As an American muscle car in the early 70s, the Dodge Super Bee isn't a very difficult car to wrap one's head around: soft metallic mounts that can barely be considered "suspension", heavy, bias ply tyres, ABS–less brakes, open diff, big NA V8 up front with abysmal specific power figures and even more horrifying fuel economy numbers, rear wheel drive, and four short forward gears that would pull for exactly 402.3 metres before running out of breath on a straight, level road. So far, so very typical of the beehive that is vintage American muscle then. Been there, done that. Twice.
Far bee it for me to be part of the hive mind who appreciate the sweetness muscle cars, but if the in–game description is to be believed, the Super Bee is supposed to be a performance focused muscle car, which sounds to me as practical as gluing a 10x zoom scope onto a sawn–off shotgun. To this pointy end, the Super Bee that is chosen to represent in this game actually has the smallest engine that was offered for it: a MICROSCOPIC 6.3L Magnum Bee 8 (please don't sue me, Dodge), to create a car that's not just a whopping 191kg (421lbs) lighter than its Challenger R/T sibling, but one that also feels stiffer as a result, all while possessing better balance. So then, could it bee that we have a vintage muscle car that handles well this week?
Well... you'd probably do well to steer well clear of the honey trap of beelieving that the Super Bee will handle well, because it's still a front heavy car on what is ultimately still soft suspension, which means it will exhibit typical muscle car beehaviour if you decide to push it. But while this car is still floaty like a butterfly, it for sure has the proper sting of a bee. In comparison to the aforementioned Challenger, the Super Bee feels markedly more taut and consistent when faced with a slight bend on the road, which makes the typical showboaty, explosive power of American muscle really rather fun to toss around a track, given that it offers you some semblance of control over the chaos. Better being a busy bee trying to correct the car than dying a gruesome death trying to pull your stinger out a sand trap, spilling your innards out in the process.
Yep, look at how much fun I'm having, totally not overcooking T1 on cold tyres and a full tank of fuel after a long practice stint with a horrifically depleting tank!
It'd probably be a lot cooler to see one of these cars in real life, especially in export markets, because of the glimpses in history and culture it brings, the stories that they carry in their aged chassis, and how it might actually help you earn a chance to pollinate someone. In digital form however, it's just a crap car that tops out at an EV–esque 195km/h drag limited, that would just about hold its own against an utter pig of a stock first gen Mitsubishi GTO when given proper gearing, locking diffs, and ABS. As such, I really cannot fathom why in the heck a rational, sane human being would ever find themselves wondering which vintage muscle car to get, and if the Super Bee is any good. But, if, say, you find yourself in a very exacting scenario wherein Arn Anderson has his Glock to your head and is demanding you to choose a vintage muscle car to drive, effectively forcing you to contemplate the age old existential question of, "To Bee or not to Bee", I'd say that the Super Bee can catch many cars of its class and era out by surprise with its (comparatively...) taut handling, and its slightly higher gearing that gives it an undisputed advantage along any track not named "Horse Thief Mile". Me personally though, "not to Bee" is the obvious choice, as I'd take a Camaro Z/28 any day, simply because it's much, much lighter than even the bee, and actually handles well. Well worth the 20k credit price hike over the bee, I feel. Or you know, you could just get a C2 Corvette, which will give you a lot more performance for not that much more money.
Unfortunately, the Super Bee isn't quite the queen bee among its class, let alone my garage. It's therefore a Super Beeter.
The 1968 Fiat 500 is too slow to review. You might as well ask me to review the cornering prowess of a continent, which moves faster than the damn thing. Its top speed rather depends on how much you've had for breakfast, and if you've the headlights on. You could stick your left foot out the door and pedal this thing along the road faster than its engine would carry it, and it'd certainly help with the cramps and circulation problems your right foot will no doubt experience when driving this thing flat out around most circuits. Cyclists could and would go faster in the face of a slight opposing breeze or a gentle incline than this thing could even have dreams about. Hell, I'm even willing to bet I achieve a higher average speed in real life with my Honda Fit than I do with this thing in a virtual racetrack. You'd need to set your camera down for a timelapse shot to get any sort of motion blur when shooting the 500... provided nature doesn't claim your camera before that happens.
