GT7 W82: Honda RAYBRIG NSX Concept-GT '16

Ever since Super GT's regulations for its top class of racecars, GT500, unified with those of DTM's in 2014, I've come to really dislike the category. What was once an international clash of methodologies and ideologies has now been reduced to just the "Big Three" manufacturers of Japan battling it out in a hollow condom measuring contest; underneath the barely recognisable silhouettes of Toyota, Nissan, and Honda's flagship cars were the same 2L turbo 4–cylinders nestled in the same FR chassis, with the only difference between them being the rubber that shoe the cars and the meat in the middle commandeering them, and I just find that incredibly difficult to get emotionally invested into. As a petrolhead, I find more personality in the race queens posing beside these GT500 machines than the cars themselves, and that's just sad.

Image: Sakura Hayashi Official Blog

One of the last holdouts of individuality in GT500 was, of course, Honda's NSX, easily the most rebellious GT500 entrant of the typically polite Japanese. Despite singing the same turbocharged 2L Inline–4 tune, the NSX Concept-GT has its heart in a very different place: aft the cockpit, immediately violating the rule in GT500 which stipulates that only FR cars may compete. As if having a Super Formula engine slung midships wasn't enough of a middle finger on its own, the NSX-P lined up on the top ten slots of the grid alongside its FR competitors as early as 2014, when the production NC1 NSX only debuted in showrooms mid 2016, meaning that the NSX-P had to be specially exempted from the rule that stipulates that cars in Super GT must be based (however loosely) on a models the general public can buy, hence why its known as the "NSX-P" instead of "NC1" like the road car. And just to stick it to the man, NSX-Ps also ran hybrid assistance; the only GT500 model to ever do so, though Team Kunimitsu, the team fielding the #100 Raybrig car we have in the game, opted to ditch the hybrid system for the 2016 season due to reliability concerns, meaning we GT7 players don't get to reap its benefits. For its blatant disregard for etiquette and rules, race officials slapped all NSX-Ps in the 2016 round of Super GT with a 29kg (64lbs) mass handicap, resulting in the rebellious Ronin weighing in at 1,049kg (2,313lbs) in comparison to the Lexus' and Nissans' 1,020kg (2,249lbs).

Of course, that mass deficit is more malleable here in GT7, where the game's Balance of Performance can arbitrarily add or subtract power and mass from a car from time to time. Now residing in Gr.2, the NSX-P weighs in at 1,175kg (2,590lbs) as of v1.52. A substantial increase over the car's original mass for sure, but at the same time, it's not the only one that has put on mass; it now only weighs 25kg (55lbs) more than the Lexus RC F and Nissan GT-R across all three BoP settings, meaning that its mass deficit over its FR compatriots got closed by a minuscule amount. The kicker however, is that, while the NSX-P normally has the least power of the three, under v1.52 BoP, it now has the most power among the three 2016 GT500 racecars: 545PS in comparison to the RC F's 542PS and GT-R's 540PS (401kW, 399kW, 397kW). If Super GT officials in 2016 have balanced all three cars to be roughly equal in pace, imagine what shrinking the mass deficit and completely reversing its power hierarchy does to the balance of the three. Hint: there is no balance.

推しの子　星野アイ　RC F GT500 by kankan0208
#oshinoko #anime #hoshinoai

Full disclosure: Even by my subpar standards, I'm not very good with high–downforce cars. However, despite my shortcomings, the NSX-P is just so easy to drive to my hands, and nothing else in the category even comes close. Yes, the engine revs to an astonishing 9,500rpm, and yes, it does make over 300PS per litre, but contrary to common sense, the HR-414E engine has healthy, usable torque from as middling as 5k, from which the power curves gradually build, reaching a crescendo at 9k, where the in–game HUD flashes the rev bar for a shift. Intuitively, that's where the NSX-P wants to be shifted, but trust me when I say that it's not an engine picky about shift points, and its Anti–Lag System, set to Weak by default, keeps the engine on its toes when off–throttle. It's just such a malleable, intuitive, and cooperative engine in spite of its bloodcurdling figures! As one of the only four cars in Gr.2 that I consider modern, the NSX-P displays startling immediacy in response to its driver's inputs, easily making the rest of Gr.2 feel like utter laggards and hazards to drive. But while it's one of the only four modern cars in Gr.2, it is the ONLY rear mid–engined car among the four, meaning that the NSX-P makes even its elite group of modern peers—who themselves already make other cars in Gr.2 feel slow and unwieldy—feel like sloppy pigs in the corners! In short, not only is the NSX-P the fastest Gr.2 car under current BoP, it's also the easiest to drive!

