First play about - frame of an animation, plenty to do still.
I can’t wait for the whole thing ;). Do you have a build with motion blur (that is, post-alpha2)/do you need motion blur?
Can’t wait to see that animated.
What settings would you experienced coronies use for this, path trace primary, hd cache secondary, but what for gi samples and passes? Just trying to shortcut my learning experience here 
and I believe the correct term is “Coronaut” 
Would it not render a wee bit faster with hd cache and produce a very similar result or am I asking for problems? Just lacking in render power and/or time here for the animation…
It would flicker, so I would not recommend it for now. But you can try
Amends already done sorted out the bump maps in the paint shader, tyres sorted, now a bit of tweaking of the lighting - client very happy atm and so am I, faster renders then fr, mr or vray and better results - what’s not to like?
If nothing is moving (but the camera) you can save the hdcache and use it for the whole animation.
you ve been able to produce an animation or not yet ?
Yeah, don a little animation with it, some tweaks to do to the motion still, will post tomorrow, going to run it tonight again.
Recent fast render - 3 min on an i7 at 720, simple noise reduction in AE, yet to purchase Neat video, Scene has had more work since then, as white tyres look so wrong
youtube the shit outta it
Will do when it’s complete - need some soil in the bucket and a bit of movement. Will be even better when you have pflow support in corona