Also, yes, THIS happened.
And yet, despite all that, it somehow manages to get itself into trouble in corners despite its nonexistent speed; the front end of this RR car is certainly capable of writing cheques its rear end can't cash, resulting in what has to be documented in the Guinness World Records as the slowest slide in a 4 wheeled automobile. If you've had the far fetched fantasy of increasing the power output of this thing by, say, swapping a Lambo V12 into it, the leaf springs and 4 speed gearbox both have objections that are sure to be sustained. Even when given seven times its original power in our lobby and even the accompanying gearbox tunes, the 500 could barely hold its own against a severely crippled Honda Fit Hybrid. And you thought that was slow.
Is there any saving grace to the Nuova 500 then? Well, it does have to be said that it possesses a remarkably strong body: one that lets a 10 ton tank roll over and jump on it!
In fact, because it has rear seats, it lends itself well to having a pair of 14mm Vulcan Cannons stuck through its rear windows, and because it's RR, there's lots of room up front for ten heat seeking missiles. AND it jumps!
Everywhere else, it's just a nondescript box with a not–too–impressive 127HP pushing along 940 kilos of period–typical parts. Bring it onto a narrow, tightly winding mountain pass however, and this thing seemingly gains a whole new personality, a whole new identity, a whole new life, as though it were possessed by something beyond our world. The whole package comes alive and made me believe all the hype and every hyperbole that has ever been propagated about the car, which is almost entirely unheard of for a car starring in a cult classic show. Move aside, DMC-12s, Firebirds, Countachs, and Supras, because this week, we've got an AE86 to catch if it doesn't suddenly decide to sprout wings mid race.
But what is it exactly that makes an AE86 so legendary? After all, it's not like it's the only car that has a 50:50 weight distribution, FR chassis, lightweight body, and a rev happy engine mated to a stick shift, right? Me personally, I think the car has a lot of character, and that's something you can't really print on a spec sheet or an ad. The car is so willingly, naturally playful, and I'm often sideways before I realise anything's gone awry. The combination of said weight distribution, a lightweight body, communicative steering, and lack of grip means that it doesn't become snappy even with its playfulness, and slides can be held and recovered on whim alone. As Rob's car alludes to, this AE86 is a car that you can steer with the rear and gas pedal as much as you can turn the car with the front tyres, and it acts as if it's the most natural thing in the world whether you choose to steer it from the front, rear, or both.
I'm going to be grossly overusing the "N" word, but whether by design or the most absurd of coincidences, Toyota engineers have put together a package that is so cohesive and natural, I wouldn't want to change a thing about it despite its strong aftermarket support; the car turns—not too much, but enough to put it exactly where you mean to put it, as though it could read your mind. The car goes—but not at a scary pace, just enough to get you to the next corner. The car rolls; but not too much—just enough for you to break grip on the unladen side and let you initiate a slide without touching the handbrake. The brakes stop the car; but not so much where you're at any risk of locking the old, thin tyres in the dry, just enough to get them to smoke and squeal when subject to the aforementioned weight transfer. Everything about the car just feels so intuitive and just... "right", as though you were moving your own hands and feet instead of trying to control an external mechanical being. The ease this car sets my mind as I drive it, letting me not think of a thing and just enjoying the experience, is almost like that of taking a walk in a forest—again, natural, alive, and just so "right".
But of course, this car has been renowned to train its driver, and so it can be as technical and demanding a drive as you want. Usually, cars are either easy or challenging to drive, but the AE86 somehow manages to not only straddle that line between the two, but it excels at both! Try to extract every hundredth of a second from this car, and it will definitely start to judge you silently if you overcook a corner and lose precious, palpable momentum to excessive body roll, excessive yaw, or letting the engine revs dip out of its powerband. The soft suspension asks of the driver to be gradual and gentle, yet decisive in what they ask of the car, as sharp, sudden inputs will upset the softly sprung car, which can also be exploited to a surgical precision if you so choose. It deeply romanticises the process of load transfers and friction circles, dictating a deliberate pace it wants with its driver, and I definitely found myself wishing for a nearly filled cup of water in my centre console during race day just so I would be physically punished for mistreating the car and conditioned to not do so again, given how effortlessly playful it is. It's almost impossible to take a race seriously in this car without stiffening the suspension of the car, like Fujiwara Bunta did when his son was about to race an R32.