But of course, as with any GT500 car from the past decade, the NSX-P only truly comes alive when air starts rushing past its aggressive bodywork, at which point, the sheer, immense downforce that these cars are capable of so thoroughly dominates the experience that hardly anything else about the car registers. The grip that this thing produces at speed, alongside the drag said downforce generates, means that the NSX-P can get so stupidly close to the corner before needing to brake for it—even from top gear—that I don't much use brake markers alongside the track to judge when I need to stomp on the left pedal, instead rather just eyeballing the apex. It's mind boggling, even thinking back at it now! Not that the NSX-P really wants to slow down, because it incentivises and rewards slightly odd, wider entry lines into high speed turns that allow the car to bring more speed into the corner entry, and from there, the driver will just have to trust that the car will bite into a sharper line seeking the apex. This I think is where the NSX-P truly differentiates itself from and outshines its FR competition, because none of them can carve out a line as sharp as the NSX-P can, with their heavy engines up front. Downforce may make overtaking unnecessarily difficult, but because the midship NSX-P likes taking wider lines into high–speed turns, it's good both at attacking and defending around the outside of a turn, and it's SUCH a thrill when someone lines up on my inside, and I place that blind faith in the NSX-P to just send it round the outside, my nose still ahead and therefore retaining the right to the corner, and it's just... ooh! *Chef's kiss.* The speeds the midship NSX-P can carry through corners is so obscene that, with BoP off, a pair of NSX-Ps spanked a 787B silly around Tokyo East in our Wednesday lobby, even going as far as to harass a record setting AWD EV time attack machine in the ID. R. While sussing out the limits of the Racing Medium tyres in conjunction with the downforce is a matter of blind trust, dumb courage, and trial and error like any other high–downforce racer, once it does click, that adrenaline rush is one of the most addicting feelings I've felt. It's a bit like listening to a commentary video at 2x speed; if you can catch and process everything at 2x speed, suddenly losing that efficiency by going to 1x speed just feels so painfully slow—uncanny, even. That is to say, the NSX-P makes the entirety of Gr.2 feel inefficient, uncanny, and a downright chore. It can even mix it up with cars a category above on the right tracks! That is a scary thought, and I think we should just stop restricting categories in our lobbies when we feature racecars, and dabble more in turning off BoP entirely, too, just to see if more cars like the NSX-P are out there.

Honda Audio-Technica by wowbagger_84
#honda #audio #technica

Of course, like any other car, the NSX-P is not without its flaws. But because it is simply untouchable in Gr.2, the criticisms against the NSX-P are less of me saying, "the car is bad", but moreso, "this is just what Gr.2 is like", especially when its modern competitors in Gr.2 share the same foibles. As with all high–downforce cars with suspension stiff enough to withstand the crushing forces, the NSX-P can be a little sketchy in low speed corners where the aero is of no help and the suspension permits pitifully little weight transfer, and even with a hefty detune from BoP, the safety net of TC1 is something I inadvertently find my back pressed against from time to time, with full acknowledgement that the real GT500 cars never came with TCS or even ABS. That said, the rear end of the NSX-P lets go so linearly, with such tactile warning through my T300 wheel, that it almost feels malleable enough to play with. Because of said stiffness in the springs, raised rumble strips are to be taken with extreme caution, if not avoided entirely.

The speeds that high–downforce affords may be addictive, but the same high speed turns that make these aero–reliant cars so stupidly fun to yeet through also place a humongous strain on the tyres, so much so that, even on plain ol' 1x wear during our Saturday lobby, the default Racing Medium tyres hit their peak on LAP 2 of Yamagiwa, after which the tyres just fall off. I suspect that the cause of this rapid wear is due to the tyres getting too hot and melting themselves as though the road were lava. World Tour Driver Tidgney has excellent videos about tyre temperatures, how they affect racecars, and how to better manage them, and in these high–downforce cars, tyre temps are no less an essential part of driving (and preserving!) the cars as the engine oil, so much so that a player who uses 3rd party apps to monitor tyre temps in real time ought to glean pertinent information and gain a huge advantage, and I really dislike that GT7 doesn't display the tyre temps for that reason. Whatever the causes may be, tyre degradation makes the same blind faith the car demands of its driver ever more precarious, because there's nothing gradual or communicative about taking corners at those speeds; you just have to yank it hard into a corner, and you'll find out just how worn the tyres are only until after you carry too much speed into a turn, expecting the car to stick, and it just doesn't. At that point, there's really not much the driver can do but pray.

Look, the NA NSXes were my childhood heroes, and the 2008 Epson NSX GT500 still ranks among my top 10 favourite cars of the game, to look at and especially to listen to. I think it's one of the last "authentic" and "genuine" GT500 cars ever made. In those areas, the 2016 NSX-P can never hold a candle to the old NSXes, and the NC1 "nsx" will never be a real NSX to me. But while modern GT500 cars may not have much of a personality, their raw speeds are at such a high level that I genuinely think personality would just be plain dangerous; these cars have to be perfect and immediate at the speeds they ask of their drivers, and offer no surprises. That said, over the course of the week, I think I've miraculously found some personality in the category that seemingly forbids it: the NSX-P's personality is that it's simply heads and shoulders better than anything else in its category, be it GT500 or Gr.2, and it just goes to show just how much of a shame that it's the rebel, not the norm. If Toyota and Nissan haven't the balls to make a proper mid–engine sports car, why should Honda have to bend over backwards and pay the price? Why should Honda run an FR "Civic" in GT500, when paying customers can't even buy a Civic that drives its rear wheels, even partially? The NSX-P and NC1 NSX, simply by virtue of it being rear mid–engined, may just prove to be the peak of GT500 cars for a very, very long time.

GT7 W81: Porsche Carrera GT '04

Gran Turismo 7's large and varied fanbase often bicker and debate on what the game should be, but one thing that is NEVER disputed even among this often divided fanbase is that the Invite system sucks and needs to go die in a fire, and whoever decided to implement it in the game should be kicked into a volcano. Okay, maybe that's exaggerating things (just a tiny bit), but you hopefully get the idea.

