GT7 W97: Hyundai Ioniq 5 N '24

While Hyundai and Gran Turismo both want to persuade sceptics like me that EVs can be fun to drive, the 2024 Hyundai Ioniq 5 N has had the complete opposite intended effect on me: it's convinced me that there is no substitute for a simple, lightweight sports car, and that there is simply no replicating that feeling in an EV, no matter how technologically advanced it may be.

Ioniq 5 Singapore First 100 by rckpnts
#hyundai #singapore

MDMG-01 mark 1 by RSoDthevirusGT
#madoka #kaname #itasha

To be fair, the I5N does at least try be a fun car, unlike the the Lamborghini Urus, arguably its closest rival in the game. The I5N has glimpses of magic when it uses its computational wizardry to defy its stats and body shape to corner like a bona–fide sports car, whereas something like the Urus is just endless understeer everywhere. I'll admit: there have been a few moments where the I5N well and truly stole my breath away, making me think, "did... did that just really happen? Did this 2.2 tonne electric SUV really just dive for the apex like a lightweight RMR sports car? What tyres am I— SPORTS HARD?!" The only problem is that you can't ever outright defy the laws of physics; you can only find loopholes and back alley deals with it, and sooner or later, all those shenanigans will catch up with the car, and unlike paying your dues on time, you don't get to choose when and how you pay when physics comes kicking down your door.

While the I5N's wealth of onboard electronic wizards can work black magic with its incredibly sticky Pirelli P-Zero 275/35R21 tyres, the car ends up not just being numb, but also completely unpredictable at the limit because so many computers are working behind the scenes in baffling ways, resulting in a car that just feels like it has a mind of its own. One moment, it feels damn near indistinguishable from a lightweight, rear mindship sports car in how it slices in to hunt an apex, and the next, it's understeering like a typical nose–heavy AWD on corner exit. I never know what the heck the car is doing, which tyres have grip, or how much torque each wheel is getting at any given time mid–corner. I never know what to expect every time I roll onto the accelerator pedal or turn the steering wheel off centre. Sometimes, it cooperates, and sometimes, it resists. Sometimes, it saves itself and sometimes, it doesn't. And sometimes, we both try to save it, and we end up over–correcting as a whole and end up facing a barrier. The way the I5N's tyres can go from having ample grip to suddenly screaming out in surrender is so sudden, it's almost akin to watching a terribly distasteful video with awkward jump cuts. The end result is not just an extremely disconnected driving experience, but one that's also rife with distrust; I not only constantly under–drive the car, but I don't even know how near I am to its limits when I under–drive it, and that's just the complete opposite of what I'm looking for in a fun sports car. The problem with EVs, of course, is that they're much, much heavier than a comparable ICE, and thus, they always need technological wizardry to cheat physics just to do the same things an ICE can naturally do. And until battery technology gets to the point where they can be just as light as ICEs, and/or a car manufacturer can somehow make cheating software feel natural to drive, I will never be convinced by an EV as a replacement for the ICE sports car.

But, bafflingly, even the one thing an EV ought to excel at, the I5N isn't very good at; it gets out–launched by many an ICE car from a standing start, even with the Overtake button held down since standstill. An NC1 "nsx" would dump the Ioniq as though a short–lived clutch, and the base Urus would leave the supposedly hot 5 N feeling more than five shades of blue when the lights turn green. Heck, even an Ioniq 5 N would leave the Ioniq 5 N dead off the line if the driver of the latter Ioniq doesn't hold down the Overtake button. It may not be that palpable of a boost when conveyed through just a TV screen, but the extra power the Overtake button unleashes on the I5N is enough to pull out a difference of 1 or 2 car lengths from a standing start to the first corner of most racetracks. And yes, that does mean that, to get the optimal pace out of the car, one must hold down an extra button for almost the whole lap, and that's just so incredibly stupid. The car would sooner vector torque for me and smash me into a wall than to just give me full power when I have the throttle pedal fully depressed. Back in my day, if we wanted to maximise the range of our sinful petrol cars, we'd short shift them, put them in eco mode, or set a leaner fuel mix, and that was it. We set it and forget it. We didn't have to hold down an extra button to maintain maximum performance from our petrol cars. I'd sincerely like to meet the genius who thought the Overtake button was a good idea, and I'd very much like to shake their hand vigorously with a cheese grater, stopping only when they give me a massage with their free hand, just to see how much they like it.

ionic megumin by Nataenist
#anime #megumin #konosuba

"Hurr you don't need to hold the Overtake button when you're slowing the car down durr gottem!", you might be thinking to yourself sometime reading the previous paragraph. And you'd be right: when slowing the Ioniq 5 N down for a corner, you don't have to hold the Overtake button... you need to hold the parking brake button instead. Yes, the parking brake button, doing triple digit speeds. And if that sounds suicidal to you, then consider yourself lucky to have driven normal, well–sorted cars for most of your life to have formed that sane opinion, because the I5N sure as hell isn't normal nor well–sorted. The I5N's tyre grip is so underutilised under braking that, on a smooth, level, and dry racetrack, the ABS hardly even intervenes when the car is shod with its default Sports Hard tyres. Engaging the parking brake in braking zones makes use of so much of the unutilised longitudinal grip left in the tyres, and as long as the car isn't too off neutral when the parking brake is engaged, it stays remarkably straight and stable for about half a second before the rear tyres start to even squeal. The effect of using the parking brake to slow the I5N down are simply mind boggling: it goes from "okay yeah it takes about a time zone to stop, but I guess it's pretty good considering its mass", to, "oh my god I CAN OUTBRAKE OTHER CARS, IN AN ELECTRIC SUV!". So, driving one of the most technologically advanced cars of the mid 2020s quickly devolves into something as unsophisticated and uncouth as riding a bicycle, wherein you have two brake actuators, and to get the most of the vehicle, you have to manually balance the use of both. Next thing Hyundai will be telling me is that I have to wear skin tight pants with no underwear and flagrantly ignore road rules to be a sweaty hazard to everyone around me to drive the I5N... which isn't super far from the truth. If timed right, the parking brake can be held when the steering wheel is initially tipped off–centre for a VERY short instant, which can provide very useful rotation into a corner, but you have to really, really time and execute it right, or the car will just piledrive armco. I don't know about you, but I like my cars with proper brake balancing done before I get into the car so that one pedal is all I need, rather than having to rip the handbrake just to stop the damn thing before hitting a wall. IRL, I doubt the car would even let drivers engage the parking brake when the car is in motion, anyway.

If you told me five years ago that I'd be recommending the NC1 "nsx" over another car, I'd have bopped you in the head and told you as nicely as I could to never talk to me again, but here we are: the NC1 "nsx" is a better track car than the I5N. Aiko ran one in most of our Wednesday lobby races, and more often than not, he'd be several seconds ahead of the pack of I5Ns at the end of a 10 min sprint. They're both rated similarly to each other, and the "nsx" is much more predictable to drive with much, much more range. While the I5N is an impressive feat of engineering, it's not even fit to fantasise about being a poor man's 981 GT4 on a racetrack. The notion that the Ioniq is supposed to excite a petrolhead on a track is ironic at best and moronic at worst.