The world's biggest gutter, where my driving skills lie.
The more time I spend with the car, the more "happy accidents" I have with it, wherein I overspeed into a corner, panic and have to initiate the rear end to slide out to avoid going face first into a wall, and sometimes, somehow, I find myself taking the corner faster than the lap before when I thought I got the corner right. It dares drivers to go just that little bit faster into a corner, be that little bit more hesitant with the brakes, and more eager on the throttle, because it can and will handle a slight amount of abuse with its tools that allow you the freedom to adjust it several times mid corner to take it in a number of different ways. Most importantly, it richly rewards experimentation and risk taking, which makes for a dangerously addictive combination. The trust that this very, very charismatic car earns in its driver, and how it eggs them on, is something entirely unmatched in all my time driving cars in this game. It somehow manages to make you feel like a movie star with just 95kW when you pull some heroics with the car, intentionally or otherwise. This car is so compelling and charismatic, it feels more than the sum of its mechanical parts, almost as though an emotive, living being. I find myself irreversibly and irresistibly entranced by the charisma and communication of the car. I want to spend more time with it. I feel like I could spend a lifetime with this car and keep finding extra hundredths of a second with it. I feel so compelled to find out more about myself, via finding out more about it, by driving it endlessly. I want to race all sorts of cars and people in it on all sorts of courses and under some of the most uncomfortable conditions, because I feel like this car isn't nearly done teaching me more about both itself and myself. It's... quite simply magical.
While other movie star cars tend to fall apart and unravel the mystique of the shows they starred in the moment they're driven in any sort of realistic scenario, my time in the AE86s has instead made me realise how much of real life experience has been transcribed into Initial D, despite appearing as nothing more than a self–indulgent fantasy at first glance. More than that, it made me believe all the ridiculous tales of how an AE86 could train its driver, how it could be driven in a number of ways according to the situation, and how it could even best some more modern giants like an R32 and an Evo IV. Well, the part where it beats an RX-7 is still a load of horse sh-
https://youtu.be/R_OrmvHd65Y
-it might actually be possible, huh?
So what exactly are the differences between the Levin and Trueno? Well, their names mean "lightning" and "thunderclap", respectively, so you might think that the Levin would be the faster of the two. Both on paper and in practice, however, the two cars are identical as far as I can tell aside from the Levin being 25.4mm (an inch) shorter in length, so the choice between the two comes down to whether you prefer the simplicity, reliability, and gentleness on pedestrians that the fixed headlights of the Levin offer, or being correct, valid, and worthy of love. Both cars are decked out with their optional electronic gauges, which is both cool and a bit of a shame at the same time, as I had hoped that at least one of them would have their traditional gauges to more closely resemble the ones depicted in Initial D. And speaking of, Watanabe Wheels aren't even in the game, so there goes any hope of accurately replicating Fujiwara Takumi's Tofu car. You'd think that that's the first (and for most, only) thing people would want to do to an AE86 both in real life and virtually, but apparently Kaz and PD are too cool for that.
土屋圭市 2021Helmet and Suit liveries by ABE-SI_660 links.
So what separates the AE86 from other cars of its period like the S13, Roadster, and MR2? Part of the AE86's charm, I think the clichés of "character", "soul", and how it "speaks" to a driver might regrettably be the most apt at describing; no other car feels as addictively compelling as the AE86 and pushes their drivers like it does, from any time period or any country. As though being the star of a cult classic anime isn't enough on its own, "Drift King" Tsuchiya Keiichi swears by one and still dailies his very unique cross ratio gearbox Trueno, and that I think is the highest praise a car can receive, no exceptions. He is a man whom I idolise, attempt to emulate, and whose opinion I trust as truth as though gospel. Star power like that, there's simply no arguing against. Could another car have taken the AE86's place both in fiction and reality? Perhaps. But I think the totally nondescript look of the 86 really sells a strong narrative. As much as the 86 made the careers of Shigeno Shuichi and Tsuchiya Keiichi, I think in equal parts, those men have made the 86 into the legend that it is today. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that without those two, we wouldn't have a modern 86 to enjoy today.