Assuming you find yourself in a position with both a Porsche Invite and the 2.3 million Credits on hand to make the purchase, should you really buy a Carrera GT? After all, the real car has been involved in some high profile incidents, with a reputation for being a deadly drive that may well even overshadow that of the once–notorious 911. In GT7 v1.52, it's one hell of a tricky customer to handle, just as its real world reputation would suggest. The most immediate thing one has to watch out for is power oversteer, as the car lets go VERY quickly at its limit—almost instantaneously——after a very progressive buildup to said limit. That is to say, this is a car that will earn the trust of its driver, solely to stab them in the back with it with nearly zero warning. Even under braking, the driver will very much have to be on their toes, as the ABS intervenes so minimally under braking that it feels almost placebo, even on the strongest setting of Default. Stomping on the brakes fully sends the tyres into a screeching hysteria, robbing the car almost entirely of its ability to turn. Having the steering wheel even minutely off–centre extends braking distances to disastrous levels, and hitting a puddle with the brake pedal depressed is just an instant death sentence without trial. It's a car that very much has to be driven, feared, and respected as though it doesn't have ABS, and like any high–powered car without aids, the Carrera GT rightly demands of its driver to be very present and in the moment to feel every nuance of the drive, perhaps at a level that simply isn't possible to translate across the digital divide. But yet at the same time, it also fiendishly feeds a quick forming addiction when the driver exhibits bravery that should really only be possible in a video game. I can just about keep the CGT roughly pointed in the direction I want to go; I haven't spun it in the 12 or so races we ran during the week, but I can only keep it straight by under–driving the car. I know gunning for a hundredth of a second out of a corner could cost me 10 seconds if I spin it, and I don't like my odds with the CGT. In other words, driving the CGT feels like a gamble, and those who have an understanding—and dare I say, "trusting"—relationship with the car seem to have better odds with it.

That said, as one of the very last analogue supercars, the CGT may well and truly be the ultimate drivers' car. I would wax poetry and claim that the CGT's looks have aged like fine wine, but that would be implying that its looks have aged at all. I genuinely love the way it somehow blends self–assuredness in its design, while having the supercar requisite "HEY LOOK AT ME!" effect in a parking lot. It's just one of those cars that get prettier and prettier the more I look at it. And of course, it has a screamer of a Naturally Aspirated 5.7L V10 that revs to 8,600rpm, and it might just be in the conversation for the top 10 engine noises in the game, racecars included. Its suspension is so rock–solid that it genuinely feels like putting grooved road tyres onto some sort of a Le Mans racecar. That obviously isn't a good idea, but it feels to me like Porsche engineers have just made the bare minimum of begrudging sacrifices to overlap the two very different worlds, and the shared area in the Venn Diagram has been tailor–made to just perfectly fit one Carrera GT with absurdly little tolerance. It has near racecar levels of immediacy and response, so much so that sometimes I catch myself subconsciously falling into racecar instincts to drive it, like trying to carry more speed into a corner for more downforce and grip, completely forgetting that I'm on Sports tyres that can't handle those loads. It's THAT close to a racecar feel, and I genuinely think it could pull off wearing racing slicks with no mods whatsoever.

The invitation system in GT7 is indisputably idiotic, but if there's ever a car that justifies itself for being locked behind an Invite, the Carrera GT is it. A casual player will have no use nor want for it, and given how disastrous it can be to drive, I think the chance to even encounter it should be gate kept. A dedicated player will have to endure a long, consistent grind to perhaps one day find themselves face–to–face with it, hopefully polishing their skills along the way. The Carrera GT feels like a secret, post–game final boss that's absurdly tough to handle, requiring of its challenger every nuance and skill of the long and arduous journey there to meet it, well above the skill ceiling of what can be reasonably expected of your average Joe. But therein also lies its appeal: a car with its reputation and handling characteristics inherently challenges the most dedicated and perfectionistic of players to own it and OWN it, and if they do succeed, they'll be rewarded with a stupefyingly quick car with styling that looks frozen in time, and can belt out an opera like no other. The secret final boss is its own reward, and the only reward higher than that has to be found outside the confines of code and common sense; perhaps maybe an animalistic bragging right of being able to say, "I made the deadly Carrera GT yield to and serve me. (Therefore, I am more fearsome than the Carrera GT.)"

SPOILER

I have an FD3S painted in Fayence Yellow, and it took until this week for me to realise it's a colour that originally came with the Carrera GT. I guess that ought to jack up the value of my FD...?

GT7 W78: NISMO 400R '95

Many may point to the 2004 Honda Legend V6 for being the car that shattered the gentlemen's agreement between woefully polite Japanese car manufacturers to not advertise more than 280PS (206kW), bringing the infamous "276HP era" of Japan to a close by flaunting 300PS on its spec sheets. However, eight years prior, a complete car was sold by Nissan's motorsports arm, Nismo, that not only packed a rebellious 400PS (294kW), but was also completely untouchable by the authorities for illegal modifications. It had a warranty, met emissions regulations, had even had a naughty speedo that would dare suggest the possibility of speeds above 180km/h (112mph) to its driver! I suspect the reason why not many remember this shocker of a car is the fact that only 44 of those very special R33s were sold, each costing ¥12 million when new—roughly three times that of a regular R33 GT-R. And its name? It's not the Skyline, or even a GT-R; it's quite simply known as the Nismo 400R.

400R Prototype Style by captbradford (Edited)
#prototype #nismo #400r

But its name hadn't always been quite so blissfully simplistic; Gran Turismo 2 players may recall a very oddly named variant of the Nismo unicorn, the "Nismo 400R Preceiding Model", won from the 2nd 4WD Special Event in Seattle Circuit. Presumably a prototype of the 400R, the Preceiding Model had the exact same power and peaks of the production 400R, weighs exactly the same, comes with almost identical paint options, and to my hands, drove exactly the same, albeit with one arguably minor difference: the production 400R (and even a regular R33 GT-R for that matter) could rev to 8,400rpm, but the Preceiding Model was limited to just 8,000rpm. One might think that this would make the Preceiding Model immediately mechanically inferior, but both 400Rs make their 399PS at 6,500rpm, after which the powerband harshly falls off (Nismo claims 400PS @6,800rpm). That is to say, both 400Rs give their best acceleration when short shifted, and having a lower rev limit forces the game to shift the Preceiding Model earlier if driven in automatic, meaning that the Preceiding Model not only loses no speed to the production model when shifted manually, but is actually faster when both are driven with the game's automatic shifting!