GT7 W95: BMW M3 (E36) '97

The E36 BMW M3 is in the unenviable position of being the middle child sandwiched between two better regarded brothers, the legendary homologation special E30 and the highly–regarded E46. Some might even go as far as to say that the E36 is the worst M3, and yet, it was declared Car & Driver's Best Handling Car at any price point in 1997, beating out bona fide midship 2 door sports cars like the Ferrari F355 and Acura NSX. So, what exactly is it we're dealing with here? Or is the worst M3 still really that damn good?

Dogbox BoneStock: Biewer Terrier by RMedia_Obelisk
#biewer #bonestock #dogbox
Chainsaw Man Makima E36 M3 by XSquareStickIt
#chainsawman #makima #itasha
Chainsaw Man Makima E36 (Wide) by XSquareStickIt
#chainsawman #makima #itasha

As Gran Turismo 7 players are most likely aware however, the E36 is notorious in this game for thus far having a very troubled existence since it was added in Update 1.49 back in July of 2024, the very same update that overhauled the game's physics and brought with it some unfortunate and sometimes hilarious quirks. The E36 never did have astronaut aspirations, but it was softly sprung enough to encounter problems with the game's physics that seemed to punish cars with soft suspension in befuddling ways, though I'm convinced that there must also be other factors at play that make the issue so persistently afflict the E36. Watching back publicly shared replays of the E36 pre v1.55, it seemed as if the cars or their drivers just steered themselves off the paved track for no apparent reason right into a wall, with no ostensible attempt at resisting their violent fates along the way, sometimes even on relatively straight stretches of tarmac. While said glitch does appear to have toned down in severity, that catastrophic behaviour is still very much present in v1.55, and it will still catch out drivers at the worst of times. My E36 lost itself on Turn 3 of Eiger Nordwand, a slow, downhill right–hander, and with less than half throttle clear out of the powerband of the NA Straight 6, my E36 just speared off towards the inside barrier near the exit of the turn, as though it gave into a long–closeted fetish for Barry R and his facial reconstruction prowess. I of course am in no position to comment on how true to life that reaction to my inputs is, but in the context of this game and in comparison to many of the cars it has, some of which very close in performance, layout, and era to the E36, that's just behaviour I can't expect, explain, nor accept.

In the context of a review of a car in a video game, that's all that would be enough to write off the E36, but in the interest of being fair and thorough, the E36's issues hardly end at a silly glitch. It may have been declared Car & Driver's Best–Handling Car in 1997, but here in Gran Turismo 7, the E36 is going up against a NSX-R instead of a bloody NSX-T, it's going up against something that was never unleashed upon the states in the GT-R, and it's also got more power to tie itself up in knots, being the EU spec that comes to us at 316HP (236kW) instead of a meek 240HP (179kW). And in this digital landscape where in theory only the best trims of each model is represented, the E36 I find struggles horrendously to keep up with its digital peers.

It's not just the springs of the E36 that are soft; its chassis feels like it has about as much structural integrity as a truss made of toothpicks tied together with rubber bands. The way in which the E36 approaches its limits is annoyingly not linear, requiring disproportionate effort and care to get the last 10% of its handling envelope out of the car. The car starts off nimble and light on its feet, belying its hefty 1,460kg (3,219lbs) mass and showcasing immediate response and even an accompanying screamer of a soundtrack that together would smite anyone with petrol in their blood. It keeps that agility and responsiveness on hard braking and trail braking, all the way until I'm almost entirely off the brakes and give the steering wheel a harder twist to meet the apex, at which point the car feels as if it hits a metaphorical wall, refusing to turn any more than it's already doing and stressing the tyres into screaming hysteria, often resulting in me missing the apex by about half a car width. Despite being a rather heavy and softly sprung car, rumble strips and road camber greatly upset the E36, the former causing it to squirm vaguely and often requiring quick flashes of counter steer just to keep it pointing in the right direction, with the outside of the last turn of Road Atlanta (a relatively flat and innocuous rumble strip) being a good example. Cutting corners with more raised kerbs, such as the awful chicane of Nürburgring GP or the Bus Stop of Watkins Glen is a crapshoot, because the car just feels incredibly vague when thrown off balance or upset. And when the E36 M3 slides, it's completely numb and catastrophically ceases all communication to its driver. Losing grip in an E36 is like watching a horror movie; I'm terrified, but I can have no more influence and involvement in the affair beyond being terrified. Overall, it's just a car I never came to gel with nor trust under any circumstance, and it was just pure frustration in a racing scenario.

Of course, cars from that era are never without flaws. And so I thought I'd do what car reviewers in real life do, and conduct my own comparison tests. I brought along with me an A80 Supra RZ and a R33 GT-R V • spec, both 2–door Inline 6 sports cars and 1997 models. Even when downgrading the Japanese cars from their default Sports Hard tyres down to match the E36's Comfort Softs, they are both supremely easier to drive, giving me a sense of predictability and ease where the E36 was hysterically screaming at me to baby it better. The Supra in particular has a 6–speed stick shift, and wouldn't even fit under our Weekly Lobbies' regulations even on gimped tyres simply because it's so much faster than the E36. The turbocharged cars also propel themselves out of corners better with solid walls of mid–range torque, and the GT-R even has AWD to help with that. And those are the fat pigs of the "276HP era" of Japanese sports cars; the E36 wouldn't even be a half–decent appetiser for the more athletic cars from that era like FD RX-7 and NA NSX-R.

The E36, like many cars of its era, is a pretty good car with its share of flaws and quirks. What damns the E36 in my mind is that it's a relatively affordable high–performance machine that looks like it would fit right into the early Gran Turismo games, competing with the "276HP era" cars those games made legends among a generation of kids. But it's precisely because the E36 finds itself in this era and performance bracket that means it has to be held to so much higher a standard than usual, because there are just so many other options to choose from, many of which have had the privilege of imprinting upon an impressionable child's mind, becoming heroes to many. If it can't even outrun or out–handle a Supra, it has no chance of even being on my radar when I'm swooning over the beautiful curves of an FD RX-7, both on and off a track. I guess one can make the argument that it's by far the cheapest among its contemporaries here in GT7, but eh...

While the flaws of the E36—namely its soft suspension and chassis—do have easy fixes, why bother with it when the E46 has six forward gears and a much stiffer chassis to work with as a base for tuning? The E36 really does suffer massively from the middle child syndrome, and, at least among the M3s represented in the game, really is the worst one. If you want sheer driving pleasure, go with the E30. If you want a competent tuning base, the E46 is the way to go, and the E92 is... there, for moral support with its big F–off V8 engine.

ACS10112024: focus and shoes

I'm not very keen on writing for the past few years of my life. Maybe it's less so I lack the time for it, but moreso the energy and willpower. I think I'm just completely disinterested in my own life, and that I've lost any and all hope that it'll get any better in the future.

