Things have happened and they're all heavy enough to warrant a lengthy writeup on their own, but I'm so tired, it's hot, blah blah, you already know the usual excuses.
I... also think I've somewhat come to fear writing or talking about my own problems and feelings. It feels as if if I were to be 100% candid with my deepest and darkest emotions, that I'd just physically unravel in real time. It's... an odd thing to try to describe, but I think the panic and anxiety I feel every sleepless night I lay on my bed is a much more honest and vulnerable me. The most awful and bleak thoughts and fears haunt me then. As I am right now, awake and conscious, that self feels so distant as though a myth, even though I know full well it'd come back around if I let it.
I've always struggled to explain to others why I'm upset and depressed. And because of that difficulty in rationalising my emotions to other people, I too have the exact same difficulty rationalising—and therefore believing—that I have clinical, treatable depression that has been experienced by many others and extensively studied. Logically, I don't doubt that I've depression; the symptoms might as well be my biography, and I've had a few mental health professionals reassure me of my own sadness. I just somehow can't believe I'm sad, even though I'm feeling all these overwhelming feelings and harbouring thoughts that I'd struggle to put coherent words to.
Maybe I'm just extraordinarily sensitive, so the things that most people experience and find no more an annoyance or inconvenience greatly affect me. Maybe I've just never come across someone who believed me when I told them I was in pain, and now I've conflated the ignorance of others with incoherence on my part. Maybe I'm just fucking autistic, and I'm saying all the "quiet parts" of life out loud that no one really has a solution to. Maybe I've made too many well–meaning people feel obligated to listen to me, only to feel inept at not having solutions or even words of consolation, and now I feel like sharing my thoughts is akin to somehow polluting the brains of others. I don't know.
Sometimes it just feels as if my soul were crying somehow, like right now, and I don't even know where to begin taking that knot of feelings apart to begin understanding what the fuck is wrong, let alone share with another person, a rare understanding soul.
Earlier this month, my dad had a mini heart attack and was hospitalised. It was very reminiscent of something my mother had experienced some six years prior, so this time round there's much less panic and uncertainty involved. To our surprise, my dad, a Malaysian by Nationality still despite spending well over 3/4 of his life here in Singapore, has MediSave savings that can be used to offset the cost of his treatment and stay. Life has since resumed as though the heart attack had never happened, though my sis will have to fork out over a thousand SGD to cover the rest of the bill because I'm a fucking useless burden waste of resources and a strain on the people who love and care for me the most. I'm supposed to be working with my therapist, Jean, regarding all this negative self talk, but she's away for the whole month of May.
I've also been "fired" from my volunteer work at the cat shelter. I know that sounds disastrous in writing, but it really isn't all that bad for a few reasons. One, I've heard horror stories of the owner being a psychotic bitch from more than one volunteer, and have even "seen" it happen to someone else for myself. Imagine calling the cops on a volunteer from a heated argument caused by a lapse in communication! Second, while I'd normally be beating myself up for being not good enough, stupid, slow, etc. to even be free labour, I've had someone I've worked closest to, Vera, reassure me that I'm completely fine. This, coupled with the owner's insanity, makes me not doubt my own performance. Third, I had been nearing the end of my three–month obligation period anyway, and I had been deliberating stopping at the end of the month for the reasons stated above. I say deliberate because, while the work is unglamourous and the owner is a Newton's Cradle of firecrackers and nukes, the cats are genuinely lovely, and I've inevitably become emotionally attached to a few of them. Jean asked me on two occasions what finding meaning in my job means, and I ultimately couldn't answer her. I still can't, but I think I can describe it a little better now, albeit only with a quote from GTA V: "Here's the problem: I don't know what I want. It's a bit, well, like pornography, or a perfect turd; I can't quite describe it, but I'll know it when I see it." And working with cats is the closest thing I've ever felt to "it" in the years since I pronounced my dream of working at Mazda dead.
So anyway, right now, I'm able to look in the mirror and say that I'm proud of myself. I'm proud that I took an uncomfortable chance at mingling with society. I'm proud of the work that I've done while I'm there. I'm proud of having met kind people who have done more for me than they'll probably ever realise. I'm even proud of myself for having a controlled snap on my last day, almost like a fuse, where I essentially said, "this is enough abuse; I'm out of here." I had a good cry on the way home, and I just somehow know that this is one of those things that I'll have a good cry about and then move on, instead of the fucked up things that will stay with me for a lifetime. Hell, I might even get a part time job at this rate.
Still, it's not all sunshine and flowers. I wish I got to properly say goodbye to the cats, and I even promised Ben Ben extra treats the day I left, and I never got to fulfil that promise. Even though I didn't do it out of expectation of reciprocation, I'm still nonetheless deeply hurt by the fact that none of the other volunteers reached out to me to ask if I'm okay, when I reached out to someone else that got "fired" like me prior. But most of all perhaps is the fact that, throughout every phase of my life, I've been met with either people clearly not right in the head, or just people hostile towards me for no reason I can discern. Having met with yet another unpleasant person and experience at this volunteer gig has really discouraged me from wanting to put myself out there again. Again, this is not something I can really explain at all, but I just get this feeling that so, so many people in society are down with some sort of illness of the mind, and it's something that feels manufacturered and baked into our lifestyles and expectations. I know I did my best. I know I did good work. I know I wasn't causing problems for anyone. I know I was amicible. And yet, I'm "fired" anyway, with nothing to show for it. There'll forever be a part of me that begrudges the fact that I'm the one on medications to adjust to this sick world, and not the other way around. It's an arrogance I've had for a very long time now, and I don't super know where it came from. I just "know" I'm in the right. I "know" I'm the only sane person in a room full of insane people. But if I'm the only sane person in the room, then does that make me the sane one, or the insane one?
I'm writing all this in hopes that this counts as "processing" a feeling and event, and that my brain will henceforth let this go and not instead make me pursue more extreme avenues.
Saturday, 23 May 2026
Saturday, 21 February 2026
An Update
To my surprise, this blog actually gets some readers, with each post well into the double digits in views. I get that on the internet these days, those are microscopic numbers. But it's precisely because those numbers are microscopic that each view feels... human, instead of an incomprehensible number. It really brings me back to my childhood days, when the internet was more self–expressive and ran by more than five megacorporations. I may not know how any of you found this, but I'm thankful for each view on this blog where a weird dude writes weird shit about a half–baked racing game with very little context on a dinosaur of a platform (or maybe you're just laughing at me making a fool of myself?).
I initially started writing GT7 car reviews here as a way to host images and to proofread my crap before posting it to the Car of the Week thread on GTPlanet Forums, which I also ran until my declining health forced me to end regular activities. I never advertised my blog nor Car of the Week because I myself hate ads and plugs, with the copium of, "if my work really is that good, the word will spread by itself and people will return on their own." I don't know if this is just a ritual feeling for artists without an overinflated ego or if my work has just never been any good, but I always felt like my work was just very casual garbage and I had hit a ceiling in how much I could improve on my own. I've always wished that I could describe how a car feels like Tsuchiya Keiichi could, or write with the attention–robbing wit of Chris Harris. But I'm just a fucking idiot with no background playing pretend in a video game, and I've always struggled to be satisfied with that no matter how much time and thought I put into my writing. In a way, that can be its own selling point: I don't have to fear souring working relations or satisfying sponsorship obligations; I can go full nuclear on cars I despise. But I also don't super know how to cite sources, nor do I have the clout to ask companies for more information when I need them. While that might be excusable for a casual, non–profit piece of writing, it's always bugged me regardless.
Another brand of copium I huffed was that COTW was "just" casual fun with a tight–knit group who met up regularly, and my written car reviews was a way for me to try putting a piece of myself and my weird brain out in public space more, both of which stemmed from advice I got from an excellent therapist some seven years ago in bid to overcome some isolation. This blog was born from that very same initiative, actually, hence the super weird URL (I'm not a very smart or poetic person, as you can probably already tell). To be completely honest, the thought of putting myself out in the public eye still scares me. I don't think the human brain is wired to handle all the attention and notoriety the world wide web can garner for one person, and so maybe somewhere in the back of my mind, I've somewhat wished against having more attention and participants in COTW. Having dealt with three toxic, immature man–children in COTW only furthered that fear, though I'd like to think I haven't actually acted on that fear.
