The mass market strategy is, in my experience, the best way to get your fledgling company off the ground at any start date. Once you're making a strong profit, then you can start to spend more time and money designing more expensive, higher quality components and vehicles. To put it another way, you can use the profits generated by your mass market vehicles to subsidize more "roleplaying" behavior (that is, actions less motivated by profit and more motivated by fun). In game terms, any vehicle type rated at Above Average or higher in the body type demand report is a good target for pursuing this type of strategy. Typically, this will mean Sedans or Compacts in the European market, and Pickups in the US market. While the design strategy will be different between Sedans/Compacts and Pickups, for any mass market vehicle you want to maximize reliability while minimizing cost.

Why? Because the less a vehicle costs you in terms of production/transportation/research costs, the less it will cost your customers. The less it costs your customers, the larger the potential market is. Which, of course, leads to more sales, which leads to more profit. And reliability is important for these types of vehicles because the people buying them generally will not have the resources for maintenance or repair. The same is true of fuel economy, though it is not as important for Pickups.

Expansion is extremely important with mass market vehicles, it's a good idea to keep an eye on the vehicle demand report for this reason. If there's demand that isn't being met, expand your factory, particularly in the early years when transportation costs are high. Build factories in high population, high GDP cities and start selling your mass market cars there. If you find yourself overproducing, invest more in marketing. If you're making lots of money and overproducing, try expanding your branches. Quite often, a higher sales volume will outweigh the cost of even a maximum size branch in a city like say, New York or London. The Top 50 Selling cars worldwide is your friend here, and though it will be difficult to capture that number one spot in the first few years, with proper planning and expansion, it's very doable. Always remember that if your company's cash isn't in the bank or the stock market, it's really of no use to you. Use it to expand or design more expensive components/vehicles. Use it to do whatever you want, really, just make sure you're using it.

First of all, it's important to have a plan before you start designing your components. Identify your market, (another reason why I'm fond of the Top 50 Selling Vehicles Worldwide report, the AI identifies markets for you!) identify what's important to consumers in that market, and attack accordingly. Personally, I always use the Advanced design tool, even if I really have no idea what I'm doing most of the time. The best advice I can give is to play with the sliders to get an idea of how they affect the finished product, and then control for at MOST two variables during the design process, and more often than not cost will be one of those two variables. For example, when I'm designing an engine for a Pickup, I look to maximize torque while minimizing cost. If I try to focus on any more than two variables, I start to second guess myself and rarely get anything done.

Also, once you're making money, design a 'concept' line of components every year with a focus on design requirements. The more difficult it is to design a component, the longer it will take, and the more expensive the project will be, but your labor skills will improve more quickly, which results in better parts. Better parts mean better vehicles, which can translate directly into higher sales and more money.

Since I've touched on how to identify your markets, let's talk about what's important in a particular type of vehicle.

Thanks to Arakash, I've learned that the data outlining which ratings are most important for each body type can be found within the savegame files. So a reclassification was in order. Still, the four classes of Economy, Cargo, Performance, and Luxury hold up pretty well, with some minor differences. All vehicles are listed as having two values, Primary and Secondary, which ostensibly have the largest impact on the rating of a vehicle within that body type. For example, I would still include Hatchbacks in the Economy class, but Cargo is actually the primary value, with Fuel being secondary.

In Economy, I would include most vehicles that have Fuel Economy listed as either a Primary or Secondary value. The vehicle types which are listed as having Fuel economy listed as the primary value are as follows:

• Microvan - Cargo secondary
  
• Microcar, Subcompact, Compact - Dependability secondary

The vehicle types with Fuel as a secondary are:

• Hatchback - Cargo primary
  
• Sedan - Safety primary

So, what does this mean? Well, it still means that ALL these vehicle types can largely be built upon the same components. Why? Well, because the biggest factor in a car's fuel efficiency is the engine, and to a lesser extent the gearbox.You can, of course, eke out some more fuel efficiency during the vehicle design process, especially considering that the Fuel Efficiency slider in the vehicle design phase has a greater effect on design cost and time than it does on unit cost. Since optimizing vehicle designs is the goal here, design fuel efficient engines and gearboxes for your economy class vehicles, and then use the sliders in the vehicle design process to raise the other pertinent ratings.

There are also a handful of other vehicles I would lump into the economy class with a couple of caveats, they are:

• Touring - Safety primary, Power secondary
  Touring style vehicles are popular early, but start to fade into obscurity in the 1940s. If you find yourself with excess production capacity, try taking the same chassis and gearbox of your economy class and plopping a bigger engine in it. I'm still unsure as to whether torque or HP has a bigger influence on a vehicle's power rating, but my experience leads to me to believe that it's torque. As an example, in a recent game I tried to constantly upgrade my pickup trucks by adding as much torque as possible with each successive model year. I ended up with an low-rpm engine producing 400 ft/lbs of torque and something like 158hp, and the finished vehicle was rated at something like 350/100 in Power.
  
  
• Minivan - Dependability primary, Cargo secondary
  More often than not, your economy class engines will be reliable already, so you should be able to get high Cargo and Dependability ratings just by tweaking the body design and the vehicle design focus sliders.
  
