt feel the end result lives up to the hype.

I'm in the "eh..." camp. Mostly because I have zero interest in a roadster kit, so I'll reserve final judgement until a coupe version is shown.

I don't get it. You attach a hot Subaru engine and AWD to a lighter more enthusiast oriented package, but yet you make it into something that is aesthetically bland, and doesn't even look like it could go offroad?

I saw that some had proposed ideas of even copying a WRX/STI body with two doors and some aero mods.

Other concepts were more akin to a RS200 body.

I guess what Factory Five is thinking is that they sell lots of kits to guys who want a Cobra for none other than its body shape. The Mk4 Roadster has been incredibly successful, while the GTM gets forgotten.

They want something as cheap as the Roadster, but smaller, lighter, and likely just as much of a performer.

But they kinda lost another market opportunity...rally replicas. All of their current offerings are track cars. What about a dirt car?

Me no likey.

Jeepers guys. I understand what you're saying and agree to a certain point, but I also totally understand why a small volume manufacturer might go the "safe route". I expect the car to be attractive enough to 90 percent of the perspective buyers. That's as good as can reasonably be expected. They could take more risks and end up with a car that is passionately embraced by some and shunned by others sufficiently for the car to be an economic failure. In the long run that benefits nobody.

Honestly, the car will have performance characteristics unmatched at its price point. isn't that ultimately what's most important?

Now if I had my druthers, it'd look like the Mazda Furai....