
Home racing simulator to be designed by Aston Martin - wslh
https://www.curvrs.com/
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kempbellt
57k seems a bit steep for an Aston Martin product that doesn't actually drive
you anywhere. Fancy looking as it may be, I don't see how any enthusiast can't
make a similar or better version of this.

Unless there is something I'm missing, this product doesn't add any real value
over any other sims besides the brand's "cool" value and a sleek snowmobile
looking design.

~~~
perl4ever
Aston Martin is the car maker that rebadged a Toyota iQ as the "Cygnet", so
that their sports car customers could have an fuel efficient vehicle for city
driving. I gather the theory was some European cities restrict what cars can
enter based on emissions. They maybe were imagining it sort of like a yacht
tender.

Anyway, it was basically a cubic Toyota, for three times the usual price. They
didn't sell many.

~~~
mywittyname
I swear that, at one point, the Cygnet was included "free" with the purchase
of another Aston, maybe the V12 Vanquish or DBS, in an effort to improve the
company's emissions average. I remember this being in the news back when the
Cygnet was released, but I can't find any references to this anywhere.

~~~
dole
Basically entirely bought and rebadged just to "allow Aston Martin to comply
with the European Union’s fleet average emissions standards to take place in
2012." [1]

[1]:
[https://3automotive.wordpress.com/2011/01/26/1183/](https://3automotive.wordpress.com/2011/01/26/1183/)

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dharmab
I'm struggling to think who would buy this.

Home simracers would buy their own wheel, pedals, shifter and VR headset, and
pull a real seat from a junk car, for a total cost of a couple thousand
(including PC).

Professionals would probably build custom rigs.

~~~
notatoad
Saudi oil barons, movie stars, football players... people who have more money
than they know what to do with and think it would be cool.

at the price they're asking, they probably only need to sell a couple of units
to make it worthwhile. i'm guessing this operation is just one guy building
them, and the materials and shipping cost is 3-4 grand. depending on the aston
martin licensing fee, two units a year could be a decent business.

~~~
dharmab
Maybe they move you up the waiting list for one of the higher end cars if you
buy this?

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PragmaticPulp
Looks cool, but keep in mind that it's an extremely expensive luxury toy.

Getting started in simracing is as easy as buying a $200-400 wheel and pedals
setup like the Logitech G29.

Even a top end system with VR headset, direct drive wheel, and cockpit can be
had for about 10% the cost of this Aston Martin branded setup.

~~~
breakfastduck
Seems like the kind of item where if you're even concerned about what it costs
then you're likely not the target audience. I can't imagine they're going to
make that many of them.

~~~
mywittyname
But it's also the type of item, where, for the cost, you can get something 10x
better. A VRX costs about the same, and can be wrapped in Aston Martin livery,
but has hydraulics, multiple screens, and is really just a next-level
experience.

~~~
breakfastduck
The product is aimed at people where time has way more value than money,
though.

This will be delivered, perfectly constructed in a home where the cost of the
product is nothing for the owner compared to their wealth.

It's not for people whose actual hobby is racing sims, it's for a rich guy
that likes to play every now and again.

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mhh__
You too can now spend 50k to play AC:C and get smoked by a 12-year-old with a
G27.

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gregsadetsky
Many years ago, a car racing sim friend and I built a very DIY no frills
rocking chair that I hooked up to a sim. The racing sim was open enough that
you could output the lateral acceleration via serial port (I may have written
that serial glue code too)

The sim spoke to an Arduino that controlled a car window motor that rocked the
chair's seat (with a pot to encode the position and some limit switches at
either "end" of the motor's run). According to my racing sim friend, the
lateral Gs are one of the most crucial things to feel to get a physical hold
on what's going on with a car (if you're taking a curve too fast, etc.)

Video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sE-
NYWIl37M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sE-NYWIl37M) Photos:
[https://imgur.com/a/1k1mNac](https://imgur.com/a/1k1mNac)

Whenever I see typically expensive racing sim hardware setups, I wonder if
there could have been some potential in developing this idea further (I'm
comfortable enough with the electronics software side, but torque/motor
PID/etc. are well outside of anything I've worked on)

Anyone interested in collaborating? :-)

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in3d
The steering wheel looks awesome but for this price I’d expect the seat to
move to simulate G-forces. And VR would be more realistic.

~~~
mhh__
You could build (or get built for you) an full motion rig with all the bells
and whistles for probably at most half this amount.

Worth mentioning that they can't simulate G-forces as per se they just mimic
the motion of the car

~~~
leoedin
You can simulate G-forces in an enclosed simulator (it doesn't work if you can
see outside) - you're just limited to 1G.