While the higher revving 400R '96 would eventually grace every mainline Gran Turismo game up to GT6, the Preceiding Model would seemingly be left to languish in GT2 as a forgotten footnote. However, when the Nismo 400R returned to the series in GT7's Update 1.40, those in the know were in for a bit of a shock. The 400R in GT7 now makes the full 400PS, albeit still at a lower than advertised 6,500rpm. Its rev limit was a "mere" 8,000rpm, and it was listed as a MY1995 car when 400Rs were sold only from 1996–1998. To the best of my very limited researching capabilities, I've only managed to find one 400R that's classified as a MY1995 car: what seems to be a prototype. It would seem as if the 400R we got in GT7 is the Preceiding Model, just without its weird suffix!

Of course, given the wealth of aftermarket tuners that could extract much more power from the 2.6L Inline 6 engines of the Skyline GT-Rs with relative ease, it's no secret that the RB26DETT engine left Nissan assembly plants comically under–stressed. While said engines in racecars had no problem dominating multiple race series, the road cars, capped to 280PS and 180km/h by the gentlemen's agreement, always had trouble keeping pace with much more powerful foreign sports cars like the Porsche 911 and Ferrari F40, and even domestic competition from Honda and Mazda were staking serious claims to Godzilla's crown. The 400R then, feels like a passion project from Nissan, almost as if they were slamming their fists on the table and proclaiming, "screw the "agreement"; THIS is what we can truly do with the R33, tuners take note!" Of course, to properly bring the fight to foreign makes, the 400R couldn't make do with just more power; it also needed to tighten up on the R33's handling to harness the eponymous 400PS. To that end, almost every aspect of an R33 GT-R was reworked to create the 400R: the suspension was stiffened and lowered by 30mm (1.18in) to 105mm (4.13in), the body was widened by 50mm (1.97in) to fit thicker 275mm tyres, its aero was further tweaked, the clutch was twin–plate, and the driveshaft was carbon. Hell, even its engine oil is bespoke! QoL features weren't overlooked either, as front bucket seats and H.I.D headlamps play a part in the transformation of a R33 GT-R into a 400R. The full list of changes is too ridiculously long to list in writing, but the change that most attracts my attention is that the RB26DETT engine has been bored and stroked up to 2,771cc, and no longer called the RB26; instead, it's called the RB-X GT2. Displacing 2.8L, this RB-X GT2 engine bears a cheeky resemblance to the engines used in the R33 GT1 racecars at Le Mans, and that is just so incredibly cool to me!

Being rare and expensive is nice and all, but how does it drive in Gran Turismo 7? Can it really take the fight to foreign sports cars now that the shackles of Japanese etiquette are off of Godzilla?

As the ultimate factory road–going R33, the 400R retains much of the same personality and traits of the 1997 R33 V • spec already in the game, just turned up to higher speeds. What little fans of the middle child R33 might love the 400R for its commitment to the bit, but anyone unconvinced by the V • spec might be left wanting. Like all road–going R33s, the 400R left the assembly plant without a sixth forward cog, meaning that its 400PS is stretched out long and wide across five awkwardly spaced gears, with some upshifts needing to be made earlier and later than others to give the car its best acceleration. The lowered rev limit of 8,000rpm may sound inconsequential for a car that wants to be short shifted, but on a few occasions across different tracks, I've found myself wishing for a higher rev limit so that I can hang onto a lower gear when fast approaching a braking zone, instead of having to do a short–lived upshift. Being able to rev just 400rpm higher would've saved the 400R so much valuable time around Tsukuba and Eiger, to list just two examples. The R33 GT-R has always been known to be quite the porker by contemporary standards, and instead of improving on that, the ultimate R33 furthers that theme of a heavyweight boxer by being 10 kilos (22lbs) heavier than the V • spec, weighing in at 1,550kg (3,417lbs), with an uncomfortable 58% of it resting over the front axles. While the stiffened suspension does give the 400R good initial turn–in response, it hates long, sweeping corners, and drivers will always have to watch for understeer when powering out of a turn. But all that understeer is not at all to say that the 400R is a stable car to drive; just like the V • spec, the 400R will unstick its rear end on both corner entries and exits if the driver isn't smooth and considered with their inputs, and there's still a slight bit too much roll in the rear end for my liking. Slides will very much have to be caught with the steering wheel before the ATTESA AWD system can kick in; this is still a machine from 1995, after all. And, unfortunately, like most road–going GT-Rs in the game, the 400R also suffers from what I'm calling the "1.49 bounce", where certain cars bounce in an exaggerated fashion when going over bumps following the v1.49 physics update, and that behaviour very much still persists in the current (at the time of writing) v1.52. Drivers will have to get the departure angle from raised rumble strips dead right, or the car is most likely going to hop off the paved track or even into a wall.

Angel Beats Yuri Nakamura BCNR33 by Fast_R_61
#itasha #anime #angelbeats

All those complaints having been levied, there's simply no denying how wickedly fast the 400R is even by modern standards; it must've felt completely otherworldly back in 1996. Excluding the unrealistically light Italian "supercars" of GT7, the only contemporary peer I can find in the game that would bring the fight to the 400R is the 2002 SR II Viper GTS, and only if the track has long enough straights. The 400R not only kept harassing a younger track toy in the 996 GT3, but would also keep pace with modern cars like the LC500, while matching the JDM sports cars on sale today like the 2023 RZ34 Fairlady and 2020 A90 Supra blow for blow, as though modern machinery were its natural competition instead of anything antiquated from the 90s! And many of the aforementioned cars aren't exactly easy to drive, either! Not that anyone would consider buying a 1.8 million credit LCD exclusive car for practicality, but the 400R rolls out of Big Bill Hell's car dealer at 542.50PP (v1.52), meaning that it's an easy plug–'n–play, auto–win car for any 550PP event that allows it, like the Japanese 550 Cup or even the Kyoto 1h Endurance. Just watch for the front tyre life if you do bring it to an event with tyre wear!