Or maybe the reason why I don't like to write is because I always seem to come up with the most depressing and moody openings ever, totally sucking all momentum and energy out of whatever mental roller coaster I might be riding on.

I've recently gotten a new pair of spectacles six years after my last pair was made. I've been noticing that my left eye is really strained when looking at screens for a while, and wearing my specs for a few hours does fatigue me. My eyesight hasn't necessarily gotten much worse, if any, but maybe the focal point or whatever is the technically correct jargon has shifted in the six years since. I initially had only wanted the lenses redone, but I'm really starting to think I was upsold by the friendly attendant into getting a whole new pair entirely. I wish I caught that in the moment, because I'm really not in a position where I have any money to spend. I'm just perpetually physically uncomfortable. Malls are always way too fucking hot despite the air con, and I'm always in a sticky, gross sweat when I'm out and about. I also had dinner just before the visit, which sends all the blood rushing to my face and head for some reason. I'm terribly embarrassed about the mess I left on their systems because of my fucking disgusting oily, sweaty face. I actually lost sleep that night thinking about that.

It's a "minor" thing, but on occasion, I do find myself wondering about a fear I've had a decade or so ago. I feared being a normie. I feared being aimless. I feared having to fight myself to get out of bed every morning to go to a dead end job just to make enough to scrape by, and have that consume most, if not all of my waking hours, effectively defining my life until I retire. I wonder what motivated people to wake up and go flip burgers, or wipe tables. Unlike most fears from that long ago, these ones really didn't diminish much, if any, and they still affect me just as much if I paid them any heed, because I still don't have answers to those questions. Having been upsold a new frame, I also catch myself wondering, "how could people bring themselves to do this to others?" Look, I'm not going to pretend I'm a saint, but I've always had trouble knowingly hurting other people, much less to their face. I don't say this with any grudge or ill will; I genuinely wonder how people can bring themselves to do this. Do they not have some sort of a psuedo physical barrier in their mind that prevents them from hurting people, like I do? Are they the weird ones, or me? And where does this barrier in my mind come from, if it's so abnormal? It makes me so, so scared of putting myself out there in the world, of having a job, because not only does it mean that I'll be putting myself out there to be eaten alive and taken advantage of by people less kind, but also that I'll most likely be put in a position to use social pressure and other such unfathomables to eat others alive in the same fashion. It is a world and a cruel game I cannot even begin to comprehend, and quite frankly, I consider it a blessing that I remain ignorant of it, the odd instances where I get upsold something notwithstanding.

The store I went to, a Japanese brand common in Singapore whom I shall not name because I don't want to feed Google's profiling on me, is known for their super quick 20–min turnaround time, but because of my... fang guang? Astigmatism, I think it's called in English? My lenses have to be custom made to order, and a waiting period of 10 (working?) days is usually typical. My new specs came, and when I tried them on, they felt weird on the spot. I thought it was something I'd eventually get used to, but that feeling of comfort never came. Since the custom prescription specs were still under warranty and they offered the service, I went back for a re–test, and the person that tested me this time revealed to me that I had trouble discerning image sharpness on my right eye, perhaps because I was already fatigued when I took the test, or perhaps because of "lazy eye"? And it's just soured my inner thoughts and dialogue for several days till now.

When I went to bed that night, I was just... angry, at myself. I didn't know until that second test, but I pretty much realised immediately I had focus issues on my right eye immediately after the woman pointed it out to me. I have to blink a few times and "screw in" my face around my right eye SO MUCH just to get sharp vision from it. It made me realise that I've just been living, writing, driving, designing, thinking, over a cloud of blur and fog all this while, physical and mental. I just felt super discouraged and angry at my own situation. More and more, especially in the past seven or so months that I've been somewhat focused on myself and my own needs, I've come to find that I'm a rather sensitive person. I'm a bit of an emotional sponge. I get immensely swayed by art. Being around news genuinely upsets me. I tend to cry when others share heartfelt stories. I can't stand listening to the forced enthusiasm in radio ads. I'm a light sleeper. Apparently I have a sharp sense of hearing, and maybe that's what makes me speak so softly and what makes my family appear so uncouth and rough to me. To carry this into the extent of caricature, I have extremely sensitive skin, and I'm guessing my sinus is my body being overprotective. I don't know how much of this is related to █, but maybe things that don't bother most people, like our stupidly jerky automatic transmission buses, or the sticky sweat from the ridiculous humidity of Singapore, affects me more than others because I'm more sensitive to sensory things. Sometimes I wonder why my soul isn't light or fragile enough to be carried away or shredded by a passing breeze. Sometimes I feel so out of it just by simply existing that I think I ought to be protected and preserved in a controlled, cool and dry environment, like I'm a critically endangered species brought here into this harsh, inhospitable climate via time travel.

Where the fuck is this post going. Forget my soul; my train of thought feels like it could float away off the tracks on its own, like it were a tube balloon filled with helium and folded into the rough shape of a train.

Because I think I'm so sensitive, I think I need a higher level of care that is only possible with a rich, affluent lifestyle. I wish I could just tell people to fuck off and not talk to me without having to coddle their feelings, and just drop all formalities and just get to the point if I absolutely need to engage, just so people don't drain me so much. I wish my home could be air conditioned 24/7, just so I can feel like I exist in the moment and in my body when the heat and humidity reaches the deadly levels of a typical Singaporean afternoon. I wish I didn't feel so nervous, so rushed, like I had all the time in the world at a better equipped facility when testing my eyesight, just so I wouldn't have to stumble through my life through a constant blur. So many other things I could possibly say, but can't think of because my brain is constantly in a fog, too. I can't help but to wonder, if I had the means to better take care of myself, if the hundreds of small discomforts and thousands of inconveniences in my life just vanished, how much more productive and better of a person I could be. The art I could produce. The ideas I could have. To be the fullest version of myself. I just wish I had the magical means to make this all go away, if only for a few minutes, just so I can see and think clearly in a few moments of bliss, instead of this ambiguous hell I'm forced to stumble through on autopilot and guesses, instead of something I can actually see and feel for what they truly are. How good that must feel, knowing things and making informed decisions. I might just feel like I'm a whole different person. Maybe I wouldn't hate life so much and not want to die. I've always been told that wanting to die is an illness, after all. As crazy as that sounds to me, maybe there's a world wherein they're right about that.

In an unbelievable coincidence, both my slippers and sports shoes broke within... a month, or two? of each other, and as a basic ass man, that amounts to a grand total of 100% of the shoes I own. I want to say that that's because of all the walks I've been taking ever since quitting my job, but it's probably because I weigh something stupid like 120kgs. Despite being poor and with literally no income to even feed myself, I think my sensitivity means that I can really tell the difference between cheap products and expensive, premium ones—something I'm sure my mother will be proud to proclaim as having been inherited from her. I also hate the idea of slop on a philosophical level, and for something that will ideally last me a long time in a world ever more leaning towards disposable intangibles, I would very much like to spend a lot of money on something that's not only high–quality, but that will also last me a long time. I like old clothes and shoes because I grow into them and they stretch around me. They're comfortable. I get to form muscle memory with them. I still get finger orgasms when I type on my mechanical keyboard I really want to name but also really shouldn't. ...look, I really don't have a grand point to make with this. Good stuff is good.