I've flown a 737 simulator which tilted back to simulate takeoff thrust. It
felt eerily realistic

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whalesalad
Insert joke about the reliability of Aston Martin electronics.

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ryndbfsrw
Boy oh boy as a car enthusiast this stuff makes me nervous for Aston's future.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with brands having these separate businesses
by attaching their names to things( _ahem_ Ferrari aftershave), but Aston has
gone off the deep end in the past few years involving itself power-boats,
luxury high-rise buildings and all sorts of marketing schemes while its core
products have stagnated. These side-shows are an effortless way for companies
to fool themselves into thinking they are doing real work but, to me at least,
it looks like they have ignored their core products. The new DBX is promising,
but the Vantage is comically overpriced for its segment I don’t think their
DB11s are exactly walking out the showrooms

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dan1234
From some angles it reminds me of the Sinclair C5, which probably isn’t what
the designers were going for!

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_C5](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_C5)

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nickt
For about the price of a 2012 DB9 or Vantage.

~~~
ponker
The thing is that as a parent of small children I’d never feel comfortable
driving a real car 200mph as I can’t really risk my life like that, and am not
a thrill seeker. So doing it in game is actually preferable.

~~~
nickt
But an Aston at 30 mph is still a lovely thing.

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V6HBGNQHU
You could buy this racing sim or this 2014 Aston Martin Rapide S.

[https://www.livermorehonda.com/used/Aston+Martin/2014-Aston+...](https://www.livermorehonda.com/used/Aston+Martin/2014-Aston+Martin-
Rapide+S-8d11b09d0a0e0ae878bdca4f449ef609.htm)

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Severian
Luxury: I'm out.

I don't need luxury, I just need a reliable and precise steering wheel,
shifter, and pedal controllers. Everything else is just dressing. I can supply
the PC and monitors.

This doesn't even look like it has motion on the seat. For luxury I expect to
move a bit.

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rasz
Non VR, no seat power feedback, weaksauce.

This is what people are running at homes right now
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXGKdk6apRo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXGKdk6apRo)

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wslh
Starting from £57,500, relatively closer to buying an actual car?
[https://www.caranddriver.com/aston-
martin](https://www.caranddriver.com/aston-martin)

~~~
beenBoutIT
Not if you're interested in Formula 1 racing. The average price of an F1 car
engine alone is $10.5 million. [0][https://www.essentiallysports.com/formula-
one-car-cost/](https://www.essentiallysports.com/formula-one-car-cost/)

~~~
perl4ever
Racing is always expensive, but it's not all F1.

There's a well known racing series where nobody is allowed to spend more than
$500 on their car (excluding safety equipment), and someone actually entered
an Aston Martin once (sort of):

[https://24hoursoflemons.com/blog/aston-martin-db7-the-
half-a...](https://24hoursoflemons.com/blog/aston-martin-db7-the-half-asston-
is-a-lemons-supercar/)

General background:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/24_Hours_of_LeMons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/24_Hours_of_LeMons)

~~~
mywittyname
The Lemons rule is more in spirit than enforced. Someone on the team finds a
great deal on the $250 timing belt kit they need for the car, it was only $1.
The seller just happens to be another team mate.

Or, you know, they find a DB7 shell in a storage facility, spend the maximum
amount allowed on it while also getting a bunch of "extras" they can sell at a
profit, then bolt it up to the frame of an existing racecar.

~~~
perl4ever
Well, originally your car could be claimed for $500, so I guess the trick is
to build something nobody wants to buy for that much.

However, the stuff underneath obviously looks like it's worth way more than
$500 and I'm not sure what's going on there.

Maybe it isn't what it used to be. Maybe if you don't drive aggressively, they
look the other way.

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kitcar
Can't help but feel this would be a lot more immersive with a VR headset
instead of the screen.

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chrischen
It’s. Shame they didn’t go VR with hydraulic chairs.

~~~
throwaway_dcnt
Does something like that exist? At a reasonable price point? (<10K)?

~~~
harwoodr
I made something for my masters project for under $2k - using pneumatic
artificial muscles.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJCORZuLOJk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJCORZuLOJk)

Still needed a lot of tweaking when the video was made...

~~~
harwoodr
I should note - the valves/compressor can be located quite a bit further
away... making most of the noise go away.