Me personally, I don't enjoy the way the 400R drives. It understeers. It oversteers. It's picky on the straights, and needs to be babied over bumps. It also sounds god–awful from the outside! Like most GT-Rs in the game, it's endlessly needy and taxing without ever feeling rewarding to push; getting things right just feels like avoiding disappointment, and getting things wrong is endlessly frustrating. To satiate a tuner fix, I'd heartily recommend the Amuse 380RS Super Leggera, which is readily available in Brand Central for one eighteenth the price of the 400R, and drives like a sublime wet dream. For smashing 550PP events, I'd rather take a (still super expensive) 2002 NSX-R, tweak its suspension and diff a little, and give it a slight power bump. Or, heck, the 2020 A90 Supra at 549.57PP would do that job just fine, too. And it's precisely because the 400R is so cool, yet so hard to recommend, that I truly wish PD made the 400R a prize car for the Master Licence Tests that were added alongside the car in Update 1.40; after all, the production 400R was a possible prize car (alongside the TRD3000GT) for achieving all golds in GT1's National A licence. It just seemed like such an obvious, open goal, but somehow nobody at PD thought to take the shot. The 400R is cool to look at and eye–opening on the track, but 1.8 million credits for what is, in my eyes, a trophy car, is just... ouch.

Ikamusume Porsche911(996) by Fast_R_61 (Edited)
#anime #itasha #ikamusume

That all being said, I'm happy for the Nismo 400R to be part of GT7, not only because it's an incredibly rare unicorn IRL, but it also opens up the possibility and likelihood that the Z-tune might one day join it. Now THAT is a GT-R I might be interested in :)

SPOILER

Did you know that the 400R has a direct successor? It's called... the Skyline 400R.

(Bad language in the English CC)

Bet you didn't know they made another 400R!

Vic has also made mention of the one–of–one Champion Blue 400R: a GT-R LM Limited converted to 400R specifications. But the 400R also came in another colour that's very special to GT-R fans: Midnight Purple. One of which, No. 37 (wink) of 44, has an owner that sure as hell isn't shy about running the car hard!

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GT7 W75: #16 Honda Castrol MUGEN NSX '00

Back in the 90s, Super GT's fastest class, GT500, looked very different from the FR silhouette racecars of today; Japan's "Big Three" manufacturers—Toyota, Honda, and Nissan—would field their flagship sports cars with their own unique hardware against foreign giants like Porsche, Ferrari, and McLaren, in a class that allowed RR and RMR cars to compete alongside FRs. The numbers in the class names also used to carry meaning, too: the GT500 cars had just under 500PS, and the slower GT300 with yellow headlights and number boards had just under 300PS. Nowadays, though? The silhouette racecars of Toyota, Honda, and Nissan all share the same FR chassis with turbocharged 2L Inline–4 engines that put out figures closer to 700PS, differing only in the body shells and tyres that envelop said chassis. And yet, despite this simplification and cost cutting, foreign makes have disappeared completely from the category. To me, that's just a straight downgrade from the varied grids of what GT500 used to be.

JGTC '99 №64 Mobil 1 @Suzuka by tha14kcd

#jgtc #jtsah #sdrt

The #16 Honda Castrol MUGEN NSX '00 of Team Mugen x Dome that was added to Gran Turismo 7 in Update 1.48 is a relic of the more honest years of Super GT, and as such, it is powered by a C32B Naturally Aspirated V6 just like the road going NSX that paying customers could have driven out of a showroom at the turn of the millennium. The familiarity with said engine ends in its name and noise however, because in GT500 trim, its displacement has increased from 3,179cc to an oddly exact 3,500cc (likely PD's way of saying, "even we don't know"), allowing the race–prepped NSX to produce the eponymous 488PS (359kW) in GT500 trim. The whole package weighs in at a mere 1,150kg (2,535lbs). While these figures—together with its relatively primitive aero—mean that this relic of a GT500 machine would get spanked silly by modern GT500 silhouettes, they're just by happenstance very close to current–day GT3 specs, allowing the old NSX to slot in surprisingly comfortably into Gr.3 with some success ballast and a slight power nerf, joining its classic rivals like the 1997 #36 Castrol TOM'S Supra and 1999 #1 Nissan PENNZOIL Nismo GT-R in Gran Turismo 7's most prolific and fiercely competitive class of racecars. But does this dinosaur NSX have any business being in Gr.3?

Unfortunately, I think we already know how older cars get shafted by "Balance" of Performance in GT7. The '00 NSX may have keen acceleration in a straight line, but I think that falls a tad too short in making up its cornering deficiencies around most tracks in the game. Being an RMR car and part of a three–way tie for the fourth lightest in Gr.3 car under BoP at the time of writing, the '00 NSX's cornering difficulties certainly don't lie in the initial turn–in, but rather, deep into a corner, where its prohibitive rear differential engages to lock the '00 NSX in place and prevent it from spinning out. The last round of the 2000 Super GT season being held at Suzuka, whose turn 1 is a classic RMR deathtrap, might explain this conservative setup we GT7 players wound up getting. Everywhere else, players on a wheel are going to have to put in extra effort to fight the steering wheel to fight the front tyres to then fight the rear tyres, just to coax the the car into somewhat keeping up with the times. Not only is that rather tiring to do in the long run, it's not exactly good for tyre life either, in spite of its low mass of 1,250kg (2,756lbs) under BoP across the board at the time of writing. On corner exits, the extremely progressive—and totally gutless in the mid range—NA engine gives no nasty surprises, with the diff letting the '00 NSX capitalise on its acceleration advantage extremely early, making it a beast absolutely worth the effort to wrestle.