  
• Phaeton - Dependability primary, Quality secondary
  This surprised me. I always thought of Phaetons as being sportier cars, like a Duesenberg or maybe the ealier model MGs, but as it turns out, they're more like sedans without a hard top. Because of the quality secondary, I'm almost tempted to lump them in with luxury vehicles. However, the Wealth Index rating is 1, which means Phaetons should be inexpensive... and let me tell you, trying to keep the unit cost down while also maximizing quality is quite difficult. So I would almost say they're not really worth it, especially considering that demand for Phaetons falls off quite rapidly and ends completely by 1945, so only build them if you've saturated demand for more popular and long-lived vehicle types, and have the time and money to dump into attemping to build a vehicle with low cost and high quality.
  
  
• Compact SUV - Dependability primary, Safety secondary
  This one also surprised me. The quintessential Compact SUV, in my mind, is the Jeep, particularly the Wrangler. I would not call Wranglers safe. Anyway, same deal here, economy engine and gearbox should work just fine, but you might be better off with a front-engine, four-wheel drive chassis.
  
  
• Crossover - Cargo primary, Safety secondary
  Crossovers are the last vehicle type to become available. I include them in the economy class, as they're generally affordable, and they just don't seem like they belong in the cargo segment, as you're likely not going to build them with the same components as say, a Pickup. After all, Crossovers are built on car chassis in real life.
  
  
• Compact Van, Station Wagon - Cargo Primary, Dependability secondary.
  These types are generally built on car chassis, rather than purpose built, heavy-duty cargo frames. As such, they seem like they belong in the Economy class rather than the Cargo class.

I've decided that the Performance class should consist of vehicles including Performance or Drivability as their primary value. I could be wrong, but I believe Performance is influenced most by HP, along with top speed and acceleration characteristics, whereas Drivability is more influenced by handling, braking, and shifting ease.

Performance primary vehicles include:

• Coupe, Coupe 2+2, Fastback - Drivability secondary.
  
• Supercar, Sports - Power secondary.

Driveability primary vehicles include:

• Roadster, Roadster 2+2, Performance secondary.
  
• Coupe Utility, Cargo secondary.

So it would appear that Coupe Utilities are the odd duck here. Think El Camino, or the Suzuki Samurai. On second thought... no, don't think about the Suzuki Samurai. As far as I've seen, Australia is the only region that has any appreciable demand for this vehicle type, so if you've expanded into Oz, and already have a solid, sporty chassis, have at it. And, of course, it's possible that demand for the type picks up in the 60s and 70s, which was the strongest period of sales for the El Camino.

When it comes to Supercars, don't skimp on handling characteristics, as your customers are going to be paying top dollar. You may have to sell your supercars at cost, or even slightly below, and this is something you can only do if, as I've said earlier, your mass market vehicles are generating enough profit to subsidize more roleplaying activities. As far as the Sports car segment is concerned, I think the in game documentation needs to define what it means by sports car a bit more clearly. The definition isn't a clear one by any stretch in industry terms, so I think I'll take the opportunity to definite it here. In game terms, a sports car is a two-door, two seat vehicle with an overwhelming focus on performance. Think Corvette, not Mustang. Mustangs, Camaros, and the majority of other American muscle cars belong more in the Coupe, Coupe 2x2, Fastback, and even the Sedan segment. To put another way, Sports cars are supercars that are affordable for the general public.

I would also tend to lump Shooting Brakes (Primary Quality, Secondary Performance) in this category. As a sort of mash up of coupe and station wagon, Shooting Brakes are very much a niche market, so if you find yourself with no other markets to expand into, or if demand for Shooting Brakes suddenly jumps randomly, they can be built on the same components as other vehicles in this type.

Next we have the Cargo/Commercial class. As we've seen, a number of cargo primary vehicles do not, in my assessment belong in this class. As far as I'm concerned, the emphasis on this class should be on Cargo capacity and power. I include:

• Pickup Trucks - Power primary, Cargo secondary
  
• SUVs- Power primary, Safety secondary
  
• Full-Size Vans - Cargo primary, Power secondary
  The reason for this classification is that you can easily build all three vehicle types on the exact same parts, saving your company time and money on the development of specialized components. I might suggest swapping out a towing oriented gearbox you'd use in a Pickup for a more economical one in SUVs and Full-Size Vans. They might also benefit from smaller, more fuel efficient engines, but you're still more likely to use a bigger engine than in a Sedan for example.

Finally, we have the Luxury class, which includes:

• Towncar, Landaulet, Limousine - Luxury primary, Quality secondary
  
• Full Sized Sedan, Luxury Sedan - Luxury primary, Dependability secondary

It pretty much goes without saying that luxury vehicles are expensive, and won't come anywhere close to the sales numbers your sedan might put up. But when GDPs start to pick up, and you can design vehicles with a reasonable unit cost that you can sell for a high mark up, take the money! If you've been pursuing a mass market strategy, and your Prestige ratings have suffered, it might be in your best interest to sell all of your Luxury vehicles under a new marque. This also allows you to do fun things like, say, making a luxury version of your favorite econobox. After all, even luxury brands need an entry level vehicle!

• Build a super cheap car to start and sell as many of them as the market will support
  
• Don't sit on your money, spend it. Either expand your production, put it in the bank, or invest in the stock market
  
• Let the AI do your market research for you, then build a direct competitor that's better and cheaper.
  
• Always be designing new parts. Every year you want to design an engine, chassis, and gearbox with as high 'Design Requirements' as possible. This will insure growth of your labor skills, which will result in better designs.
  
• Saturate a market segment first. If you find yourself with excess production capacity, exploit a segment that can be built on the same components as your top seller.
  
• Read the Class sections for a breakdown of vehicles by the most important design aspect.