We spent quite a long time in a brand name shoe store, and a young, maybe part time student attendant was super patient and helpful with us. But because we're poor, we were only there to ascertain sizes and which models to get; my sister thinks she can get the shoes cheaper if she were to get them from an outlet store in Changi. And so after all that hard work, we wound up not buying anything, and I felt SUPER AWFUL for that. I lost sleep over that, too. Part of me wanted to at least leave them a good review, but I don't super remember her name. █

I wonder why I'm such a softie. I really wonder how in the hell I've come to live for 30 long years in this harsh, insensitive, sometimes downright cruel world. I'm also in another brain fog and probably not thinking clearly, so I can't tell how melodramatic I'm being over something that shouldn't bother most people that are hard enough to thrive in this world.

But yeah, a week later, we went back and bought both a pair of really fucking good slippers and super fucking good sports shoes. The former are so good that even my sister felt stunned from the moment her foot touched the slippers, and immediately made her perfectly adequate to that point slippers feel like they came from a trash heap. She describes those slippers by saying, "it's as though my feet were being massaged as I walk!", and frankly, I don't disagree with her. The sports shoes didn't have shoelaces, which blew my mind because I've always thought that shoelaces were the stupidest things ever in a world where Velcro is a thing, even when I was in primary school. These shoes were advertised with the tagline, "never touch your shoes again!", and from having tried them on in the store, they sure as hell weren't lying. My mind was blown away by the fact that these shoes exist, and they're super comfortable to wear, too. So much so that they almost make this ultra sensitive shut–in want to leave his home for something, just so he can have an excuse to wear the shoes.

I suppose I should do the online diary thing and actually post a photo of my new shoes.

GT7 W93: Toyota GT-One (TS020) '99

1998 Le Mans Toyota GT-One #27 by ImbissBrunto
#esso #gtone #1998

After the online TT featuring the GT-One at Fuji several moons ago, I've sworn off the TS020 for its spiky rear end. It has the very familiar problem that the FT-1 Gr.3 suffers from, in that it just can't seem to load up its rear tyres at all; no matter how gradually I roll onto the throttle pedal and ease off the steering, there will come a point where the rear end just breaks sideways suddenly and violently. At the risk of sounding completely moronic, I think this is due to the Toyotas both running tyre pressures too high for their own good. The same fault in other cars can be assuaged by switching to lower diameter wheels, but neither of these Toyotas can change their wheel sizes, so both are stuck with that Achilles' Heel for life, with tuning only going so far to assuage the issue.

That bad experience at Fuji is enough for me to write off the car, but it only gets worse the deeper one digs into the TS020 rabbit hole. Obelisk has already pointed out that the TS020 doesn't make enough downforce to fit into Gr.1, but even by Gr.2 standards, the TS020 doesn't push itself into the pavement enough to compete. The TS020 needs to brake Eau Rouge and lift completely for a bit to make 130R, which are corners that even the 2008 GT500 cars needn't lift for. The TS020, with its lower downforce (and arguably drag) numbers, can't brake for corners nearly as late as the 2016 GT500 machines, it can't carry the same speeds through said corners as said Gr.2 meta cars, and it has to tiptoe out of every corner with its spiky rear end, making it lag behind anything comparable to it, be they Group C, GT500, or F1.

To really drive the final nail home in the vacuum–packed coffin, Polyphony Digital really, really hates old cars in its group categories, and they showed this disdain yet again when, in v1.55 that dropped in the middle of our two weekly lobbies, they widened the performance gap more between the TS020 and the meta Gr.2 car, the 2016 NSX-P, under BoP, resulting in a whopping 69.74PP difference between the two cars supposedly balanced to be competitive with each other when both are wearing their default Racing Medium tyres. For some context, we run our COTW lobbies with a 10PP headroom over the featured car normally, because anything more than that usually just becomes an uninformative slaughter. A 70PP difference is the difference between a grandma grocery getter C-HR and a track–focused sports car ND Roadster NR-A. Around even a short lap like Laguna Seca, my TS020 was some FIVE SECONDS A LAP slower than the GT500 machines, meaning I would risk being DNF–ed by race timer had the race been six laps long. Toss in some infighting and some mistakes, and K31thc0m DNF–ed SPD, RX8, and I at Suzuka using a R5 Turbo DTM with just four laps of Suzuka. I get that PD hates old cars being competitive in grouped categories, but even a 1 s/lap deficit would've been huge enough to dissuade anyone seriously trying to win to choose the TS020; five is just bloody dangerous. The TS020 didn't need a power nerf to slot into Gr.2; it needed to be lightened further just to vaguely hope to keep up with more modern machinery.

Aside from its looks, the TS020 truly has nothing going for it in GT7. It's expensive, selectively available, drives terrible, and is so woefully slow around a circuit under BoP that it's a legit cause for concern and protest. Like the beloved tracks and career modes of old GT sorely missed by its fans, the GT-One was brought back to GT7 barely a recognisable silhouette of its old shelf, butchered beyond any reasonable belief, and almost comes across like a slap in the faces of those who grew up in love with these older classics. Unless there ever comes a Gr.2 race on Le Mans, Monza, or Route X, the TS020 is just completely hopeless in Gr.2. Forget Gr.1 or Gr.2; the TS020 might be a better fit for Gr.3.

Photo spam:

GT7 W92: Porsche Mission X '23

When writing reviews for Car of the Week, I'm always acutely aware that I'm playing pretend: I'm pretending in a virtual environment to be a professional reviewer with real racing experience that has no trouble bringing a car to and keeping it at the limits. As such, I always try to be conscious of my target audience and medium when I write; I can't exactly slam my head into the back of my seat and make a convoluted face holding onto the steering wheel for my life and then write, "OH MY GOD THAT ACCELERATION IS INSANE OOF! HAHAHAHAHAHA!" in a written review of a car in a video game, nor can I ascertain how much towing capacity and wading depth a 2017 Ford Raptor has, or what kind of swag a Ferrari F8 would afford someone pulling up to a fancy hotel. After all, the digital world is very different from the real world, having very different limitations and priorities. And because standards and expectations are so different in a game, sometimes I can come to conclusions that would make me sound completely insane if expressed in the real world, like how a 2017 Ford GT feels soulless and boring, and that the Mazda RX-8 is one of the best sports cars ever made. But if I were to take my role–playing of a professional reviewer more seriously, I'd try to sugarcoat my harsh opinions more, perhaps by saying things like, "playing pretend isn't Porsche's forte", because the Mission X makes absolutely zero sense to me as a Gran Turismo 7 player.