However, the '00 NSX isn't just old; it's also a figurative fish out of water. As a GT500 car, the '00 NSX was never built for standing starts, and with increased mass and decreased power to slot into Gr.3, the poor NSX will bog so severely off the line that it might as well have stalled, with modern cars—NA and turbo alike—having to take evasive action around the fossilised car. Japanese racetracks I find are smoothed over to an obsessive level, and cars set up for Super GT duty tend to reflect this mirror smoothness of the tracks in their suspension setups, having no give whatsoever. Take the '00 NSX out of its comfort zone of Japan and into some proper hell like Bathurst and the Nordschleife, and the '00 NSX quickly crumbles into a nervous heap in a shower of sparks, almost as though it were being beaten around the track rather than driven. Combine this unforgiving suspension setup with the stiff, snappy diff, and not even the demonic roar of the C32B engine can convince me to choose the '00 NSX over other, easier to drive alternatives.

That all being written, the '00 NSX may sound like a total outlier and a misfit in Gr.3, akin to other racecars shoehorned into the category like the Skyline Super Silhouette and its contemporary GT500 compatriots. One might think then, that driving the '00 NSX would transform the hot–blooded racing action into turn–based combat, wherein the NSX sags embarrassingly in the corners, only to exhibit acceleration beyond anything resembling Gr.3 to catch back up to its more modern competition. However, that is not the case. Instead of the completely disjointed and comical racing that is typical of an outlier, racing the '00 NSX against bespoke Gr.3 cars feels almost like running with slightly worn tyres against competitors with fresh tyres on a fuel saving strat. The '00 NSX's performance isn't so radically out of sync with the majority of Gr.3 that I have to re–wire my brain to drive it—all I have to do is just to brake a tad bit earlier for corners and avoid the more raised kerbs and grass—it very much drives like a Gr.3 car. In other words, proper door to door battles can occur between the '00 NSX and your typical Gr.3 car. It's less a misfit and more the crazy one with an extreme personality in the group, and I can't say the same for any of its contemporary GT500 compatriots.

It may not be a meta, or even a wise pick in most Gr.3 races, but I'm incredibly glad nonetheless that there's finally a "real" NSX in Gr.3, and it's a poignant, visible, drivable proof of the ridiculous power creep of motorsports, and how over time, names like "GT500" and "NSX" can come to lose all meaning. The '00 NSX was an incredible racecar during its day, both in real life and in Gran Turismo, and with just the addition of basic driver aids like ABS and TCS, it still can find a way to remain relevant even in 2024—even moreso I suspect if the race has open settings. And despite it's insane asking price of 1.5 million Credits (more than 3 times the price of a regular Gr.3 car!), I argue that it's one of the very few Gr.3 cars worth spending the credits to buy: the sheer N O I S E it makes on startup sounds like a demon being rudely awoken by an exorcism ritual, and you don't get to hear it if you simply rent the car.

The 2000 NSX GT500 is truly a car of all time.

BONUS REVIEW: #36 Toyota Castrol TOM'S Supra '97 AND #1 Nissan PENNZOIL Nismo GT-R '99

The Supra GT500 '97 understeers like it's trying to turn into gale force winds, can't put power down in spite of that, has explosive surprise butt sex turbo, and I've never liked the Anti–Lag noises of GT7, so the Supra constantly popping away as it gracefully slides face first into yet another wall is just the annoying swarm of flies on top of the crap cake. No wonder it never won GT500 before all its European makes got bopped to hell and back, and had to wait three years until the GT-R got bored of winning GT500 to finally taste gold.

The Supra is truly the most overrated car I've ever seen.

The GT-R GT500 '99 behaves much better than the Supra, but it's 30 kilos (66lbs) heavier than the NSX under BoP, and its also very nose–heavy. I don't see why anyone would drive it over the NSX '00 or GT-R GT3.

BONUS BONUS REVIEW: Toyota FT-1 VGT Gr.3

I reviewed the Toyota FT-1 VGT Gr.3 during Week 18 of COTW, and I was utterly let down by just how bad it was to drive, contrary to the reputation it once had. It's awfulness was at a level so hard to believe that I would occasionally go for quick spins in it, just because I keep thinking, "I must've been mistaken or done something wrong, it can't be that bad!", but every time I thought that, the FT-1 Gr.3 made my figurative quick spin very literal, no matter what wheel, assist, and setup settings I used.

In the 13 or so months since then, I've learned a bit more about the game, and we've even had a physics update. The thought of adding an addendum to that old review has always been in the back of my mind, and Vic deciding to run one bonus race at Bathurst on Wednesday to celebrate Toyota's announcement into entering Repco Supercars Championship gave me the chance to sample the FT-1 again in a mostly Toyota–themed race. Here's me trying to scratch an itch that just never seems to want to go away. Yes, I WANT to like the car. I think it looks fantastic, and it has the right tools seemingly to be a top handling car. I even spent five whole days making a livery for it.

In my original review, I wrote to the effect of the FT-1 Gr.3 being extremely sensitive to bumps on the road, and that it was not able to load up its tyres or shift weight to the rear. The car therefore was incapable of putting power down out of a corner, instead having to limp where other cars are looking to put their best foot forward. Despite some rudimentary tinkering with the suspension setup, like raising the ride height and softening the springs, I simply could not find a way to assuage these issues. And to be candid, it did make me doubt myself and my assessment of the car.