This post was meant to be an update for the 20 or so of you who visit this blog regularly, though my tired and unfocused brain has caused me to ramble and meander. What I really wanted to say is this: there likely won't be many — if any — car reviews here any more because I've shuttered COTW due to my declining health, and I'm thankful for those of you who visit this blog. I'll probably still try to put some of myself out in public eye here on this blog, though it'd most likely be melancholic, dark, depressing thoughts I deem are palatable enough to put out publicly.
In the meantime, I haven't stopped driving virtually. I've been taking part in Spec Racing Club's Coffee Break lobbies, which typically have limits on power, mass, and tyre compounds, but is otherwise a free–for–all with open settings. Some of the pictures you've been seeing in this post are from those races, actually! It helps massively stepping down from a role of organiser to "just" a casual participant, and not having to hold myself to an arbitrary standard to feel worthy of writing about the cars definitely helps! I'm having enormous fun tinkering with cars and exploring their tuning potential instead of how they are bone stock. I'm trying to keep somewhat sharp despite my health by racing at least once a week. And, because this isn't my own thing, I feel comfortable plugging it.
Super bombshell of an ending here, it's been too long since I've written regularly that I've forgotten how to do this.
I initially started writing GT7 car reviews here as a way to host images and to proofread my crap before posting it to the Car of the Week thread on GTPlanet Forums, which I also ran until my declining health forced me to end regular activities. I never advertised my blog nor Car of the Week because I myself hate ads and plugs, with the copium of, "if my work really is that good, the word will spread by itself and people will return on their own." I don't know if this is just a ritual feeling for artists without an overinflated ego or if my work has just never been any good, but I always felt like my work was just very casual garbage and I had hit a ceiling in how much I could improve on my own. I've always wished that I could describe how a car feels like Tsuchiya Keiichi could, or write with the attention–robbing wit of Chris Harris. But I'm just a fucking idiot with no background playing pretend in a video game, and I've always struggled to be satisfied with that no matter how much time and thought I put into my writing. In a way, that can be its own selling point: I don't have to fear souring working relations or satisfying sponsorship obligations; I can go full nuclear on cars I despise. But I also don't super know how to cite sources, nor do I have the clout to ask companies for more information when I need them. While that might be excusable for a casual, non–profit piece of writing, it's always bugged me regardless.
Another brand of copium I huffed was that COTW was "just" casual fun with a tight–knit group who met up regularly, and my written car reviews was a way for me to try putting a piece of myself and my weird brain out in public space more, both of which stemmed from advice I got from an excellent therapist some seven years ago in bid to overcome some isolation. This blog was born from that very same initiative, actually, hence the super weird URL (I'm not a very smart or poetic person, as you can probably already tell). To be completely honest, the thought of putting myself out in the public eye still scares me. I don't think the human brain is wired to handle all the attention and notoriety the world wide web can garner for one person, and so maybe somewhere in the back of my mind, I've somewhat wished against having more attention and participants in COTW. Having dealt with three toxic, immature man–children in COTW only furthered that fear, though I'd like to think I haven't actually acted on that fear.
This post was meant to be an update for the 20 or so of you who visit this blog regularly, though my tired and unfocused brain has caused me to ramble and meander. What I really wanted to say is this: there likely won't be many — if any — car reviews here any more because I've shuttered COTW due to my declining health, and I'm thankful for those of you who visit this blog. I'll probably still try to put some of myself out in public eye here on this blog, though it'd most likely be melancholic, dark, depressing thoughts I deem are palatable enough to put out publicly.
In the meantime, I haven't stopped driving virtually. I've been taking part in Spec Racing Club's Coffee Break lobbies, which typically have limits on power, mass, and tyre compounds, but is otherwise a free–for–all with open settings. Some of the pictures you've been seeing in this post are from those races, actually! It helps massively stepping down from a role of organiser to "just" a casual participant, and not having to hold myself to an arbitrary standard to feel worthy of writing about the cars definitely helps! I'm having enormous fun tinkering with cars and exploring their tuning potential instead of how they are bone stock. I'm trying to keep somewhat sharp despite my health by racing at least once a week. And, because this isn't my own thing, I feel comfortable plugging it.
Super bombshell of an ending here, it's been too long since I've written regularly that I've forgotten how to do this.
Tuesday, 18 November 2025
GT7 W125: Nissan GT-R Premium edition T-spec (R35) '24
There's a saying about Japanese culture that I find really profound and scarily accurate: "Japan has been living in the year 2000 for the past 40 years." (Or something to that effect anyway; I don't recall the exact quote.)
For a country so renowned for its zany technological prowess, Japanese culture—especially its work culture—is strangely leashed to the past. No sane Gaijin would reasonably expect the country that gave the world bidets and bullet trains to have done so while being so reliant on fax machines and toxic drinking etiquette. Japanese culture is, to my limited knowledge as a curious but cautious onlooker, very meticulous and risk–averse, preferring the comfort of certainty over someone having to take responsibility for a failure. And so when something does come along that even the Japanese can't ignore, it tends to be so mind–blowing and revolutionary that other countries start having to copy and play catch up to it, resulting in a country and culture that has an ostensibly bizarre mix of the traditional and futuristic.
Japan is, of course, the country that gave the world the Nissan GT-R.
As might be expected, a car as revolutionary as the sixth–generation GT-R was born in a situation that was hardly safe and even less comfortable. In 1999, Nissan was in dire financial straits, and a Lebanese by the name of Carlos Ghosn was appointed as one of the excruciatingly few foreigners to take the helm at a Japanese automotive company, given the unenviable task of taking the company riddled with a 37.7 billion USD debt back to profitability. Unshackled and unconcerned by the esoteric rules and etiquette of Japanese society, Ghosn would completely upheave the wilting roots of Nissan from soil long since dried, restructuring the company by, among other things, changing the company's official language from Japanese to English, laying off a significant portion of the workforce, and promoting only those who perform well at their tasks instead of seniority. Us English speaking folk might see all that as a given, but to the very traditional Japanese, it must've felt as blasphemous as an alien invasion upon their homeland, suddenly being forced to defile their own customs and speak an alien language. The "Keiretsu Killer", as Ghosn was called, also wanted something very particular from Nissan as part of the Nissan Revival Project: "I told them, "no compromise". I don't care how much time it's gonna take—I want a very strong performance car."
Safe it is to say then, that Ghosn is the kind of man that usually gets what he wants.
While Chief Engineer Mizuno Kazutoshi is often colloquially called the "Godfather of the GT-R", I opine instead that the sixth–generation GT-R took after Ghosn more than anybody else. The "R35" GT-R seemed a completely supernatural lifeform descended to cause chaos and force others into rethinking their lifestyles, not unlike the movie character Godzilla. With the freedom of being the first GT-R to be its own independent model instead of being "just" a spiced up version of a family sedan, the R35 shook up the world of supercars so drastically in 2007 that I opine that performance cars since have just never been the same. It was the first car to offer launch control. The first with a dual–clutch semi–automatic gearbox, with no option for a stick–shift manual. Its door handles were flush against the door panels without as much a cubby hole to stick one's fingers into, instead having to push one end of the handle in to cantilever the other end out to pull, all in the name of minimising aerodynamic drag. It eschews a big NA engine in favour of a compact 3.8L twin–turbo V6 for balance and packaging benefits, mounted wholly behind the front axle for a front–midship layout. It spits in the pages of common performance bible by being extremely heavy, pushing its bespoke tyres more into the ground. It featured a LCD screen on the dashboard, and of course, it has a wealth of onboard computers that not only allow for a selection of multiple drive modes, but will also adjust the spring rates and torque distribution in real time according to what it senses on the road.