In the medium of a video game that ought to be played for pleasure and maybe even an escape from reality, Porsche presents the Mission X to us players almost like an advertisement to drum up interest and hype for the eventual successor to the 918 Spyder. They pumped out a release video showing off the car on YouTube to coincide with the car being added into the game, and they'd proudly share with us in the car's description page trifling details like where its headlights draw inspiration from, or how a stopwatch can be installed in front of the passenger seat for whatever reason. As a GT7 player however, what I'd like to know before any of that is, "how much does this weigh?" and "which wheels on this are being propelled?" You know, the very bare basic of questions that usually don't bear asking. Except, Porsche would rather tell us that the Mission X has built–in video recording capabilities than the mass of the damn car. This is Gran Turismo 7 on the PlayStation 4 & 5; a 1956 356 Carrera would have built–in video recording function. It's called the Share button, and it's on every DS4 and DS5 controller.

The only hint of the Mission X's all–governing mass figure lies in a single sentence of the car's description: it is claimed to have a power–to–mass ratio of 1PS/kg. From this, we could infer from the Mission X's 1,360PS (1,341HP, 1,000kW) figure and conclude that the it weighs 1,360kg (2,998lbs). However, if we pay for the privilege of PS+, we can attempt to verify this hypothetical mass figure: Create an Open Lobby, set the minimum mass of entrant cars to 1,361kg, and, oh, what's this? The Mission X can still enter! In fact, the Mission X remains eligible all the way until the Minimum Mass is set to no lower than 1,601kg (3,530lbs), meaning that the Mission X's actual mass is 1,600kg (3,527lbs), and that Porsche and/or Polyphony Digital outright lied to our faces about how much the Mission X actually weighs. It breaks my heart to see this kind of shenanigans from a car bearing the Porsche emblem, because that's the company I had previously praised for being honest with their mass figures by quoting kerb mass instead of dry mass, and the Mission X's undisclosed mass figure veiled behind a paywall feels like a bitchslap of betrayal. It's one thing not being able to meet a performance target, but to then obscure basic facts and tell a bold–faced lie that Porsche have achieved said target is a scumbag move both in the real and virtual worlds alike, especially when said lie could endanger others.

Here's some free information for a change: In the hugely popular Amazon series, "The Grand Tour", the predecessor to the car the Mission X previews, the 918 Spyder, set the fastest lap time among its "Holy Trinity" rivals—the McLaren P1 and LaFerrari—around Algarve International Circuit, despite the Porsche being the heaviest with the least combined power of the trio. That might, might, be testament to the wisdom of Porsche engineers making the 918 drive all four of its wheels, making it much easier to handle than its boneheaded rivals that try to put down almost a thousand horsepower through just their rear wheels. With that being said, can anyone in any world tell me why the HELL does the Mission X, with over 50% more power than the 918, drive 50% less wheels than the 918?! While Porsche are tight–lipped about which wheels of the Mission X are driven, it's depicted in the game as being RR for some unfathomable reason, and even asking anyone to imagine what that does to the handling of the car ought to be a crime, to say nothing about actually subjecting someone to have to wrangle it around a track.

Porsche VGT Vexx by Sagittarius
#vexx #porschevgt

The Mission X is completely undrivable without TCS. Don't just take my word for it; Ex–World Tour driver Tidgney recommends TCS even when the Mission X is wearing Racing Soft rubber, which is three whole compounds up from the Sports Soft the car comes default with. It's so incalculably awful on Sports Hard tyres that it breaks the PP system of the game. I personally drive it on TCS 2/5 on said Sport Soft tyres, and even then, it feels every bit as lairy and unwieldy as a Dodge Demon without aids. It wheelspins well into the 200km/h range on TCS2 in the dry. It's always at the limit of its tyres' grip, so much so that even cresting a gentle hill—such as the one right before the triple high speed sweepers of Dragon Trial Seaside—with TCS on 2/5 is enough to send the car spearing off into the barriers. On cold tyres, it wouldn't even need the crest of a hill to kill its driver; my Mission X lost itself going in a straight line in the dry, WITH TCS ON AT 2/5, on the slight downhill straight between Turns 1 and 2 of Red Bull Ring. And while it's normally very taut and flat in the corners, the rear tyres of the Mission X don't like to be leaned on too much. If the car is steered too hard in an attempt to fight the understeer when rolling on the accelerator pedal for high speed sweepers (such as Turns 2 & 3 of Watkins Glen, or most of Tokyo East), the car is prone to suddenly penduluming and fishtailing like an air–cooled 911, which blows my mind because the MX is much better balanced as an EV, with a weight distribution of 45/55. I suspect there's some shenanigans going on with rear steer and/or torque vectoring that causes this suddenly nostalgic behaviour in the MX, because it also acts unnaturally if one side of its wheels are placed off–track, giving that sensation of being sucked off the paved road by the grass or gravel. I haven't noticed any rear steering with the Mission X in Scapes, though.

The most egregious part of driving the MX, of course, is the sheer distance it needs to adequately slow for a corner, better measured in time zones than distance boards. To illustrate my point, I did a quick little experiment wherein I brought three cars—a first gen 911 (a 1973 901 Carrera RS 2.7), an eighth–gen 911 (a 2022 992 GT3 RS), and the Mission X '23—to Watkins Glen, and I'd approach Turn 1 at full speed and try to take T1 as quickly as possible with all three cars bone stock with their default tyres.

Despite both 911s varying greatly in overall speed and capabilities, there was only about 30m in difference between the braking points of the 901 and the 992; the 901 braked at around 320m before the corner, while the 992 needed to brake around 350m. That's an increase of just 30m across 50 years of evolution of the 911. Now, take a guess how much longer a 2023 Mission X needs to slow for the very same corner under identical conditions than the 2022 992 GT3 RS.

It needed to brake around 660m away from T1.

The Mission X needed to apply its brakes fully 310m further away from the 992 GT3 RS just to make the damn apex of the turn! The distance boards only go up to 400m because no one expects a car to need that long to slow for the turn! 400m is usually just a wake–up call that the corner is approaching, especially in a GT3 racecar that usually brakes closer to the 250m mark on Racing Hard tyres. And yet, the Mission X had to brake WAY before it even approaches the first distance marker for the turn. It's asking me to brake even before I can SEE the damn corner I'm braking for! I've even had to count the number of catch fence stakes, each 20m apart from the other, to even give you that 660m approximation! Because of these impossible–to–judge braking distances, I've had to, for the first time in playing GT games, go full n00b mode and turn on braking zone markers to help me when driving the Mission X. They're usually not very precise at all, but they're very poignant and VERY necessary reminders nonetheless for just how obscenely long the MX needs to slow for a corner, where there otherwise would be none.