Since writing that however, I've learnt that wheels aren't a purely cosmetic change to a car in GT7, and also how exactly different wheel sizes affect the way a car drives. The FT-1 Gr.3 has 19–inch wheels by default, which is an inch larger than the Gr.3 norm. I theorise that the FT-1 Gr.3 has to run higher tyre pressures to fit the same amount of air to carry its loads, which would explain that annoying sensation of me being unable to load up the rear tyres on corner exits, with the car instantly breaking sideways when I use more than 3/4 throttle with steering lock applied. I would dearly love to test my theory by fitting 18–inch wheels on the FT-1 Gr.3, but unfortunately, the wheels on the FT-1 Gr.3, like most VGTs, can't be changed, only painted, nor are tyre pressures disclosed to players, let alone adjustable. If I'm right about this however, I think I'd be even more disappointed in the FT-1 than before, because this would be simultaneously the stupidest and easiest to fix flaw in a car I've come across in all my years playing Gran Turismo, and it's on a built–to–spec fictional racing machine of an official partner of Polyphony Digital in the most prolific category of racecars in GTS/GT7.

In the current v1.50 physics, the FT-1 Gr.3 still has its old quirks, as though an old injury, but they feel a bit more manageable, especially with the new and improved TCS. It's still much better than the 1997 Supra GT500.

GT7 W72: Toyota GR Corolla MORIZO Edition '22

The utterly bonkers GR Yaris wowed us at COTW so much that we elected it our Car of the Year in 2020, but sadly, our American friends in the real world never got to sample one of the hottest homologation hatches ever sold. Almost as if to remedy this, the GR Corolla powerslid into stateside dealerships in autumn 2022, bringing with it the same rally–bred turbocharged 3–cylinder engine and GR-FOUR All–Wheel–Drive system as is found in the Yaris. So confident are Toyota in the GR Corolla that a select few of those will even bear the racing alias of its company chairman, Toyoda Akio: "MORIZO". But can a larger 5–door hatch really be a satisfactory substitute for the pocket rocket GR Yaris, even in the land where everything is bigger?

ROOKIE GR Corolla H2 concept '23 by U-SKE01

#stai #supertaikyu #rookie

Going by looks, I'd say that the GR Corolla is even better than the GR Yaris; the 12th gen Corolla is one of the best looking hatchbacks ever made in my opinion, and the GR Corolla has faithfully retained the lines and proportions of its base model, unlike the GR Yaris. Under its vented bonnet, the 1.6L turbo 3–cylinder gains a sizeable power bump, stiffer suspension, and wider tyres all four corners to help offset the increased mass of the GR Corolla, with the super–hardcore MORIZO Editions churning out 31HP more and packing rubber 20mm wider at each corner when compared to the top–of–the–line GR Yaris—299HP (223kW) and 245mm respectively. The result of all that is a shockingly heavy track toy (1,445kg, 3,186lbs) that is slightly faster than the GR Yaris most of the time, while behaving almost identically to its beloved brother in the twisty bits. The smaller Yaris will have a slight leg–up in tighter corners, while the more powerful Corolla edges away on long straights, meaning that, on the right tracks, the two can be dead even. Considering just how much the GR Yaris impressed us at COTW with its agile yet surefooted handling, it's really saying something that Toyota have managed to retain so much of what made the GR Yaris so lovely to drive in a larger, much heavier body.

Even though its name and body shell nowadays are more associated with Super Taikyu and hydrogen fuel, the GR Corolla is very much still a rally car at heart when powered by old fashioned, unleaded gasoline in road–going guise. Its G16E engine may be capable of revving to 7,200rpm, but that's more for hanging onto a lower gear as the driver power slides the car out of a bend on loose surfaces, and serves no real purpose beyond engine braking on paved tarmac. The MORIZO's happy place is between 3,250rpm and 4,600rpm, where it makes and maintains its peak torque of 400.0N⋅m (295.0lbf⋅ft), allowing it to spin up all four of its wheels from a wide rpm range in a moment's notice on loose surfaces, or simply to lug the car out of a corner in a higher gear to eliminate an upshift. I personally feel it best to shift this thing around 6,700rpm, which is about 3/4 of the rev bar on the game's HUD, or shortly after the gear indicator starts blinking orange in the car's instrumentation screen.

Having its roots buried deep into the dirt of rally stages, the Corolla does unfortunately have some classic understeer typical of rally machines. To counteract this, Toyota engineers have dialed in classic rally car rear rotation under braking in the GR Corolla, and it's a decision I'm struggling to come to grips with, literally and figuratively. On one hand, the rear end swinging out under hard trail braking can be lovely on a narrow, twisting track, such as Bathurst and Laguna Seca, but I'm no Toyota master driver, and I struggle to find any predictability and consistency with it. On a wider track, or for corners with deeper apexes, such as T1 of Road Atlanta and Deep Forest, that tail happiness becomes a dangerous liability that has to be actively avoided and managed. It's a little infuriating and puzzling, because while the GR Yaris had hints of this tail happiness, the car with the shorter wheelbase didn't suffer from this chronic oversteer problem nearly as much as the Corolla. Methinks this extra tail happiness under braking is a conscious setup decision by Toyota to counter the Corolla's larger size and mass to get it to rotate like the Yaris does more naturally, but I personally think they overdid it a bit. I drove the Corolla with ABS Default—the safest setting the game offers players—and I still found the Corolla a bit too quick and eager to snap, and I really do wish they would at least increase the ABS strength on the rear a bit in Track Mode so it doesn't brake the rear tyres that much. After all, Toyota GR models are specially fitted with a traditional handbrake lever to facilitate this style of driving, and the GR-FOUR All–Wheel–Drive system would even automatically decouple the rear wheels from the gearbox when the handbrake is engaged, so I really don't get why the foot brake has to make the car so twitchy.