If you're a younger reader, all that might sound like a given in any premium automobile these days, but many of those things were simply unfathomable—let alone unheard of—in 2007. The Porsche Carrera GT—whose production ended in 2006—is often described to be the last analogue supercar, and I truly believe the R35 to be the cause of that by rewriting the supercar book cover–to–cover. But perhaps the damndest thing that the GT-R could do that seemingly no one else seems to have been able to replicate is that it was priced such that one needn't be in the 1% to be able to afford it; the base GT-R started at 7.78 million Yen in 2007 (70,000 USD in 2007, ~108,248 USD in 2025), and yet, it could more than hang with the flagship models of exotic brands like Porsche and Ferrari even in the best of conditions; come rain or snow, those prestigious cars wouldn't even dare leave their humidity controlled garages. And that I suspect is the only reason the R35 doesn't get as much renown and acclaim as something like the McLaren F1; it's so easy and realistically attainable, demanding neither ridiculous wealth nor skill from its driver to experience supercar thrills. It's become such a common sight, such a household name, that I feel it undermines just how big of a paradigm shift it has effected in its wake.
栃木県警R35GT-Rパトカ by XSquareStickIt
#patoka #police #highway
Amuse Carbon R35 by XSquareStickIt
#amuse #r35 #tuner
Amuse Phantom R35 by XSquareStickIt
#amuse #r35 #tuner
But once the Japanese find a new comfort, they tend to sit on it for a long, long time, preserving it painstakingly as though a significant cultural artefact. The R35 GT-R was in production for some 18 years since, which is longer than all of the prior 5 generations of GT-Rs... combined. In that exceptionally long production run, the R35 has received minor updates and facelifts, but stayed largely the same, resulting in it slowly and surely beginning to feel outdated as the rest of the world caught up to and built upon the ideas the R35 unleashed. Supercars nowadays are almost always sporting a turbo engine kept in check by a bevy of electronic nannies, offering stupendous torque from a wide rev range while sounding dull and soulless, just like the R35. They're all heavy beasts that default to understeer at the limit, just like the GT-R. They almost always have screens in the cockpit, and many feature flush door handles to minimise drag, just like the GT-R. More than those however, modern carmakers began to implement even more futuristic tech into their car, like a screen to replace an entire dashboard, hybridisation and electrification, 7 or more forward gears, active aero, and even autonomous driving. The R35 on the other hand, stayed exclusively petrol–propelled with a 6–speed gearbox, using barbaric sticks to count its revs and speed. Its wing is as permanent and unmoving as though a historic monument, and it still employs the use of physical dials and knobs for chores like air con and radio.
But being outdated isn't necessarily a bad thing. After all, I've yet to hear tales of an over–the–air software update bricking an R35 and leaving its driver stranded in the middle of nowhere, nor does it have nonsensical electronic door locks that have proved deadly in accidents. Amenities already in the car are all available to the driver without a subscription, and it hasn't ever run over anyone without its driver's say–so. Needles do the job just fine without risking a screen burning in, and not having to take my eyes off the road to adjust the air con or audio via physical controls with tactile feedback are all godzillasends when driving. There's no range anxiety in the GT-R, and it drinks petrol from just about any station. For as alien as the R35 first appeared to be, time has proved that it can be quite Japanese as well; the R35 is a blend of the future and the past, offering the best of both worlds in a package that is futuristic where the future seems promising, while staying rooted in the past where it has been proven.
Of course, in a driving video game, very little of that real life nonsense matters. It's not often that I write about the real world stories and feats of a car, but the GT-Rs across its six generations are all cars that I hold massive respect for, and they more often than not have stories to tell, even if I don't much fancy how many of them drive in the games. Of the four road–going R35 GT-Rs in GT7, the 2017 Nismo variant is clearly the fastest, being shod with Sports Medium tyres by default and weighing more or less the same as the base R35s while packing a good chunk more power, although it still exhibits many of the same behaviours as the "base" GT-Rs, just at a higher speed. The road–going R35s all drive very similarly, being almost alarmingly composed and isolating its driver across all types of roads, feeling every bit as uncanny and futuristic as it did in 2007. At the same time, they do feel a little outdated even in the driving dynamics area: push them hard enough in a way they don't quite like, and the cars can very suddenly lose grip and start washing wide, giving me the impression that the onboard wizards aren't quite as sharp and omnipotent as some of the most hand–holdy supercars of today. That said, it resolves itself in a split second of waiting, and I as a driver feel nothing whatsoever. The part that spikes my heart rate the most is that these GT-Rs are incredibly tail happy on hard trail braking even on the strongest ABS setting of Default, and this tail happiness somehow feels so unrefined, yet helpful at the same time that I can't even tell if it's intentional or not. But once the time comes to apply the throttle, the R35s hook up with scary efficiency, and the even power curves paired with damn near instantaneous shifts and monotonous V6 whirr make the cars feel as uncanny, soulless, and efficient as a spaceship. For as uncanny as these cars corner, they're almost even more uncanny with how they make me feel bewildered each time I roll on the gas pedal with "just" 570PS (419kW) (T-spec).
However, there's a glaring difference in driving dynamics between the 2024 T-spec and the 2017 variants: the T-spec somehow feels undeniably more nose heavy and understeery than its older siblings in spite of having the exact same mass distribution of 54:46, and it's a difference I can only feel, not explain. For that reason, I much prefer the older R35s for driving, and I don't much fancy how the 2024 car looks, either. While the T-spec is offered in the sacred colour of Midnight Purple, I really don't see the appeal of a paintjob that looks like someone vomited into an oil spill. To tune, the 2024 T-spec and 2017 Nismo get the utterly broken Chiron engine swap, whereas the 2017 has to make do with the much more unwieldy turbo LS7 V8 from the BRZ Drift Car, and the safety car gets sweet f–all. Honestly, unless you need the strobe lights of the safety car for whatever reason, the 2017 Nismo is clearly the pick of the litter, invalidating every other road–going R35 in the game.
With Ghosn now effectively exiled from Japan and Nissan slumping into yet another financial crisis, maybe now is the time for someone else to play the villain and create another monster of discomfort that can disrupt the status quo and revive the brand. But for now, Godzilla rests. It may be gone, but its presence in the industry will be felt for what I suspect will be decades still to come.
For a country so renowned for its zany technological prowess, Japanese culture—especially its work culture—is strangely leashed to the past. No sane Gaijin would reasonably expect the country that gave the world bidets and bullet trains to have done so while being so reliant on fax machines and toxic drinking etiquette. Japanese culture is, to my limited knowledge as a curious but cautious onlooker, very meticulous and risk–averse, preferring the comfort of certainty over someone having to take responsibility for a failure. And so when something does come along that even the Japanese can't ignore, it tends to be so mind–blowing and revolutionary that other countries start having to copy and play catch up to it, resulting in a country and culture that has an ostensibly bizarre mix of the traditional and futuristic.
Japan is, of course, the country that gave the world the Nissan GT-R.
As might be expected, a car as revolutionary as the sixth–generation GT-R was born in a situation that was hardly safe and even less comfortable. In 1999, Nissan was in dire financial straits, and a Lebanese by the name of Carlos Ghosn was appointed as one of the excruciatingly few foreigners to take the helm at a Japanese automotive company, given the unenviable task of taking the company riddled with a 37.7 billion USD debt back to profitability. Unshackled and unconcerned by the esoteric rules and etiquette of Japanese society, Ghosn would completely upheave the wilting roots of Nissan from soil long since dried, restructuring the company by, among other things, changing the company's official language from Japanese to English, laying off a significant portion of the workforce, and promoting only those who perform well at their tasks instead of seniority. Us English speaking folk might see all that as a given, but to the very traditional Japanese, it must've felt as blasphemous as an alien invasion upon their homeland, suddenly being forced to defile their own customs and speak an alien language. The "Keiretsu Killer", as Ghosn was called, also wanted something very particular from Nissan as part of the Nissan Revival Project: "I told them, "no compromise". I don't care how much time it's gonna take—I want a very strong performance car."
Safe it is to say then, that Ghosn is the kind of man that usually gets what he wants.
