Overview
Following the all-new Camphor series of van and truck bodies for Automation, I wanted to try my hand at remaking an existing body set. Of the multiple proposals I presented to the devs, it was the first-generation Honda City body that was greenlit for a replacement.
Originally consisting of three hatchback variants plus a two-door cabriolet (classed as a 'two-box' sedan in-game, like the original Mini) in a single wheelbase family, the replacement adds wagon, three-box sedan, and pickup variants across five wheelbases in total. Morphs have also been expanded upon as well, with two different types of fender flares plus beltline and roof height morphs capable of radically altering proportions. It has also been given a new name—the Bento, in light of its boxy, space-efficient form factor.
Along with the body set, a family of 6 hood scoop fixtures based on the City Turbo II's hood bulge was added, with 2 variants being curved at the front for more modern use cases.
Available in vanilla Automation
The Bento body and its namesake
This ain't your granddad's Civic (Automation)
Concept
The real-world Honda City Turbo II has boxy fender flares that, while fitting for a hot hatch, belie its FF drivetrain layout. Not helping matters are the faux vents on the rear fenders or the mudflaps on some models, both of which bring to mind a particular flavour of 80s hot hatch: the balls-to-the-wall Group B homologation specials whose drivetrain layouts were far removed from those of their standard road counterparts. To that end, I decided from the very start to give the Bento bodies mid engine bays.
Additionally, seeing as the City was sized as, well, a city car, a true 550 cc-era kei size variant was only a step down. This made the addition of a coupe utility variant—in the vein of the Suzuki Mighty Boy—an easy choice. The challenge would be how much bigger to go for wheelbases; I settled on the third-generation Honda Accord with its 2.6-metre wheelbase as an upper limit.
Morphs
Specific to the Bento is a rear spoiler morph, which moves along all three axes to add a small "ducktail" to the roof (or decklid, on the sedans) without interrupting the tailgate or tumblehome angles. Also featured is a pair of morphs for the front and rear wheel arches that both raises them and changes their squared-off shape to something more circular, eliminating the need for cutaway fixtures.
Roof height and beltline morphs were once again included, though the latter was made a 'bone' morph instead of a morph target to allow it to move both up and down (instead of just down, as on the Camphor). The City's almost nonexistent dash-to-axle ratio and box flares being right against the door seams do restrict the range of the A-pillar base morph, but the large downward range of the hood angle morph can still be used to easily achieve a wedge-like 'one-box' profile. If you were to put a V12 in the back, would the resulting vehicle be called a Count-hatch?
2-door sedan variant with ducktail morph and standard fender flare morphs active
Gallery