As for alternatives, there may be cars that can offer or exceed the Corolla's stiff, no–nonsense handling, rally–ready setup, brutish power, charming looks, suggestions of practicality, and relatively reasonable price, but none really bring all those together in one package like the Corolla. The FL5 Civic Type R is the most obvious rival, being a modern sports car on sale today with similar performance on a dry, paved track, but it immediately falls apart the moment grip diminishes due to rain, loose surfaces, or simply on a tight, low speed track like Tsukuba, where the FF Civic doesn't have enough time to use its 26HP advantage to claw back the ground lost on corner exits to the AWD Corolla. The Honda also feels completely dead to drive and unpredictable at speed to my hands. The much more powerful AWD Focus RS actually has rear seats, but lacks the track focus and crispness in the corners that the Corolla offers, and would struggle to even remain a blur in the Corolla's rear view mirror on a tighter track. The 2014 WRX STi is so very pleasant to drive, but it might get another form of STI to its name after the Corolla gets done raw dogging it on a lap time board. An R32 GT-R would happily hang with the Corolla, as will any of its JDM sports car contemporaries, but they're all expensive as hell in GT7, and not all of them drive well. Really, the only thing that seems to be able to closely compare to the GR Corolla is the GR Yaris. Me personally? I'd take the Yaris any day for its lightness, its relative lack of tail happiness, its slightly lower PP when stock, and much cheaper price, even if my gaze stubbornly refuses to convey that.

In short, the GR Corolla is a jack of all trades that does everything at a high level, and is nigh–impossible to argue against as a package, especially when you consider that in real life, it supposedly even comes with a warranty.

GT7 W71: BMW Z8 '01

The name's Z8. BMW Z8.

BMW Z8 Alpina by ram-toxot

(no tags)

Unfortunately, unlike the famous movie character that drove it, the Z8 actually needs an introduction to most, as it's a very obscure car by BMW standards. With just 5,703 produced and each costing upwards of 135,304 USD when new (about 248,155 USD in 2024), not many were in the privileged position of getting to know the elusive car, and so I thought it'd be a good idea to familiarise ourselves with the Z8 by quickly dropping some names and comparisons: It's meant to be a tribute to the BMW 507, perhaps the company's most influential car yet. It's got a near perfect weight balance thanks to its transaxle layout, just like a Porsche 924. With a 4.9L NA V8 from its stable mate, the M5, it can go from 0–100km/h in a claimed 4.7 seconds, which lets it keep up with modern cars like the C7 Stingray. It's styled by Henrik Fisker, whose last name you may recognise, only to be sawn into two halves by a helicopter in the James Bond Movie, "The World Is Not Enough". Oh, and some guy by the name of XSquareStickIt drove one in GT Sport back in 2021 and said he didn't like it very much.

But perhaps the most relevant name drop comparison is this: the Z8 drives like a beefed up, loaded out Mazda Roadster: it's much too soft to be a hardcore sports car, requiring its handler to keep the heavy, obscure gadget in check, lest they attract unwanted attention (i.e. ridicule) to themselves. Yet at the same time, the Z8 possesses incredible balance and poise, thanks to a nearly perfect 51:49 weight balance front to rear, and the Z8 is proportionate, cooperative, and—dare I even say—agile, before its springs reach the end of their travel, at which point the car quickly lets go. While capable, the Z8 very much wants to be treated like a Fairlady; it doesn't respond well at all to brute force, instead asking of its driver to be a cognisant gentleman and to be smooth, gentle, and attentive to the car, because it's certainly not shy about wanting a show of heroic saving from its driver every now and then.

And so, just like driving an old, rear–engined car like the Alpine A110, the driver has to be ultra aware of where the weight is on the Z8 when driving it hard, knowing when to use the full capabilities of each component of the car, and when to show gentlemanly restraint. The brakes on the Z8 are ABSURDLY strong, but fully depressing the middle pedal at speed unsettles the rear end greatly, and even mild trial braking will see the transaxle car swing out its laden rear end all too easily. The NA V8 not only barks out a soundtrack that would rival American muscle, and it has solid torque from as low as 3,000rpm, but just like the brakes, the full power of the engine has to be sparingly used, because the rear springs will run out of travel soon before the engine can deliver all its power on the default suspension and Sports Hard tyres, easily resulting in a fishtail. 2nd gear is just about redundant after a standing start with how much shove this M5–derived powerplant has, and so its driver will have to know when to use which gear out of which corner for the best performance. In other words, any driver looking to win the Z8 over has to remain calm and calculated at all times; after all, the last thing a spy can do even in the most dire of situations is to panic, and the Z8 is here to remind any prospective spy of that.

Treat it right however, and the driver is rewarded with an open–top luxury experience that has enough poise and firepower to stay within a second of a contemporary track toy in the 996 GT3 around Grand Valley Highway, and even make the Porsche's standard steel brakes feel like they've come right out of a luggage cart's while it's at it. In that respect, it stands alone as its own unique thing incomparable to anything else in my mind.

...buuuut, I'd also be remiss if I didn't mention that, ever since our barn burner race at Brands Hatch, there's a car that I haven't been able to stop thinking about, and every time I lay eyes on it, I just melt into a puddle on the inside and giggle. It's also FR with an NA V8 going through a 6–speed manual, with on–track performance nigh inseparable from the Z8. It's not an open top car, but it has a see–through roof and a pair of headlights among the sexiest mankind has dared conjure, and v1.50 of Gran Turismo 7 has arguably given it much more of a glow–up in driving experience than the Z8.

I'm sorry, Bond, but I'm going over to the dark side.

A "Small" Rant:

The Z8's horizontal interior piece is supposed to be body colour. However, in GT Sport and GT7, it's stuck as silver regardless of the car's base colour, with no way of changing the look of it in the livery editor; it can't be painted, nor can decals be applied to it.

The odd thing is, they got it right in GT6! The dash is body colour!

Real life car in blue for comparison: