Would you buy a car like this?

Question

So for the last few days I've been drawing up designs for a car I'd like to make, and I was wondering what people think of it!

So it would be a rear-engine Sport Compact car. I would probably use a boxer engine and have an AWD drive-train. Hopefully something in the 150HP range with equal torque if the engine would be anything like a Subaru boxer.

It would be very versatile, with one base model with many optional add-on's!

I would also like to have a program where you could always upgrade your transmission or engine and then be allowed to sell them back to the company and then the company would refurbish them and sell them back as replacements and/or upgrades for other owners at a cheaper price.

I'd also design it to be compatable with a hydrogen fuel cell system, or at least have the right amount of space and hardware to accomodate one in the future!

It's a long shot, but I think I'll give it a go! When I'm out of college that is! I'll need investors!

Answer 1

Excellent, a fine example of "Peter Pan Engineering"...if you think happy thoughts, you can fly!

Edit: 5 stars for the word "crackpotish",  I like that!

Answer 2

Well, it's a bold idea, but sports car manufacturing is not an easy market to break into. The upfront costs are staggering, it takes years for even the largest companies like Subaru to design them, and modern techniques take extremely expensive machines to produce.

Your best bet to reach your goal would to be an automotive, aerospace or mechanical engineering degree. That would give you the grounding in materials and techniques and design that are imperative for a complex system like a unit-body car frame. Without this knowledge it'll never be built, not for mass production.

Answer 3

Car companies do lots of marketing research, and the answer to your question, "Would you buy a car like this", is no.  If enough people were interested in a car like that and the automakers could make a profit on it, then it would already exist.