Motor Trend Animations
In February 2006, Motor Trend Magazine called Mechanical Simulation with a new and unique proposal: simulate a concept car and pit it against its likely archrival. This led to the cover story for the May 2006 issue: the Chevrolet Camaro Concept vs. the 2006 Ford Mustang, where, in the words of author Frank Markus, "we're not afraid to cozy up to the experts who developed the best software for running such virtual comparos, and they [Mechanical Simulation] agree to help us simulate that momentous 2009 prize fight."
With just two weeks to prepare the analysis for the Motor Trend article, CarSim guru Phil Mather and Markus gathered the information necessary to compare the two families of vehicles. Click here for the story behind the article.
Upon release of the article in print, Motor Trend also featured the article on their website with CarSim animations available for download. This proved to be a very successful use of the website, as the CarSim animations were the most downloaded files ever posted to the website!
Due to this success, Mechanical Simulation once again collaborated with Motor Trend for the August 2006 issue of Motor Trend Magazine. That issued pitted the BMW Z4 M Coupe against the Porsche Cayman S in a series of vehicle tests.
In contrast to the earlier simulation of the 2006 Ford Mustang vs. the Chevrolet Concept Camaro featured in the May 2006 issue of Motor Trend, this new set of animations is based on actual GPS and accelerometer data obtained from Motor Trend's vehicle tests. Mechanical Simulation was able to use this data to overlay the two vehicles in three-dimensional animations of the tests.
The vehicles ran through three tests used by Motor Trend for their regular testing process: a slalom, a figure-8 race, and acceleration.
CarSim is a vehicle dynamics simulation program, used in the automotive industry by the manufacturers and suppliers. University students use CarSim to simulate basic vehicle tests. Here are some links for CarSim use in industry, education, and racing. Or, go right to our section describing the software features.