To be entirely fair, the Mission X would be a technological marvel in its own right if it materialised into the real world behaving exactly like it does in Gran Turismo 7: 1,600kg is unbelievably, impossibly light for a performance EV that has a thousand kW and enough range for 10 laps of Red Bull Ring at full tilt. Its top speed of 328km/h (204mph) ought to sate all but the clinically insane of Autobahn cruisers. It's just that, in Gran Turismo, there really isn't much that gives players a sense of speed; all we get is wind noise, which gets mostly drowned out by the electric motors at full blast. Absent any feelings of g and not even having the periodic reminder of speed that is shifting gears ourselves, the way in which the Mission X gathers speed is not just akin to getting sucked into a wormhole; it's also paradoxically stealthy. I think that most of the complaints about the car not stopping well is down to just how unaware we as players before a TV screen are of how quickly the Mission X is flinging us through the straights of any given circuit and into its corners. It does LMP1 speeds on the straights, naturally leading players to fall back onto their LMP1 instincts with braking and cornering, but the Mission X has only road car brakes and tyres. Excellent they may be by road car standards, those brakes and tyres are completely disproportionate to the straight line speed the Mission X has. The Mission X actually has slightly higher minimum corner speeds than even the stripped out, winged track toy, the 992 GT3 RS, but it never feels as agile in the corners as the 992 because it's SO MUCH goddamn faster than the 992 in a straight line. In other words, I think the Mission X is so unreasonably, irresponsibly fast on the straights that it completely warps all understanding and perception of distance, time, and speed in my head, and I highly suspect this is true for most other players as well.

Therefore, to help ground my expectations and set a baseline, I thought I'd do my pretend reviewer thing and bring a comparison car that has much more comparable lap times to the Mission X: A 1970 Chaparral 2J, and I'm going to run them back–to–back on the same track.

Yes, the 2J is a racecar, while the Mission X previews a road car. But, I think this is a fair comparison nonetheless because, despite the game tagging the Mission X as a #Road Car, I call bullshit on that tag. The Mission X in real life is, to the public's knowledge, a one–off, life–sized car model with little to no mechanical bits underneath. It doesn't even come with licence plates for crying out loud, nor can it be fitted with plates in GT Auto. I simply reject the notion that the Mission X is a #Road Car. And if it isn't road–legal, why shouldn't it be compared to racecars? If anything, Porsche have the advantage in this comparison test, because all Porsche had to do was to build a model car and pretend that it has a 1PS/kg power–to–mass ratio; Chaparral actually had to build a (however briefly) functioning car that extends beyond theory and speculation. Chaparral didn't just say that the 2J had 509kW and weighs 821 kilos; the 2J has 683HP and weighs 1,810 pounds. If or when the car the Mission X previews makes it to GT7 and gets chosen to feature on Car of the Week, I'll pit it against road cars then. The Mission X on its own is simply not a road car to me.

The mathematically inclined among you might have worked out that the Chappie has just a little over half the power and mass of the Mission X, giving them very similar power–to–mass ratios. Both cars have their own vices and quirks when driven quickly, but the Chappie is much faster around a racetrack, having braking performance proportionate to the speeds it can do, and has much more range on a full tank of fuel than the Mission X has on a full charge. Okay, yeah, the Chappie is on Racing Hard tyres, one grade up from the Sports Soft that come default with the Mission X. But I set a 1:19.9 around Red Bull Ring with little effort in the Chappie, and the absolute quickest time achieved by the very best players of the game with the Mission X and Racing Soft tyres was a 1:20.6. I'm sorry, but when a futuristic make–believe car gets walloped by an antiquated box from the seventies in terms of outright speed, range, and ease of use, I find it impossibly difficult to even pretend to be mildly impressed by that or excited for what the future brings. Like... what is the Mission X even good for in this game?

At the end of the day, I'm playing pretend. I pretend to be an experienced racing driver and a writer who knows how to cite sources and when to use a semicolon. I pretend my opinions matter in a small corner of the internet I made. But what does it say about a car in real life if it is too cartoonishly quick and dangerous even in a video game? MAYBE the sense of speed will be much, much more prominent in real life, what with NVH, g forces, and the fear of death, and people will be therefore more sensible with it in real life than we GT7 players are in the game. While I admit to the shortcomings of myself and my mediums, I very much like that this digital world eliminates a lot of real world pains and politics to place a laser–focus on the cars' own merits and driving sensations; no one is going to ban the sale or use of ICEs in this game, and I don't have to beg to be loaned a car to review, meaning I don't have a working relationship with anyone, be they car owners or manufacturers, and thus I can be entirely honest with my writing with nothing to lose. And my personal thoughts and opinions of the Mission X as someone who paid a million of his own Credits to judge it free of politics on its own merits across several racetracks are thus: I just don't know what the hell anyone is supposed to do with 1,360PS. I think the Mission X is just performance for the sake of it, just so that Porsche can remain part of the Holy Trinity. It's not something I want to drive nor find meaning in, and the thought of someone in the real world with way more money than skill and experience being able to buy something resembling it genuinely terrifies me. After driving the Mission X in the virtual world, I deeply suspect that, if I were a regular Porsche customer in the real world with a deep respect for the 911 and an even deeper love for the Cayman, that the Mission X would convince me that Porsche have completely lost the plot and all their marbles, completely evaporating whatever faith and goodwill I have for the company. The only thing they got right with the Mission X is its sole body colour of brown, because the car's a heap of shit.

Am I only pretending to care to justify being so harsh? I'll let you figure that out yourself.

GT7 W86: Mazda RX-Vision '15

Ever since the 3rd generation, "FD3S" RX-7 ended production in 2002, rumours, fan renders, and outright clickbait articles purporting a grand return of a Mazda rotary sports car have swarmed the niche fan community incessantly. While the four door, four seat, and criminally underrated RX-8 did succeed the RX-7 in name and driving feel, it never had the laser focus, bleeding edge performance, stunning svelte looks, or cultural significance that the FD was so beloved for, leaving some to believe that the legendary 7 had no true successor. In 2015, Mazda took a look at that that storm of speculation and discourse and thought, "Y'know what? Ima have a piece of that action, show 'em how it's done for poops and giggles", and revealed at the Tokyo Motor Show, a "Rotary Sports Concept" known as the RX-Vision.

Of course, in the 13 years since the FD bowed out of the Japanese market, cars, and the world at large, had changed almost beyond recognition. Cars had arguably gotten so fast to a point that high tech computer wizardry had become a requirement to not only keep them on the road, but to get the most out of them on the track. Thus, pure, lightweight, simple, and affordable sports cars à la the RX-7 have been edged out of the market by technological juggernauts, with many companies even beginning to experiment with hybridisation to prepare for an eventual transition into a carbon neutral future, resulting in an influx of bloated, heavy, and isolating computers on wheels. The RX-Vision then, shocked TAS2015 attendees upon its unveiling both with its beauty and what said beauty seemed to promise; it was low, it was wide, it was svelte, and it hadn't a single screen in the spartan cockpit, seemingly promising the return of a pure sports car just like the FD RX-7 used to be. One could even argue that the RX-Vision looked less like its own thing and more like an FD RX-7 pulled out of a time machine and adapted for the climate of 2015: the goggles–shaped rear light cluster sheathing four round brake lights is the most obvious shared design element, but even the RX-Vision's headlights, while required by modern laws to be static, have running lights in the shape of panel gaps suggestive of the sorely missed pop–up headlights of the RX-7. Heck, the analogue gauges in the RX-Vision would almost look nicked straight from a Zenki FD in the early nineties if the tach didn't read up to an eyebrow–raising 10,000rpm! It really did seem like Mazda were dead serious about bringing something in the spirit of the FD RX-7 into the modern era; something that would be focused on just the driving thrills while actively purging from it any frills, and such a notion was proper cause for celebration both for rotary sports car fans and driving enthusiasts in general.