While Chief Engineer Mizuno Kazutoshi is often colloquially called the "Godfather of the GT-R", I opine instead that the sixth–generation GT-R took after Ghosn more than anybody else. The "R35" GT-R seemed a completely supernatural lifeform descended to cause chaos and force others into rethinking their lifestyles, not unlike the movie character Godzilla. With the freedom of being the first GT-R to be its own independent model instead of being "just" a spiced up version of a family sedan, the R35 shook up the world of supercars so drastically in 2007 that I opine that performance cars since have just never been the same. It was the first car to offer launch control. The first with a dual–clutch semi–automatic gearbox, with no option for a stick–shift manual. Its door handles were flush against the door panels without as much a cubby hole to stick one's fingers into, instead having to push one end of the handle in to cantilever the other end out to pull, all in the name of minimising aerodynamic drag. It eschews a big NA engine in favour of a compact 3.8L twin–turbo V6 for balance and packaging benefits, mounted wholly behind the front axle for a front–midship layout. It spits in the pages of common performance bible by being extremely heavy, pushing its bespoke tyres more into the ground. It featured a LCD screen on the dashboard, and of course, it has a wealth of onboard computers that not only allow for a selection of multiple drive modes, but will also adjust the spring rates and torque distribution in real time according to what it senses on the road.
If you're a younger reader, all that might sound like a given in any premium automobile these days, but many of those things were simply unfathomable—let alone unheard of—in 2007. The Porsche Carrera GT—whose production ended in 2006—is often described to be the last analogue supercar, and I truly believe the R35 to be the cause of that by rewriting the supercar book cover–to–cover. But perhaps the damndest thing that the GT-R could do that seemingly no one else seems to have been able to replicate is that it was priced such that one needn't be in the 1% to be able to afford it; the base GT-R started at 7.78 million Yen in 2007 (70,000 USD in 2007, ~108,248 USD in 2025), and yet, it could more than hang with the flagship models of exotic brands like Porsche and Ferrari even in the best of conditions; come rain or snow, those prestigious cars wouldn't even dare leave their humidity controlled garages. And that I suspect is the only reason the R35 doesn't get as much renown and acclaim as something like the McLaren F1; it's so easy and realistically attainable, demanding neither ridiculous wealth nor skill from its driver to experience supercar thrills. It's become such a common sight, such a household name, that I feel it undermines just how big of a paradigm shift it has effected in its wake.
栃木県警R35GT-Rパトカ by XSquareStickIt
#patoka #police #highway
Amuse Carbon R35 by XSquareStickIt
#amuse #r35 #tuner
Amuse Phantom R35 by XSquareStickIt
#amuse #r35 #tuner
But once the Japanese find a new comfort, they tend to sit on it for a long, long time, preserving it painstakingly as though a significant cultural artefact. The R35 GT-R was in production for some 18 years since, which is longer than all of the prior 5 generations of GT-Rs... combined. In that exceptionally long production run, the R35 has received minor updates and facelifts, but stayed largely the same, resulting in it slowly and surely beginning to feel outdated as the rest of the world caught up to and built upon the ideas the R35 unleashed. Supercars nowadays are almost always sporting a turbo engine kept in check by a bevy of electronic nannies, offering stupendous torque from a wide rev range while sounding dull and soulless, just like the R35. They're all heavy beasts that default to understeer at the limit, just like the GT-R. They almost always have screens in the cockpit, and many feature flush door handles to minimise drag, just like the GT-R. More than those however, modern carmakers began to implement even more futuristic tech into their car, like a screen to replace an entire dashboard, hybridisation and electrification, 7 or more forward gears, active aero, and even autonomous driving. The R35 on the other hand, stayed exclusively petrol–propelled with a 6–speed gearbox, using barbaric sticks to count its revs and speed. Its wing is as permanent and unmoving as though a historic monument, and it still employs the use of physical dials and knobs for chores like air con and radio.
But being outdated isn't necessarily a bad thing. After all, I've yet to hear tales of an over–the–air software update bricking an R35 and leaving its driver stranded in the middle of nowhere, nor does it have nonsensical electronic door locks that have proved deadly in accidents. Amenities already in the car are all available to the driver without a subscription, and it hasn't ever run over anyone without its driver's say–so. Needles do the job just fine without risking a screen burning in, and not having to take my eyes off the road to adjust the air con or audio via physical controls with tactile feedback are all godzillasends when driving. There's no range anxiety in the GT-R, and it drinks petrol from just about any station. For as alien as the R35 first appeared to be, time has proved that it can be quite Japanese as well; the R35 is a blend of the future and the past, offering the best of both worlds in a package that is futuristic where the future seems promising, while staying rooted in the past where it has been proven.
Of course, in a driving video game, very little of that real life nonsense matters. It's not often that I write about the real world stories and feats of a car, but the GT-Rs across its six generations are all cars that I hold massive respect for, and they more often than not have stories to tell, even if I don't much fancy how many of them drive in the games. Of the four road–going R35 GT-Rs in GT7, the 2017 Nismo variant is clearly the fastest, being shod with Sports Medium tyres by default and weighing more or less the same as the base R35s while packing a good chunk more power, although it still exhibits many of the same behaviours as the "base" GT-Rs, just at a higher speed. The road–going R35s all drive very similarly, being almost alarmingly composed and isolating its driver across all types of roads, feeling every bit as uncanny and futuristic as it did in 2007. At the same time, they do feel a little outdated even in the driving dynamics area: push them hard enough in a way they don't quite like, and the cars can very suddenly lose grip and start washing wide, giving me the impression that the onboard wizards aren't quite as sharp and omnipotent as some of the most hand–holdy supercars of today. That said, it resolves itself in a split second of waiting, and I as a driver feel nothing whatsoever. The part that spikes my heart rate the most is that these GT-Rs are incredibly tail happy on hard trail braking even on the strongest ABS setting of Default, and this tail happiness somehow feels so unrefined, yet helpful at the same time that I can't even tell if it's intentional or not. But once the time comes to apply the throttle, the R35s hook up with scary efficiency, and the even power curves paired with damn near instantaneous shifts and monotonous V6 whirr make the cars feel as uncanny, soulless, and efficient as a spaceship. For as uncanny as these cars corner, they're almost even more uncanny with how they make me feel bewildered each time I roll on the gas pedal with "just" 570PS (419kW) (T-spec).
However, there's a glaring difference in driving dynamics between the 2024 T-spec and the 2017 variants: the T-spec somehow feels undeniably more nose heavy and understeery than its older siblings in spite of having the exact same mass distribution of 54:46, and it's a difference I can only feel, not explain. For that reason, I much prefer the older R35s for driving, and I don't much fancy how the 2024 car looks, either. While the T-spec is offered in the sacred colour of Midnight Purple, I really don't see the appeal of a paintjob that looks like someone vomited into an oil spill. To tune, the 2024 T-spec and 2017 Nismo get the utterly broken Chiron engine swap, whereas the 2017 has to make do with the much more unwieldy turbo LS7 V8 from the BRZ Drift Car, and the safety car gets sweet f–all. Honestly, unless you need the strobe lights of the safety car for whatever reason, the 2017 Nismo is clearly the pick of the litter, invalidating every other road–going R35 in the game.
With Ghosn now effectively exiled from Japan and Nissan slumping into yet another financial crisis, maybe now is the time for someone else to play the villain and create another monster of discomfort that can disrupt the status quo and revive the brand. But for now, Godzilla rests. It may be gone, but its presence in the industry will be felt for what I suspect will be decades still to come.
Sunday, 9 November 2025
GT7 W132: Ferrari Vision Gran Turismo
No matter how bad a car in a video game is, it has never crossed the digital divide and hurt me physically before. This holds true for understeery boats like the Gallardo or sloppy oversteery messes like the 308 GTB. Over the five or so years I've been taking part in COTW, I've ran some of the most boring of station wagons to some of the most cutting edge racing cars both in the real and virtual worlds, like the Super Formulae and Red Bull fan cars.
None of them have made me physically and literally sick like the Ferrari Vision Gran Turismo.
The problem with the FVGT is that it has only 30mm (1.18in) ground clearance front and rear. For some context, a 2023 Super Formula car has 25mm (0.94in) clearance, a modern supercar R35 has 110mm (4.33in), and a sensible family hatch like the Honda Fit has 135mm (5.31in). The FVGT is so stupidly low that it skates over the mirror–smooth asphalt of fictional and FIA Grade One racetracks as much as it drives over them. As with most VGTs, customisation options are severely limited with the Ferrari VGT; only the dampers, the accel and decel sensitivities of the diff, and brake balance can be adjusted in addition to the usual tyres, power limiter, and ballast. Oh yeah, the dampers are what's wrong with this car, thanks Ferrari. With a car this low, its suspension is just glorified bricks, meaning that the car not only skates across tracks, but it also hops like a crazed kangaroo on crack. You think I'm exaggerating? Here, watch for yourself if you think you can stomach it:
https://youtu.be/DP0m9exeqYg
Even when being spared the likely fate of crapping out my still beating heart, that kind of constant jumpiness literally makes me carsick even through a TV screen. And just to reiterate, I've never gotten carsick before in real life nor in a video game. I've even had to resort to driving the FVGT in chase cam just to keep my lunch in my stomach. Something in me kinda wants me to believe that someone at Ferrari knew this car would mash every bone in a human's body down to fine dust, hence why they force drivers into a driving suit that looks like a mummy cast with the silhouette of a strap–on drawn onto it to remind you just how far up into your rectum they are.
I know I've portrayed myself as a Ferrari hater these past five years, but I hope you'll trust me when I write that I genuinely try to approach each car with an open mind hoping to find something that brings me joy. I don't like being angry, nor do I like feeling like I've wasted my time. I find it a shame that the FVGT makes me sick, because it looks amazing, has an incredible cockpit view, generates immense downforce, and is stupendously surefooted in the turns when it isn't hopping from pole to pole. It's even fast, too: on the right tracks, it'd even outrun a 2023 Super Formula and embarrass anything in Gr.1 even without BoP holding the bona–fide racecars back.
......buuuuuuut, a good chunk of its pace comes from its hybrid boost, which goes completely limp after around 2 minutes of hard driving, and that's just about enough for 1 lap of Spa. After it dies, it takes about 4 minutes of sitting still for the engine to recharge the battery up to full. Also, because the engine recharges the battery, sometimes you just don't get any engine braking in the car when coasting through a sweeper. Oh yeah, rob me of engine braking for 0.5 seconds and understeer me wide to give me 0.25 seconds of boost. Worth. Combine this with how its tyres take about half a lap or so to warm up and will melt in just a few more (as is typical with high–downforce cars that cook their tyres), and the result is a car that operates at its optimal pace about as frequently as solar eclipses and about as consistent as fickle, moody mistress with multiple personalities.
Fortunately, alternatives exist to the FVGT, though most of them are VGTs themselves. For those not keen on VGTs, about the only things that will keep pace with the Fezza are the Super Formulae cars, and even that is rather track dependent. The Aston Martin Valkyrie will ideally need some stiffening up to its suspension to handle racing slicks, but match the compounds on both cars, and the Valkyrie will be really even competition for the FVGT after the latter's two minutes of fame is up. If one doesn't mind VGTs, the Tomahawk S and Corvette CX, both similarly classified as #Road Cars, will unapologetically whoop the FVGT despite being rated lower by the PP system even with Racing Medium tyres, and crucially, none of the aforementioned cars other than the Ferrari makes me sick.
I usually come away from driving a VGT thinking, "what the hell were they thinking? Did anyone test drive this?" But no other car really embodies that more than the Ferrari VeGeTable.
Sorry, Baron.
None of them have made me physically and literally sick like the Ferrari Vision Gran Turismo.
The problem with the FVGT is that it has only 30mm (1.18in) ground clearance front and rear. For some context, a 2023 Super Formula car has 25mm (0.94in) clearance, a modern supercar R35 has 110mm (4.33in), and a sensible family hatch like the Honda Fit has 135mm (5.31in). The FVGT is so stupidly low that it skates over the mirror–smooth asphalt of fictional and FIA Grade One racetracks as much as it drives over them. As with most VGTs, customisation options are severely limited with the Ferrari VGT; only the dampers, the accel and decel sensitivities of the diff, and brake balance can be adjusted in addition to the usual tyres, power limiter, and ballast. Oh yeah, the dampers are what's wrong with this car, thanks Ferrari. With a car this low, its suspension is just glorified bricks, meaning that the car not only skates across tracks, but it also hops like a crazed kangaroo on crack. You think I'm exaggerating? Here, watch for yourself if you think you can stomach it:
https://youtu.be/DP0m9exeqYg
Even when being spared the likely fate of crapping out my still beating heart, that kind of constant jumpiness literally makes me carsick even through a TV screen. And just to reiterate, I've never gotten carsick before in real life nor in a video game. I've even had to resort to driving the FVGT in chase cam just to keep my lunch in my stomach. Something in me kinda wants me to believe that someone at Ferrari knew this car would mash every bone in a human's body down to fine dust, hence why they force drivers into a driving suit that looks like a mummy cast with the silhouette of a strap–on drawn onto it to remind you just how far up into your rectum they are.
I know I've portrayed myself as a Ferrari hater these past five years, but I hope you'll trust me when I write that I genuinely try to approach each car with an open mind hoping to find something that brings me joy. I don't like being angry, nor do I like feeling like I've wasted my time. I find it a shame that the FVGT makes me sick, because it looks amazing, has an incredible cockpit view, generates immense downforce, and is stupendously surefooted in the turns when it isn't hopping from pole to pole. It's even fast, too: on the right tracks, it'd even outrun a 2023 Super Formula and embarrass anything in Gr.1 even without BoP holding the bona–fide racecars back.
......buuuuuuut, a good chunk of its pace comes from its hybrid boost, which goes completely limp after around 2 minutes of hard driving, and that's just about enough for 1 lap of Spa. After it dies, it takes about 4 minutes of sitting still for the engine to recharge the battery up to full. Also, because the engine recharges the battery, sometimes you just don't get any engine braking in the car when coasting through a sweeper. Oh yeah, rob me of engine braking for 0.5 seconds and understeer me wide to give me 0.25 seconds of boost. Worth. Combine this with how its tyres take about half a lap or so to warm up and will melt in just a few more (as is typical with high–downforce cars that cook their tyres), and the result is a car that operates at its optimal pace about as frequently as solar eclipses and about as consistent as fickle, moody mistress with multiple personalities.
Fortunately, alternatives exist to the FVGT, though most of them are VGTs themselves. For those not keen on VGTs, about the only things that will keep pace with the Fezza are the Super Formulae cars, and even that is rather track dependent. The Aston Martin Valkyrie will ideally need some stiffening up to its suspension to handle racing slicks, but match the compounds on both cars, and the Valkyrie will be really even competition for the FVGT after the latter's two minutes of fame is up. If one doesn't mind VGTs, the Tomahawk S and Corvette CX, both similarly classified as #Road Cars, will unapologetically whoop the FVGT despite being rated lower by the PP system even with Racing Medium tyres, and crucially, none of the aforementioned cars other than the Ferrari makes me sick.
I usually come away from driving a VGT thinking, "what the hell were they thinking? Did anyone test drive this?" But no other car really embodies that more than the Ferrari VeGeTable.
Sorry, Baron.
Thursday, 30 October 2025
GT7 W131: Hyundai Elantra N '23
In a vacuum, the Hyundai Elantra N '23 looks good, drives great (for an FF), is relatively cheap, and can be had with a 6MT or a quick–shifting 8DCT. All that is on top of just how refreshing it is nowadays to see a performance sedan. Honestly, I don't think there is much to dislike about the Elantra at all.
However, here in GT7, it's saddled with a few problems. The first and most glaring are the 21st century Evos and WRXes, which are similarly 4–door sedans with established fan followings, often have more power, carry comparable mass, but have the advantage of AWD. Though the main difference between the Evos/WRXes and the Elantra is the driven wheels, in practice, the AWD cars are just so much faster than the Elantra, as though we were racing in different classes altogether. And yet, despite that big pace difference, the Evos and WRXes are just within 10PP of the Elantra's stock rating (500.55PP as of v1.63) for reasons only PD knows. So not only do the Evos and WRXes unfairly trounce the Elantra stock for stock, the AWD monsters also have a higher performance ceilings, as well as established fan followings to boot. Plus, long–time GT7 players would have already been showered with plenty of free FK8 and FL5 Civics by the time the Elantra was added to the game. But perhaps the most damning of them all is that Single–Player races in the Elantra's stock performance bracket are all weirdly region–locked, being split into European/Japanese FF Challenges and Clubman Cups, none of which the Korean car is eligible for. At 600PP where these arbitrary restrictions lift, an FWD car is just going to struggle immensely, and that is before we even consider how prone the Elantra is to have its tyres hit the bodywork and lock up the steering at higher performance levels. Heck, there isn't even a single Korean Scapes location to shoot the pretty car. It's almost like the game is doing everything it can to deincentivise players from buying the Elantra.
That said, the Elantra does have some party tricks that make it stand out. For one, the Elantra's blind spot indicator warnings are replicated in GT7, with a yellow triangle lighting up on the side mirrors whenever another car or obstacle is within range. This might only be relevant for PSVR2 players, but I imagine it must be a godsend to have something like that with the headset on, given how minimalistic the HUD is in VR.
Heck, PS5 Pro players might appreciate the quirk, too: on a base PS5, this blurry mess is the best I can get the reflections to look.
Second, the Elantra has an engine torque readout on the dash that not only reflects throttle and revs, but also tuning parts! With a full* tune and full–strength Nitrous, I was able to achieve around 1,070N·m (789.2lbf · ft) of torque, going beyond what the 3–digit display can handle. Call me a child, but that still makes me smile with glee as I write this.
Obviously, the engine temp readout doesn't work; I'd like to see an engine maintain 85°C putting down 634HP plus full NOS!
Maybe the Elantra isn't made for GT7, but rather, a future Gran Turismo game. A future GT game that seems poised to be more focused on street driving, perhaps? Be that as it may, it's still good fun here and now, as out of place as it appears to me.
*Excluding the High–Lift Camshaft mod. The Cams actually lower the max power output with a full tune.
My Single–Player Challenge run:
However, here in GT7, it's saddled with a few problems. The first and most glaring are the 21st century Evos and WRXes, which are similarly 4–door sedans with established fan followings, often have more power, carry comparable mass, but have the advantage of AWD. Though the main difference between the Evos/WRXes and the Elantra is the driven wheels, in practice, the AWD cars are just so much faster than the Elantra, as though we were racing in different classes altogether. And yet, despite that big pace difference, the Evos and WRXes are just within 10PP of the Elantra's stock rating (500.55PP as of v1.63) for reasons only PD knows. So not only do the Evos and WRXes unfairly trounce the Elantra stock for stock, the AWD monsters also have a higher performance ceilings, as well as established fan followings to boot. Plus, long–time GT7 players would have already been showered with plenty of free FK8 and FL5 Civics by the time the Elantra was added to the game. But perhaps the most damning of them all is that Single–Player races in the Elantra's stock performance bracket are all weirdly region–locked, being split into European/Japanese FF Challenges and Clubman Cups, none of which the Korean car is eligible for. At 600PP where these arbitrary restrictions lift, an FWD car is just going to struggle immensely, and that is before we even consider how prone the Elantra is to have its tyres hit the bodywork and lock up the steering at higher performance levels. Heck, there isn't even a single Korean Scapes location to shoot the pretty car. It's almost like the game is doing everything it can to deincentivise players from buying the Elantra.
That said, the Elantra does have some party tricks that make it stand out. For one, the Elantra's blind spot indicator warnings are replicated in GT7, with a yellow triangle lighting up on the side mirrors whenever another car or obstacle is within range. This might only be relevant for PSVR2 players, but I imagine it must be a godsend to have something like that with the headset on, given how minimalistic the HUD is in VR.
Heck, PS5 Pro players might appreciate the quirk, too: on a base PS5, this blurry mess is the best I can get the reflections to look.
Second, the Elantra has an engine torque readout on the dash that not only reflects throttle and revs, but also tuning parts! With a full* tune and full–strength Nitrous, I was able to achieve around 1,070N·m (789.2lbf · ft) of torque, going beyond what the 3–digit display can handle. Call me a child, but that still makes me smile with glee as I write this.
Obviously, the engine temp readout doesn't work; I'd like to see an engine maintain 85°C putting down 634HP plus full NOS!
Maybe the Elantra isn't made for GT7, but rather, a future Gran Turismo game. A future GT game that seems poised to be more focused on street driving, perhaps? Be that as it may, it's still good fun here and now, as out of place as it appears to me.
*Excluding the High–Lift Camshaft mod. The Cams actually lower the max power output with a full tune.
My Single–Player Challenge run:
Monday, 13 October 2025
GT7 W129: De Tomaso Pantera '71
Okay, fine, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration.
Oh, don't get me wrong; the Pantera's brakes don't feel like they're connected to anything more realistic than a prayer for some pleasant headwind, and the feedback from the bias ply tyres are no more palpable, either. On my sighting lap around a dry Tsukuba, I was taking it super slow and easy, and still wound up overshooting the apex by about half a track width. Needless to say for a car its age, the suspension is really soft as well. It's a car that is by no means easy to drive.
But that's where the bad news for the Pantera ends. The Pantera naturally has the classic proportions and sharp styling of a retro supercar, but should one decide to take things further, its widebody is one of the very few that looks distinct from the base car, and it even has an optional rear wing in GT Auto that looks ripped straight from a Countach. And did I mention it has pop–up headlights?! The Ford sourced Cleveland 351 NA V8 engine sounds authentically badass, and dare I say it, the car as a whole has such a sublime balance in the corners far exceeding anything American or Italian of its day. It launches strongly with its rear–midship layout, it has five forward gears in an era where many sports cars still had to make do with four, and while the suspension may be a bit soft for my liking, the car as a whole is still one HELL of a step up from the Mangusta we featured prior! What a stark difference two years can make!
The stock Pantera is a severely wanting car, but the reservoirs of potential in the car is much more palpable than the brakes and tyres on it. In short, it's a horrible car that somehow pleasantly surprised me, and I very well might kit one out if I ever feel like doing a Single–Player race again.
Tuesday, 7 October 2025
GT7 W128: Toyota Land Cruiser FJ40V '74
The Toyota Land Cruiser FJ40V '74 is one of those cars that, at first glance, seems completely out of left field in a racing game, but here I am writing about it instead of a Ford GT, 964 RS, or a Delta Rally Car.
Mostly because the FJ40V is more my speed, but, you know, we can ignore that. In fact, I'll probably edit out this line somet
As of late, there has been a noticeable divide in the GT7 Update discussion threads between those who want up–to–date racecars that would feature in the game's most prolific mode, shunning the addition of SUVs and city cars, versus those who couldn't care less about racecars and appreciate all the weird quirky cars that make Gran Turismo unique. I lean more towards the latter camp, because racecars must drive more or less similarly to each other and be bopped to have roughly equal performance to be able to race competitively together, whereas something like a Jimny is an entirely unique experience. That being written, I also feel that GT7 as a video game really fails to translate over much of the real world sensations and quirks that largely define the driving experience of these oddball cars. Driving a HiAce at the speed limit IRL is scary; driving a HiAce as fast as it'd go in GT7 feels... boring. And it doesn't help that manufacturers generally only want their best stuff represented in the game, meaning that GT7 feels like an interactive advert at times. It speaks volumes about the feats of engineering that a CH-R doesn't drive completely awful, and I literally described the 2008 SUV as, "If someone were to dump me into my rig with the 2008 already loaded in bumper cam, I wouldn't guess at all that I was in some big, tall, wasteful, poser SUV from the way it drives." But from the players' perspective? It just feels... more of the same meh. If they're all going to drive similarly, I'd much rather they add racecars instead; at least those have gameplay purpose in the game.
I bring up that discourse because the 1974 Land Cruiser FJ40V doesn't feel like a nondescript people carrier in GT7 with all the inherent flaws of its category sanded down into oblivion. It actually drives like a rugged offroading machine with no aspirations of being a track day toy, and therefore, it's really unique and adds so much value to the game as a way to meaningfully experience a variety of different cars. The FJ40V is slow, heavy, tall, soft, and has narrow tyres, and it can get itself into a mess with just 130PS if the driver is lax with it. Despite its 200mm ride height, the FJ40V can hit the ends of its suspension travel and spin out unexpectedly when push comes to shove, with Turn 3 of the paved Eiger Nordwand track, a slow 180° right hander downhill bend, catching a few of us out this past Wednesday. First gear is a crawler gear and just causes wheelspin off a standing launch, and the 3.9L NA engine needs to have its nuts revved off to make meaningful propulsion, stretching the ratios of its 4–speed gearbox to its limits. With a soft setup, low power, and rev happy engine, the FJ40V can be described as a bit of a challenge to drive, but then again, the Miata can also be described similarly, and that's the default car for spec racing. Both are cars that heavily emphasise the importance of "rhythm and inertia", if you will, necessitating and rewarding momentum preservation and careful weight shifting in driving. So involving is the driving experience of a FJ40V in fact, it genuinely skews my perception of time simply because there's so much to do and think about over a lap. I often cross the Start/Finish line of our lobby races surprised there's still one more lap to go, and I mean that in a good way.
I've not many critiques against a car clearly not meant for track duty, but the ones I do are sadly rather glaring. The first hardly pertains to the car itself: there simply isn't enough small, narrow, and twisty tracks to run these low powered cars on, and if anyone has insomnia, maybe try spending half of Fuji's home straight at the rev limit. The rev limiter is also really... "lazy", for the lack of a better term. Hitting it causes it to cut out power for a whole second or so, only for the revs to quickly spike back up and smack the limiter again. It's not a big deal on a paved track, but on bumpy dirt or snow surfaces, those short hops can cause the car to hit the limiter prematurely, and shifting up early to circumvent that just kills the peaky engine. That means slides are a bit difficult to hold as well. Lastly, its PP rating I feel is a little too high for the performance it has; a Copen would smack this thing silly despite rated some 13PP below the FJ40V, and a HiAce van would actually give the Land Cruiser a run for its money with only a 273.63PP rating compared to the FJ40V's 305.78PP (ratings are as of v1.63).
What I find most interesting however, is that the FJ40V is listed as a 4WD vehicle, but in stock form, only its front wheels are being driven. According to the car's in–game description and McKeel of the Ripoff Car Dealer, the FJ40V we have in the game comes with a 4WD system with a 2–speed transfer case, actuated via the shift lever like thing to the right of the skyscraping actual shift lever. However, to switch the FJ40V from front to 4–wheel drive, one doesn't use a clutch pedal and a second lever; they instead buy a Variable Centre Differential from the tuning shop to send power to the rear, and I believe this is the first non hybrid car in the game that can switch up its drive wheels. It's supremely cool just for that, but being FWD also allows the driver to rip the handbrake while keeping the throttle pinned in a slide if that's what they're into (but maybe don't try putting down 1,100HP from the LS7 Rampage Engine through just the front tyres...).
The FJ40V Land Cruiser may not seem like it belongs in a racing game, but it provides a very interesting experience both to drive and to customise. It may not be very useful for grinding the "big 4" races due to its horrific fuel economy, but thanks to the LS7 Rampage Engine, it can do the classic Gran Turismo thing of taking something that has no business being on a racetrack and smashing bona–fide racecars with it. It may not be the easiest thing to drive even when tuned, but as far as surprises go, the FJ40V really pleasantly surprised me with how much I've come to appreciate it. After all, finding out overlooked gems is the whole idea of Car of the Week, and with the game feeling more and more like a car advert, surprises are really hard to come by nowadays.
So much so that I'm going to sign off with the classic COTW ending.
Verdict: Sleeper.
SPOILER:
I'm just going to preserve this here because it made me laugh so much. The meme machine, SPD, remembered that I'm a Shawn Michaels fan more than I remember that I'm a Shawn Michaels fan!
Also, since I'm rambling, we turned off track limit penalties during Saturday's lobby, resulting in a rush to find the most egregious track cuts the game would let us get away with. It was the most fun lobby I've been a part of for a long time!
Unfortunately, there's no way to turn off the auto reset that warps a car back onto the track if they veer off too far. I also found out the very hard way that those "reset boundaries" are a LOT more stringent in a race than during free practice... Come on, PD, let us have fun when we want to have fun! I switched off track limit penalties for a reason!
SPOILER: Quick Writeups on Some Cars I Missed
It drives weird, with a twitchy rear end. The AMG GT suffers from this as well, though not to the same extent. I actually prefer the SLR.
I really hate to dunk on the 964 after it brought so much activity to the thread, but I really wasn't all that impressed by it. Yes, it was an extremely pure driving experience, and one that even feels stable and approachable. However, the harder I pushed the 964, the more it soured my initial impression of it. A lot of its stability is tied to its huge rear tyres, and so it can very suddenly lose composure and get into a mess should bumps and such unsettle it even minutely. Also, its body shape I think is to blame for the car being as horrifically unstable at high speed as I've found it to be, and the Nordschleife really drags that weakness out into the light of day. The R32 GT-Rs have similar pace, but are so, so much easier to drive, being much more surefooted mechanically and aerodynamically, with gobs of turbo torque. Of course, the RS probably isn't the quickest 964 model out there; there are Turbo and AWD versions of the 964 out there, so maybe pace isn't the best metric to judge it by. In terms of driving experience though? It's still got nothing on the NA1 NSX-R IMO.
The 8C Comp, despite packing a Ferrari engine and looks to die for, is a strangely forgottable car to me. Maybe it just doesn't "speak" to me, but I don't see beauty in its styling, nor do I think its engine note has translated over well into GT7 at all. That leaves me with a softly sprung GT car that, while incredibly well–balanced, is just too sloppy for my spoiled hands and feet. No sane person would think that the uphill left kink running beside the Pit Lane of Eiger Nordwand is a place where a 449PS modern car would come undone, but that's exactly where my 8C Comp decided it didn't want to car anymore and would rather identify as a mangled martyr on the side of a mountain. No, I have no idea why it did that. I just know I want no part of it.
I know nothing of the Group B era of rally cars nor Lancia's storied history with it. That makes the fact that it still left a shining impression on me when it was added to GT7 all the more significant, because it's a car that stands on its own four wheels instead of something that can only be appreciated through sepia–tinted glasses. To introduce the car to us players, PD created an Online Time Trial at Grand Valley East for us to try the car, and I was initially so far off the Gold target time that it really made me question what the heck was going on. I kept pushing and pushing for some reason; the car was just that enticing and begging for more abuse somehow. It really doesn't like smooth and slow inputs, instead preferring quick and sudden flicks to get the car rotated into the turn, and it eats up the Californian sand as though a mere appetiser for the stuff it's built to handle. I eventually lucked my way into an unsafe Gold which stuck, and despite not being able to replicate that lap on demand, it still left me feeling so ridiculously satisfied. The Delta Rally Car is basically joy in a box.
That said, PD have traditionally shunned older cars in grouped categories of racecars with Balance of Performance, and nowhere is that more evident than in the Gr.B class. Instead of words, I'll instead use a table from GT Engine to show you what I mean:
Group B is basically unofficially divided into "Old Group B" and "New Group B", but officially, they're all supposedly on equal footing. We are looking at an obscene 80PP difference between the lowest rated car and the highest rated, with the average of the group being indicative of none of the cars in said group. Combine this favourtism with the fact that the old cars are more expensive and aren't always available to buy, it's really hard to justify having the older cars unless one is already partial to them to begin with, and even then, one would need to find an online community that either agrees to manually BoP each car with an honour system, or specify Group B with a strict PP limit. It's not exactly intuitive.
Mostly because the FJ40V is more my speed, but, you know, we can ignore that. In fact, I'll probably edit out this line somet
As of late, there has been a noticeable divide in the GT7 Update discussion threads between those who want up–to–date racecars that would feature in the game's most prolific mode, shunning the addition of SUVs and city cars, versus those who couldn't care less about racecars and appreciate all the weird quirky cars that make Gran Turismo unique. I lean more towards the latter camp, because racecars must drive more or less similarly to each other and be bopped to have roughly equal performance to be able to race competitively together, whereas something like a Jimny is an entirely unique experience. That being written, I also feel that GT7 as a video game really fails to translate over much of the real world sensations and quirks that largely define the driving experience of these oddball cars. Driving a HiAce at the speed limit IRL is scary; driving a HiAce as fast as it'd go in GT7 feels... boring. And it doesn't help that manufacturers generally only want their best stuff represented in the game, meaning that GT7 feels like an interactive advert at times. It speaks volumes about the feats of engineering that a CH-R doesn't drive completely awful, and I literally described the 2008 SUV as, "If someone were to dump me into my rig with the 2008 already loaded in bumper cam, I wouldn't guess at all that I was in some big, tall, wasteful, poser SUV from the way it drives." But from the players' perspective? It just feels... more of the same meh. If they're all going to drive similarly, I'd much rather they add racecars instead; at least those have gameplay purpose in the game.
I bring up that discourse because the 1974 Land Cruiser FJ40V doesn't feel like a nondescript people carrier in GT7 with all the inherent flaws of its category sanded down into oblivion. It actually drives like a rugged offroading machine with no aspirations of being a track day toy, and therefore, it's really unique and adds so much value to the game as a way to meaningfully experience a variety of different cars. The FJ40V is slow, heavy, tall, soft, and has narrow tyres, and it can get itself into a mess with just 130PS if the driver is lax with it. Despite its 200mm ride height, the FJ40V can hit the ends of its suspension travel and spin out unexpectedly when push comes to shove, with Turn 3 of the paved Eiger Nordwand track, a slow 180° right hander downhill bend, catching a few of us out this past Wednesday. First gear is a crawler gear and just causes wheelspin off a standing launch, and the 3.9L NA engine needs to have its nuts revved off to make meaningful propulsion, stretching the ratios of its 4–speed gearbox to its limits. With a soft setup, low power, and rev happy engine, the FJ40V can be described as a bit of a challenge to drive, but then again, the Miata can also be described similarly, and that's the default car for spec racing. Both are cars that heavily emphasise the importance of "rhythm and inertia", if you will, necessitating and rewarding momentum preservation and careful weight shifting in driving. So involving is the driving experience of a FJ40V in fact, it genuinely skews my perception of time simply because there's so much to do and think about over a lap. I often cross the Start/Finish line of our lobby races surprised there's still one more lap to go, and I mean that in a good way.
I've not many critiques against a car clearly not meant for track duty, but the ones I do are sadly rather glaring. The first hardly pertains to the car itself: there simply isn't enough small, narrow, and twisty tracks to run these low powered cars on, and if anyone has insomnia, maybe try spending half of Fuji's home straight at the rev limit. The rev limiter is also really... "lazy", for the lack of a better term. Hitting it causes it to cut out power for a whole second or so, only for the revs to quickly spike back up and smack the limiter again. It's not a big deal on a paved track, but on bumpy dirt or snow surfaces, those short hops can cause the car to hit the limiter prematurely, and shifting up early to circumvent that just kills the peaky engine. That means slides are a bit difficult to hold as well. Lastly, its PP rating I feel is a little too high for the performance it has; a Copen would smack this thing silly despite rated some 13PP below the FJ40V, and a HiAce van would actually give the Land Cruiser a run for its money with only a 273.63PP rating compared to the FJ40V's 305.78PP (ratings are as of v1.63).
What I find most interesting however, is that the FJ40V is listed as a 4WD vehicle, but in stock form, only its front wheels are being driven. According to the car's in–game description and McKeel of the Ripoff Car Dealer, the FJ40V we have in the game comes with a 4WD system with a 2–speed transfer case, actuated via the shift lever like thing to the right of the skyscraping actual shift lever. However, to switch the FJ40V from front to 4–wheel drive, one doesn't use a clutch pedal and a second lever; they instead buy a Variable Centre Differential from the tuning shop to send power to the rear, and I believe this is the first non hybrid car in the game that can switch up its drive wheels. It's supremely cool just for that, but being FWD also allows the driver to rip the handbrake while keeping the throttle pinned in a slide if that's what they're into (but maybe don't try putting down 1,100HP from the LS7 Rampage Engine through just the front tyres...).
The FJ40V Land Cruiser may not seem like it belongs in a racing game, but it provides a very interesting experience both to drive and to customise. It may not be very useful for grinding the "big 4" races due to its horrific fuel economy, but thanks to the LS7 Rampage Engine, it can do the classic Gran Turismo thing of taking something that has no business being on a racetrack and smashing bona–fide racecars with it. It may not be the easiest thing to drive even when tuned, but as far as surprises go, the FJ40V really pleasantly surprised me with how much I've come to appreciate it. After all, finding out overlooked gems is the whole idea of Car of the Week, and with the game feeling more and more like a car advert, surprises are really hard to come by nowadays.
So much so that I'm going to sign off with the classic COTW ending.
Verdict: Sleeper.
SPOILER:
I'm just going to preserve this here because it made me laugh so much. The meme machine, SPD, remembered that I'm a Shawn Michaels fan more than I remember that I'm a Shawn Michaels fan!
Also, since I'm rambling, we turned off track limit penalties during Saturday's lobby, resulting in a rush to find the most egregious track cuts the game would let us get away with. It was the most fun lobby I've been a part of for a long time!
Unfortunately, there's no way to turn off the auto reset that warps a car back onto the track if they veer off too far. I also found out the very hard way that those "reset boundaries" are a LOT more stringent in a race than during free practice... Come on, PD, let us have fun when we want to have fun! I switched off track limit penalties for a reason!
SPOILER: Quick Writeups on Some Cars I Missed
SLS AMG
It drives weird, with a twitchy rear end. The AMG GT suffers from this as well, though not to the same extent. I actually prefer the SLR.
964 RS
I really hate to dunk on the 964 after it brought so much activity to the thread, but I really wasn't all that impressed by it. Yes, it was an extremely pure driving experience, and one that even feels stable and approachable. However, the harder I pushed the 964, the more it soured my initial impression of it. A lot of its stability is tied to its huge rear tyres, and so it can very suddenly lose composure and get into a mess should bumps and such unsettle it even minutely. Also, its body shape I think is to blame for the car being as horrifically unstable at high speed as I've found it to be, and the Nordschleife really drags that weakness out into the light of day. The R32 GT-Rs have similar pace, but are so, so much easier to drive, being much more surefooted mechanically and aerodynamically, with gobs of turbo torque. Of course, the RS probably isn't the quickest 964 model out there; there are Turbo and AWD versions of the 964 out there, so maybe pace isn't the best metric to judge it by. In terms of driving experience though? It's still got nothing on the NA1 NSX-R IMO.
8C Competizione
The 8C Comp, despite packing a Ferrari engine and looks to die for, is a strangely forgottable car to me. Maybe it just doesn't "speak" to me, but I don't see beauty in its styling, nor do I think its engine note has translated over well into GT7 at all. That leaves me with a softly sprung GT car that, while incredibly well–balanced, is just too sloppy for my spoiled hands and feet. No sane person would think that the uphill left kink running beside the Pit Lane of Eiger Nordwand is a place where a 449PS modern car would come undone, but that's exactly where my 8C Comp decided it didn't want to car anymore and would rather identify as a mangled martyr on the side of a mountain. No, I have no idea why it did that. I just know I want no part of it.
Delta Rally Car
I know nothing of the Group B era of rally cars nor Lancia's storied history with it. That makes the fact that it still left a shining impression on me when it was added to GT7 all the more significant, because it's a car that stands on its own four wheels instead of something that can only be appreciated through sepia–tinted glasses. To introduce the car to us players, PD created an Online Time Trial at Grand Valley East for us to try the car, and I was initially so far off the Gold target time that it really made me question what the heck was going on. I kept pushing and pushing for some reason; the car was just that enticing and begging for more abuse somehow. It really doesn't like smooth and slow inputs, instead preferring quick and sudden flicks to get the car rotated into the turn, and it eats up the Californian sand as though a mere appetiser for the stuff it's built to handle. I eventually lucked my way into an unsafe Gold which stuck, and despite not being able to replicate that lap on demand, it still left me feeling so ridiculously satisfied. The Delta Rally Car is basically joy in a box.
That said, PD have traditionally shunned older cars in grouped categories of racecars with Balance of Performance, and nowhere is that more evident than in the Gr.B class. Instead of words, I'll instead use a table from GT Engine to show you what I mean:
Group B is basically unofficially divided into "Old Group B" and "New Group B", but officially, they're all supposedly on equal footing. We are looking at an obscene 80PP difference between the lowest rated car and the highest rated, with the average of the group being indicative of none of the cars in said group. Combine this favourtism with the fact that the old cars are more expensive and aren't always available to buy, it's really hard to justify having the older cars unless one is already partial to them to begin with, and even then, one would need to find an online community that either agrees to manually BoP each car with an honour system, or specify Group B with a strict PP limit. It's not exactly intuitive.
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