In conclusion, anyone who even thinks that they love cars owes it to themselves to try driving a bone stock AE86, either in real life or virtually. Hell, I even want my prospective wife to drive one, because if she doesn't enjoy it, I don't think we'll work out. The AE86 is an ode to going slowly enough to appreciate the small details in life and to remember to enjoy the journey when their off times when they're not trying their best. It is critically endangered proof that we needn't much in life to be happy, as long as everything is done right and balanced beautifully. It is a car that deeply romanticises the naturally mechanical sensations of a car and a drive, and serves as a constant reminder of how hard every component of the car, and indeed our lives, are working for us, and reminds me to be mindful, kind, and thankful for them with that awareness. It is a metaphor materialised for the beauty in a honest, communicative relationship, and the timelessness of love. Every time I drive one, I'm amazed anew at how much fun it is to wring around a tight, uneven track. And most importantly, it makes me smile and laugh every time I drive it.
I am going to be so very, very torn when it comes time to cast my vote for Car of the Year 2021.
It's right there in the car's description: the RCZ's timeless and striking body is supposed to lend itself to a rear–mid engined sports car. We all know by now that the RCZ that eventually made it to customers' hands is an FF typical of the French, but imagine if you will, what the RCZ could've been competing against both on and off the racetrack had it been RMR as the 308 RCZ Concept was: Lotus Elises, Alpine A110s, Alfa 4Cs, Porsche Caymans, and dare I say, maybe even the Audi R8?
Well, this week, we're exploring the track side of that fantasy, as we're taking a look at the Peugeot RCZ Gr. 3 race car: an RCZ that has its engine behind the cockpit, fed by a bevy of handsome RAM air intakes on both the sides and top of the car that makes the road car a little lacking to look at, to produce well over three times the power of the road car while weighing slightly less, at 516HP (385kW) and 1,200kg (2,646lbs), slightly more of each if the current BoP is applied, and also if you're a fat Asian kid who spent about an hour wrapping his RCZ in carbon only to be denied entry into the lobby. Come on, 5 kilos of wraps should be morally obligated to provide 5 more WHP, aren't they?
As a result of this pubescent transformation, the previously meek French coupé now shares a stage with industry juggernauts, such as Porsche 911s, Ferrari 458s, Lamborghini Huracáns, and of course, the aforementioned Audi R8s. Oh, and, uh... the 4C too I guess. It's... back there somewhere, I think, I guess, maybe? That must've bogged off the line and then launched itself into orbit when it ran over a dry leaf T1. So, the question this week is, should Peugeot have stuck to their mid–mounted guns with the RCZ? Or can the RCZ not control its newfound edginess in a field of adults (and grandpas)?
The road–going RCZ's driving dynamics never did offer much to write home about, and the maddened mid–engined Gr. 3 monster somehow manages to retain that nondescript handling characteristic that keeps the road car safe. In context of the Gr. 3 car however, I mean that in a good way, as the RCZ offers a no drama, no surprises drive. The turbocharged unit in the RCZ Gr. 3 has enough torque to lug the car out of a corner in a lower gear if the ratios don't match the corner or if fuel is an issue, making for great flexibility in how it can be driven. As for handling, it's a car that's difficult to upset despite being RMR, all without showing any hint of unwillingness into corners. It's just delightfully neutral, and therefore easy to drive. Being a Gr. 3 car built from the ground up for this game, it doesn't have horrifying alignment issues that plague other RMR cars of its category, such as the infamous 458 GT3 and Huracán GT3, and in comparison to the other fictitious MR Gr. 3 cars, the 4C Gr. 3 gets bopped as hard by kerbs as it does BoP, and the NSX Gr. 3 can be quite feisty according to Max Verstappen himself; and who am I to disagree?
I really wanted to run another one of Rob's picks, the 911 RSR, against the RCZ Gr. 3 during race day, not just to see how the RCZ stacks up against a fellow car that has its engine sensibly shifted into the correct position for racing, but also because I think the RSR is the only RMR car with the ease of use to match the RCZ in Gr. 3 currently. The game's network might have had other plans, but the RCZ is a very solid all–rounder all the same regardless.
551HP. 1,200kg. 3 doors, 7 speeds, and All Wheel Drive. Volkswagen's second entry into the realm of Vision Gran Turismo cars might have been the very first to attempt to have some semblance of relevance for the people, both for outsiders looking for casual eye candy, and for those actually playing the game; the Volkswagen GTI Supersport Vision Gran Turismo is essentially a Golf that got way too hot about the game, and therefore sports a serious boy racer body kit, while having specs that would seemingly make it an easy fit into both Gr. 3 and Gr. B competition with minimal modification, chief among which has to be the addition of a fuel inlet. I mean, come on, seriously?
Yet, somehow, unlike its stable mates, the Beetle, Scirocco, and even the GTI Roadster VGT, the Supersport is the only one that doesn't represent the brand in any sanctioned category of racing. Of course, as Vic has helpfully pointed out already, the SS was supposed to have a modified Gr. B variant, but was cut for unknown reasons. My last minute, low effort livery on race day is supposed to take after said Gr. B version of the SS. It literally is just three more Volkswagen scripts, a VW logo on the roof, two tow arrows, and some drill holes on the bonnet where the fog lights would install. Hey, at least give me points for initiative with the holes, okay?
See, Square, this is what happens when you procrastinate and rewrite things too much with your stupid perfectionism now someone else dropped that bombshell and now you look like a limp dick ripoff chump what is finishing after him most races not bad enough for you and now you gotta finish behind him in writing too?
As a VGT car, there are several annoyances I struggle to look past that are common among VGTs, such as its million credit asking price, how utterly useless it is in this game, and a par for course black hole of an interior. If you can afford to sustain the niche hobby of launching your credits into black holes however, there's actually quite a lot to like about the SS; it stops well, slices into corners well, and certainly goes like stink, especially off the line. Its AWD, light weight, and racing slick tyres are all indispensable ingredients in facilitating a strong launch, and yet the SS still manages to wheelspin off the line in first in spite of all that! In our lobbies, we always use grid starts, and that's when the SS felt like a cardiac arrest simulator, as there's always the threat of the persistent grid start bug. It really is a car that can bring you from 0–60–dead in just under two seconds if you aren't paying attention.
More than any of that however, the thing I love most about the SS is Lapiz Blue. I think it's the second most beautiful paintjob in the world, but I'm only saying that because I'm faithful to a fault. It has such a mesmerising, deep contrast, complemented by tiny sparkles under its confidently gleaming clear coat, I just want to melt into it and become one with it. About half the field during race day had Lapiz Blue SSes as their base car, though the only one I have, a prize from the daily wheel, is in Reflex Silver, which made up about the other half of the field. If Gran Turismo 7 lets us obtain paint chips just from buying the car it comes with like in GT5, I would pump millions upon millions of credits into a probably very puzzled Volkswagen dealership just for Lapiz Blue paint chips alone.
As things currently stand however, there's a less than zero chance that I'll spend my own hard–earned credits for the SS, and that's because I can't seem to wrap my head around how the thing drives.
The specs of the car and its default Racing Hard tyres allow it to reach GT3 levels of straight line speed, but it certainly doesn't have GT3 levels of cornering speeds due to it understandably having some power understeer on exits. As such, despite the car being able to go, stop, and slice into apexes like a GT3 car, it requires drivers to set it up for a corner in a fashion much more akin to an FF cup car instead of a RWD GT3; slow down amply for a corner, and then get the car rotated just that bit more before nailing the apex to set the car up for its predictable power understeer on exits, which will take some uncomfortable undoing of learned habits if you've been frequenting GT3 and Gr. 3 machinery that is this game's focus for four years. It's such a shame because this could be a completely negligible issue had the car just come with an adjustable centre differential like the Gr. B race cars. While the car cannot fit dirt tyres, the few excursions off the beaten path I've had with the car suggests to me that the torque split is set up for dirt driving, and I'm not entirely sure if the prior knowledge that a Gr. B version of this car is supposed to exist has predisposed me towards that conclusion.