Photos: Mazda

However, despite all the direct callbacks to my childhood hero and dream sports car, the RX-Vision has always looked a little... off, to me. The part that sticks out to me the most—quite literally—is the stupidly long bonnet of the RX-Vision. One of the main selling points of a Wankel Rotary engine is that they're very compact for their power output, so why the heck does the bonnet of the RX-Vision look long enough to swallow a V12 longitudinally? What's under there, what's that space used for? Designer Maeda Ikuo has proudly stated in GT Café that this long hood, short deck style was an intentional design decision, giving the car great proportions and putting more load on the rear tyres, but I respectfully disagree with him. If load on the rear was really so important, I'd really rather they just made a rear mid–engined car instead, fully acknowledging that Mazda seems oddly adverse to producing RMR cars for some reason. One of the things that made the RX-7 so beloved was that it was a very "pure" and "honest" sports car—there was nothing on it that didn't serve a purpose, and the cars had a very simplistic, yet organic beauty to them because of that. The RX-Vision by contrast, was not only a hollow styling exercise, but one that looked like a fat, disproportionate person wearing a designer dress to me. Yes, the dress itself is achingly beautiful, but the thing underneath contorting, stretching, and giving it shape, I just can't for the life of me find attractive in the slightest, and the whole package just seems a waste.

Now, this is a personal pet peeve of mine, but I really wish the RX-Vision had a third brake light in the middle, even if it'd mostly be blocked by the rear spoiler in its lowered position (and I highly doubt this is legal anywhere). The spoiler bisecting and obscuring the rear lights may at first appear to be just a styling item, but in a blink–and–you'll–miss–it moment during the car's reveal, a video package did show the spoiler raising up and out of the way of the lights, and designer Maeda Ikuo has stated in an interview that the spoiler deploys automatically. It's a bit of a shame that the spoiler is completely static in GT7 in its lowered and obstructive position. I've genuinely never understood why spoilers and wings nowadays need to pop up and down. It's just unnecessary mass and complication. I'll deal with the drag penalty at legal speeds and save on the mass, thank you very much. Rear wings are cool, I want to see them, and anyone who thinks they're uncool are pots calling kettles black. Also, remember how I praised the RX-Vision earlier for not having a single screen in the cockpit? Yeah, that might be a bit of a problem, considering the fact that the thin stalks protruding from the doors hold nothing but cameras. They might want to look into that before putting the car into production, and while they're at it, maybe they can also add in door handles and a fuel inlet.

In 2022, seven years after the RX-Vision was initially revealed, Toyota unveiled a good looking, long hood, short deck FR GT3 racer called the GR GT3 Concept, and the folks at Japanese Nostalgic Car quickly connected the dots, similar roof and door cut lines, and proportions to the RX-Vision GT3 Concept that was added to Gran Turismo Sport in 2020. Now, I don't even want to fantasise about knowing what goes on behind closed doors of car design at a corporate level, but this lines up a bit too well with my gut feeling of "The RX-Vision is very unlike the Mazda I know", making me believe that the RX-Vision was never born specifically to be a Mazda to begin with, but rather as a shared platform. I know the auto industry is in a bad place right now, and the clock is ticking on the internal combustion engine, but as a Mazda fan, I don't know if I want a rotary sports car that has to compromise and share platforms with something it was never meant to be. To be clear, I'm not against platform sharing at all; I just think that the rotary sports car is too ingrained into Mazda's identity to share with and be compromised for some other make, even if Toyota and Mazda (along with Subaru) seem to be buddy–buddy in real life.

I don't give praise to Polyphony Digital often, but they've done an absolutely fantastic job in capturing the essence of the RX-Vision in GT7. Designer Maeda Ikuo has stated both in interviews and in the GT Café that he designed the surfaces in such a way that light dynamically dances across the car as the viewer moves around it to make the car appear more as though a living creature and not just a machine, and while a good approximation of this can be experienced without ray tracing, this dynamic light dance absolutely comes alive in GT7 with ray tracing enabled. It genuinely tickles my inner child taking the RX-Visions to Scapes with spectacular lighting, such as the Tokyo National Art Center, and just... moving the car around, much like a child would a toy car in his hands.

While the wheels and plastic trim pieces look black most of the time, at certain angles, they give of a slight candy apple reddish tint, and even that has been captured and replicated faithfully in GT7. It's not very noticable with the original body colour of Soul Red because they pair so well with said paint, but that reddish tint starts to really stick out and look awkward when the car is repainted in anything other than red, or when one messes around with colours and temperatures in photo mode to get the car looking a certain way.

On the technical side of things, Mazda are cautiously tight–lipped about any specs of the RX-Vision, refusing to spare us fans even morsels of information. We only know that the SkyActiv-R engine is the "main power unit", and that it's an FR. Despite Mazda's deliberate wording that leaves open the possibility of hybridisation, the RX-Vision's only power source in GT7 is its screamer of a Rotary Engine, interpreted by Polyphony Digital to be a naturally aspirated 4–Rotor that revs to 9,500rpm, producing a peak of 517HP (386kW) at 8,800rpm and 489.2N⋅m (360.8lbf⋅ft) at 7,500rpm. If you think PD were super generous with those power figures, wait till you see how little the RX-Vision weighs according to them: a mere 1,290kg (2,844lbs); 60 kilos (132lbs) lighter than the RX-8 Spirit R and just 20 kilos (44lbs) heavier than the RX-7 Spirit R Type A. These figures put the RX-Vision's performance somewhere around those of the C6 Corvette ZR1, Ferrari 458, and the NC1 NSX; all of which familiar names and flagships the FD RX-7 could go toe–to–toe with in the early nineties.

While the SkyActiv-R engine's power curves and noise do make it extremely similar to the R26B 4–Rotor of the 787B, a very pleasant surprise greeted me when I got into the car from the garage: it made actual 787B noises! This is a big deal to me because I've complained about PD not having a real 787B to scan and record back when I reviewed the 787B in GT Sport, resulting in the digital 787B—and anything else derivative and accepting of its 4–rotor—sounding decidedly unlike the real 787B, including the RX-Vision GT3 Concept. In other words, the "base" RX-Vision sounds more like a racecar than even literal racecars on startup! Despite this, the sound of the base RX-Vision has been notably muffled from its GT3 counterpart during actual gameplay, itself already slightly muffled from the sound of the faux 787B. Some have expressed that the piercing wail of the 787B's 4–Rotor is grating to listen to, and even I have to concur with that sentiment. The RX-Vision's sound, having gone through so much muffling, is perfectly fine to listen to even for long periods of time, all while still sounding highly distinct. It has struck the perfect balance in my opinion, especially if one can suspend their disbelief and not question how something with this much character and volume can ever hope to make production in today's car climate.

