SUMA Selecta

The Selecta series (and derivatives) is the flagship of SUMA as a manufacturer, and have been available anywhere that will allow them to be imported since 1961. The first edition, the M311 platform, was designed to be Ospiana's next car, a modern, futureproof, affordable vehicle to suit all the needs of the country following the economic devastation of the New Harvest War and its aftermath. It was the country's first major deployment of a four-stroke engine, utilizing an innovative overhead camshaft (though remaining simple in design with direct acting valves) and a novel construction where the central passenger cabin is a monocoque structure with front and rear subframes to carry the engine and quarter panels, striking a compromise between safety and cost. Also unusually, as part of the SUMA program's initial objective, the grand majority of the steel used in its construction was sourced from its sibling program OERS, which made recycled steel from buildings and other objects destroyed or scrapped during the War.

Used as the starting point for countless vehicles found on Ospian roads and abroad, the M311 saw continuous upgrades over its lifetime that carried over into relatively loosely-defined "generations" that are mostly marked by major facelifts; they remained largely mechanically unchanged from their introduction until recent decades, and are still available today. Thankfully, recycled steel hasn't been used in structural components since 1985.

## SUMA Selecta

A 1960 Selecta in original SUMA Blue. Note the handles stamped from the door panel rather than machined separately.

## Body and chassis

### Chassis type

Unibody Passenger Cabin,Front/Rear Subframe

## Powertrain

### Engine

1.4L I4 (1960-1980)1.5L I4 (1981-1992)1.6L I4 (1992-Present)

## M311

First released in late 1960, the M311 is the first Selecta platform, and set that standard for decades to come with its unibody-and-subframe chassis design, rudimentary FR layout, and featured the first production version of SUMA's new DAOHC straight-four engine, the ASQ series.

The design philosophy of the Selecta is ostensibly similar to that of many "people's cars" found across the globe in the 50s and 60s, that being, as cheap as possible to produce in as many numbers as possible, providing mobility to a country as it tried to recover from devastation. Ospiana was no different, but while the Valori filled the role of the people's car directly, special attention was paid to the Selecta to ensure the platform would be useful beyond this purpose, and to maximize current technology to make it appealing to serious car-buyers.

Features of the Selecta that made it competitive for its price point included standard safety engineering for its time, two fresh air vents in the center of the dashboard, an electric motor for the wipers, a rear seat and a spacious rear trunk rather than one or the other, dashboard storage, and it came standard with a simple radio. Compared to the spartan interiors of its contemporaries, the seats were padded with scrap felt and every surface had, at the very least, a cloth cover stapled on, if cheap and sometimes rough. Both a rear view and two side mirrors were also included in the base price. As a precursor to SUMA's "customer standard" ordering catalogue, certain things could be excluded to reduce the car's cost below what was considered the base trim, including the extra mirrors, the radio, and the temperature gauge.

Mechanically speaking, the ten-year development time paid off, with every little part carefully engineered to optimize performance in the hot, typically dry Ospian summers; the engine used no water and was instead cooled by its own oil with an oversized radiator, removing the cost of coolant from the long-term cost of ownership as well as a separate pump from the assembly. The choice of a four-stroke cycle meant that the engine wouldn't burn its own coolant, either, and it was designed specifically to be able to start from cold with the thicker oil that became fluid enough for proper cooling after warming up.

Unfortunately, it still wasn't the perfect car. It was still cheap, largely consisting of recycled steel and lacking new steering and control technologies which made it harder to handle than its competitors. It was still relatively rudimentary, far from winning any awards on comfort during long trips. General accessibility was substandard, with poor placement of many switches to save on wiring harnesses, and continued use of the 6V system. Efforts to eliminate expensive small pumps resulted in a manual plunger for wiper fluid that was prone to failure and a gravity-fed fuel tank in the engine bay. Although it was increased to an impressive 10 US gallons, it was archaic technology that struggled to feed the engine properly in the steep inclines and mountainous terrain that Ospiana consisted of. Performance was nothing short of sluggish, which is typical of cars in the ultra-low budget segments, but unusual for one of this size, price, and with 40 hp, and it only managed just under 22 mpg for the effort.

In the end, the Selecta solidified SUMA as more than a puppet for the government to make any luxury limousine or military truck they wanted, and offered a car that was ultimately quite modern and practical at a far more reasonable price than any import, and is their most successful venture to date. Many fleet vehicles ended up being based on the Selecta over larger or more feature-complete cars, including taxis, police cars, and derivatives included the M211 "San Porta" light pickup and the M411 "Entrega" delivery van.

## M311B

The Selecta received countless improvements over its lifetime, including both new features and production improvements. Oftentimes, two examples made the same day weren't identical due to these small differences, a natural result of the success of the small sedan feeding back into its own production. Better methods for assembly were developed, better parts were incorporated, the selection process for the recycled steel became more rigorous while reinforcements were subtly made to key points in the chassis and the body (often in the form of ribs along trim lines). Much of the off-the-shelf construction was brought in-house and challenged to meet new internal standards, including fasteners, lights, switches, and wires.

Ultimately, SUMA homogenized the platform in 1966, known internally as the M311B. Despite the wide range of improvements and higher quality of the finished product, it was generally mechanically identical, and major components such as the engine and transmission could be totally interchanged. Before becoming available for sale in mid-1967, the package was finished with new front and rear fascias, new trim, new hubcaps, and enhanced interior, all of which could still be made with the same tooling. Novelly, SUMA began the practice of selling the new engine and transmission to customers as a crate, allowing them to simply install the most critically improved part without buying a whole new car. Such a practice would be considered market self-cannibalization by any private manufacturer, but hardly made a dent in SUMA's primarily public funding while improving critical access to new parts and longer service life to the truly desperate.

The M311B standard was extended to the San Porta and Entrega the same year, with matching updates to the visual styling.

## M313

In the immediate aftermath of the Interloper War (1975-1981), SUMA was privatized into a legitimate corporation free from the regulations that required them to answer to the government's beck and call as a source for vehicles for various government fleets. This was mostly a token gesture to new, communist-wary alliances formed during the course of the War, as SUMA was already the major producer of political transports, military trucks, and other fleet vehicles, and the loss of public funding was simply supplanted by the government actually paying per unit. Their first action as a private corporation was to release an all-new Selecta platform for the modern era, the M313.

The new platform was slightly larger in an attempt to remain in the mid-size market, but was still on the smaller side. Production improvements continued, and although it was again mechanically compatible with previous models, the biggest changes came in the form of a total overhaul of the interior and exterior. The Selecta looked nothing like that cars that came before with a striking, aggressive forward strake, clean lines, plastics in the trim, new rear fascia, and revised badging. The interior was stellar for a car in its class, now sporting a nearly 100% soft touch with higher quality cloth covers on the steering wheel and dashboard, pleather accents in SUMA Blue, new gauges that now included the fuel gauge as standard, new climate controls, and modern safety design features. The built-in evaporative cabin cooling was now a part of the base trim and, for the first time, an in-car air-conditioning unit became an option.

One other significant change was the addition of a fuel pump and a rear-mounted tank of increase capacity, bringing the car to modern standards and finally solving the decades-old "incline starvation" problem for good.