#BeamNGreview: Burnside Special - Daily Dad

Basic Information

The Burnside Special is an american Sedan that was produced from 1953 to 1954.

Drivetrain:
The only available Drivetrain was rear-wheel drive with the engine and transmission at the front. Speaking about engine and transmission, the 5.1 litre (313 cubic-inch) Engine produces 155hp , 114kw, 152bhp and 345 Nm (254 lb-ft) and could be coupled to two automatics and one Manual. The 3-speed Manual Transmission is shifted on the steering column (“3 on the tree”), as were the 3-speed and 2-speed automatic. The Power of the engine is distributed to the rear wheels through either an 3.73 open or 4.11 welded Differential (which isn´t installed on any of the variants)

Suspension and Handling:
You can´t really expect much from 1950´s suspension technology in terms of performance, compared to supsension technology today. I suppose for the time it was adequate. Why only adequate? Well, it wasn´t designed to be particularly sporty, it was designed to carry 6 people comfortably (more about the interior later). Speaking about comfort, the suspension definitively supports comfort. The suspension consists of shocks, springs and a swaybar in the front (that´s how it´s described). The back suspension is a bit more descriptive, The aformentioned open welded differential, leaf springs, shocks and a swaybar. The Car weighs a lot for its time and to slow that weight down, you need brakes, drum brakes in this case.
The setup is common, with no camber or toe applied to the suspension. The track width is 0,25 metres (0,8 ft) at the front and 0,295 metres (0,96 ft) at the back.
It might be the softest stock car in BeamNG (the softest that I have would be the Augira Herion, but that´s a mod). The body roll is very noticable. Although this car is so soft, a fair amount of bumps come through. Search up Forza Horizon Jelly Build and you´ll get a good idea of what it feels like to drive this car.

Tyres:

Oh boy, 1950´s tyres. Well, let´s get on with it. The Car features Bias Ply Whitewall tyres (Blackwall on the police version) in the dimensions of 165/100R15 all around. The tyres have a inner pressure of 25 psi (1,7 bar). The Rims are described as 15 by 6 Body-colored steels rims, with five lug nuts. Think about the tyres as “adequate for responsible driving in urban environments and open stretches of road”, in short: They don´t have much traction. If you put your foot to the floor anytime, they´ll spin. Well you can´t really say “they” because the stock differential is a open as an MX-5´s roof.
I read somewhere, that tyres can only do one thing at a time. With these tyres, the only thing that they do is being comfortable. That´s not a bad attribute considering their purpose and the era in which it saw the light of the day.

Interior:

The Interior is as you´d expect it for a 1950´s Car: It has a red, or in my opinion rad, interior, with as much chrome as the first season of Pimp My Ride combined.

The interior in general is a nice place to be in. The seating bench is nice and comfortable (atleast the benches look like they were). The controls for the radio are nice and simple. The steering wheel has no buttons on it and you can rest your hand on two white cross braces. The gauges can´t be read from the driving position, but the needles work. The switchgear is as simple as some drivers of these Cars: two levers, one for the transmission and one for blinkers. The Handbrake is actuated trough a lever, that you pull towards you. The lever is horizontally located at first, but turns as you pull. The lever stands vertically when the Handbrake is fully activated.

Notable are the little bars under the radio. I guess they are either for the radio or air conditioning.

Performance Data:

The V8 Manual did a 1:31:31 around Hirochi Short Circuit. The Dual-Matic did a 1:33:4. The Super-Matic and the Police Version did a 1:32:88 (they´re both nearly identical).

That should be enough “boring” data for now.

How does it drive?

I found the Burnside to be adequate on the track. The manual was the fastest and felt the fastest, but the Dual-Matic and Super-Matic certainly have their appeal in terms of learning to drive fast and not having to concentrate on the gears. Of course it isn´t a track monster, but to be honest, I´ve driven Cars that felt worse. To my suprise, the Burnside could be persuaded to kick its tail out. Mostly through heavy weight transfer.
On the street it feels very relaxed and normal. It doesn´t matter if you have the manual or automatic, the driving experience is always smooth, except when the the leaf springs and metal frame decide to end your life. When you hit the bumps, it buckles like a small bull. Except for that, it´s a nice ride.
In the wet, it´s as you´d expect, not good. The tyres offer no grip at all, but the open differential makes it easy to control.

What is it?
This car, is for dads. This car embodies the mentality of a middle-class citizen with 3 children. It can run around with them, but it doesn´t want to. All it wants to do is go to work and live it´s life. There´s nothing wrong with that, because there has to be people or Cars like this. Like an old saying goes: “You can´t see the good without the bad”, you can´t have sports-cars without normal cars. I kind of like this mentality for daily drivers. “You don´t need to drive fast, relax”, that´s what daily-drivers should teach you.

That was my review on the Burnside V8 Special, thank you for reading and until next time.
-Mr.Beam