The benefits of not having to exist in the cruel and spiteful world are readily apparent from the right bucket seat of the RX-Vision, as the A–pillars are impossibly thin by stringent modern standards, allowing for an incredible view out front. The RX-Vision also doesn't have to print 0–100km/h times nor pass noise and emissions regulations, so the car can be geared naturally for its power curves and mass. Driving it is such a breath of fresh air and a stark reminder of just how ludicrously compromised modern cars are. 2nd and 3rd gear in the RX-V's sequential gearbox are very close to each other to keep the rev happy Rotary unabashedly screaming unhindered by noise regs, and the car will continue to pull all the way in 6th gear, topping out at redline around 320km/h (199mph) in clean air without even a hint of wanting to function as an overdrive highway cruising gear. Just like the 787B, the RX-Vision has ample mid–range punch normally uncharacteristic of NA Rotary Engines, and when mated to such close gear ratios, the RX-Vision is never left without an answer for any complex of corners. I do however concur with Obelisk and RX8 in saying that the RX-Vision has a bit too short of a final drive ratio for the speeds it feels otherwise capable of. It's not a big deal most of the time, but it does feel like squandered potential in the highly specific scenario of a top speed slipstream battle against other cars, or even copies of itself.

Of course, with performance numbers far surpassing that of the FD RX-7, the suspension setup of the RX-Vision has accordingly been tightened up to be less playful and more immediate. The RX-Vision shows no perceptible pitch and roll on its default Sports Hard tyres from the inside and out, and it's almost racecar immediate in its response to driver inputs. Its stiff suspension, incredibly lightweight body, and meagre downforce values combine to result in a car that reacts to every minute crease and crevice of the road surface, transmitting them all to its driver with such clarity that it even comes across visually in bumper cam, making the RX-V feel extremely raw and constantly on the edge, easily upset by an imperfect public road, beating up its driver visually in lieu of physically through the digital divide. It really does remind me of tuner cars from the 90s with how on edge and unrefined it feels in its pursuit of performance, no doubt worsened by the very modern 20–inch steamroller wheels. That stiff suspension setup can also be problematic even on an obsessively smoothed over racetrack: with a staggered 245–285 tyre setup and a rear weight bias from the long hood, short deck body style, the RX-Vision can struggle to put weight over the front tyres to get the long nose to bite into an apex, which is a problem only highlighted more by the fact that whoever is in charge of setting up fictional cars at PD just loves giving them stupidly tight differential setups, meaning that the laden, grippier rear end of the RX-Vision is always trying to keep the featherweight front end from turning and biting into a corner. On trail braking, there's a very prominent moment wherein the car awkwardly stops wanting to turn, the steering wheel judders, and the front tyres scrub with no leadup nor warning whatsoever, and it's a similar story on corner exits as well, where the rear end will suddenly break loose without warning on power, despite the malleable and predictable nature of the NA engine. What this translates to in practice is a very unpredictable and counter–intuitive car to drive; I find myself braking early for corners just to avoid having enough brake input to lock up the LSD when it comes time to pitch the car into the turn, and on corner exits, I'm always tiptoeing on the accelerator pedal, waiting, anticipating the stupid diff to bust the rear end loose. I keep TCS on at 1/5 when driving the RX-Vision not only because I appreciate the safety net, but also because the TCS light coming on out of a corner as I roll on the accelerator pedal is the only warning I'd get for the RX-Vision wanting to re–enact the last downhill run of Takahashi Keisuke versus God Foot.

Despite the "Vision" in its name, the RX-Vision is, in fact, not a Vision Gran Turismo car, meaning the car can be upgraded and adjusted. One might think then, that the car's rather glaring faults can be fixed, but I'm sad to report that, aside from the gearing, none of the RX-V's prominent faults can be tuned out. While a "fully" customisable suspension kit can be bought for the RX-Vision, the springs can't go soft enough to give clear, stable Vision on Sports Hard tyres, with minimum natural frequencies of 2.30/2.50Hz F/R. For some context, a C6 ZR1's stock values are 1.8/2.0Hz F/R, and that's hardly a soft car to begin with. There are no aero parts for the RX-Vision at all in GT Auto, meaning that the car is just stuck with its default downforce values for life. While the car does produce meaningful downforce as–is according to its spec sheets, it doesn't feel enough to counteract the lift the body naturally generates, as the car feels vague, floaty, and even snappy at high speeds, making some high speed corners and kinks either extremely precarious to take at speed, or just flat out impossible to negotiate without slowing to an extent where that becomes dangerous in itself. It's impossible to brake on the high line for the aggressively banked T1 of High Speed Ring Reverse without introducing the rear quarter panel to some armco, and it WILL snap loose without fail, controller or wheel alike, on the final left kink on Deep Forest's home straight. I'm merely speculating when I say this, but I really think the long hood, short deck body style is to blame for all this lift, as the air along the roofline of the car has to dip sharply to meet the boot lid of the car, creating a region of low pressure where the rear window is. It's why so many Le Mans racer have "long tail" versions, right? To feed higher pressure, less turbulent air to their rear wings for high–speed stability? Maybe this wouldn't be such an issue if we could put a towering rear wing on the RX-Vision to match its roofline à la the GT3 Concept, but despite the racecar already being in GT Sport prior to the release of GT7, none of that trickled down to the base car at all for some unfathomable reason.

For a million credits, I would certainly hope for more customisation options and a much better drive. The C6 ZR1 and any of the AMG GTs are just better cars in every regard, and good luck trying to convince your average petrolhead to not buy a Ferrari 458 and instead shell out more than thrice the Credits for a Mazda. Heck, I'd rather spend more on swapping in a racing 4–Rotor to an RX-7 or RX-8, and end up with cars that boast much more customisability visually and mechanically, to say nothing of the unreal fuel efficiency that racing engines have in this game.

The RX-Vision struck me as odd when I first laid eyes on it, and PD's interpretation of it only solidified those doubts into pure disdain. I'm just glad that Mazda has seemingly moved on from the pure styling exercises and made something much more balanced looking and no less beautiful in the Iconic SP.

Trying to Fix the RX-Vision

I genuinely think PD has given the RX-V too much speed and too little handling. It's obvious to say this in hindsight, but I think if a Mazda Rotary sports car was in production today, its most natural rivals would be the A90 Supra and the RZ34 Fairlady, both of which hover around the 550PP range—some 70PP below where the RX-V currently sits.

I did try my hand at assuaging the RX-V's awful tendencies, and while it is a bit of cheat to lower speed to get the car to handle better, I think I did pretty well, albeit also making the car a little soulless in the process. I think 400HP and 1,380kg (3,042lbs) are more realistic figures for a production car today; both power and mass are below those of the aforementioned Supra and Fairlady, and cruising at Japan's speed limit of 100km/h has the engine doing almost 3,000rpm in 6th gear. Flat out, it's good for around 270km/h (168mph) in clean air. And, of course, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to give the car the manual gearbox it deserved.

I don't know why I did this. I guess I just really wanted to say that I tried everything I could to make the RX-V work. I don't tune often, but I'd like for anyone still reading to give my setup a try and share with me their thoughts on the setup.

Wheels are 19–Inch items (one inch down from the default), at default offset and width.