Thankfully, the car does stop a little better than a typical Gr. 3 car, being lighter than most with BoP applied and with the extra drag of its hatchback body style helping bring it to a halt quickly. However, this is also where a big part of the confusion lies for me: the slightly lower cornering speeds and the slightly quicker deceleration in comparison to a Gr. 3 car creates a weird mental dichotomy for me as I have to adjust my braking points for each and every corner of tracks that I think I know well, such as Bathurst: I have to brake earlier for most corners to set the car up for its understeer on corner exits, but I can be a little braver and later on the brakes on hard braking zones, such as going from Conrod Straight into The Chase? It's a bit of a "findmuck" for me personally, if you catch my drift.
Add to all that the fact that the car just seemingly has no consistency in how it behaves from corner to corner, any sort of linearity in how it approaches its limits, nor makes any attempt to communicate to me at any time, and the SS is more than just a confusing drive; it's vague and downright dangerous—ask Rick if you don't believe me, whom I collected after wiping out at Bathurst's McPhillamy Park, and then promptly went off at the same corner again in a four lap race... at a track I'm most confident on.
It's hard to describe what exactly is so weird about the driving dynamics of the SS, given that I still feel no more knowledgeable about how it drives after all this time than when I first joined the week's lobby with a fresh odometer, but I'll try, anyway: the car's turning radius is just... too disproportionate with its speed. It stops and turns well when coasting and braking, but on fast sweepers where you don't have to completely lift off the throttle, such as the aforementioned McPhillamy Park, it felt as if the differential never lets go of the axles of the car, resulting in horrific, unexpected understeer at speeds I'd like to think no mere mortal can adequately react to. The car itself seemingly makes no attempt to communicate to me via tyre squeals, steering feel, or any other avenue of communication until it exceeds its limits, which makes trying to understand the car and feeling one's way up to its limits a complete crapshoot. As a result of this, I always felt like I was underutilising the car's full capabilities, and I have a whole afternoon's worth of dead last (or near enough thereabouts) results to prove that gut feeling true. When I try to turn it harder or give it gas sooner however, the entire car just gets paralysed with understeer. It seemed to me in the replays that my peers were chucking the car into a corner in a violent, sudden fashion, almost as though driving on dirt, while I'm trying to soothe and ease the car into corners with gradual, smooth trail braking. Maybe this front heavy, AWD hatch demands to be abused and manhandled that way, but I'm just not conditioned to think that treating a car that way is okay.
A lot of the car's performance I feel is thanks to the immense grip of the front tyres; I theorise that it really, really hates downgraded or worn rubber, hence why RX8 loathed the car so much when he drove it on Sport Soft tyres when we tested the Zagato. Thing is, with a front heavy hatch putting down more of the 411kW through the front tyres than it should, the car destroys front tyres faster than dieselgate destroyed the stock prices of VAG. I really don't fancy the thought of driving this in the wet, or with any meaningful tyre wear multiplier, nor do I think a RWD conversion to fit into Gr. 3 would be feasible for this car with its lopsided weight distribution.
I didn't much like the Beetle Gr. 3 in the short distance I've driven mine, but even that thing feels more predictable than the SS despite having a tiny, peaky turbocharged engine outputting 591HP, not to mention having way better tyre life as well. It's so weird how being AWD seems to be a curse more than anything in this game; you'd think giving a Nissan GT-R back its ATTESA AWD, the car that can be cited for the widespread ban of AWD on tarmac races, would cause total anarchy and annihilation, but noooope, the GT-R Gr. 4 is almost the worst car you could pick for its category (this is my mini review of the GT-R Gr. 4 I'm sorry Nismo). Similarly, one would think that having a powerful AWD car weighing only 2,646lbs with aero would make for an absolute weapon, but... the SS sucks so much that its Roadster and Beetle siblings made it to Gr. 3 when it couldn't.
Is it a bad car? If I force myself to be a bit more factual than usual, I really can't say. It could be fast, it could be fun. It certainly doesn't belong in the same conversation as other garbage cars we've tested here like the Vijizz and Veneno, but it's oddly kryptonitic for Singaporean weebs. I just personally can't get a read on the car, much less mesh with it. For my own million credits, I'd even take a BMW VGT, a car that I said I'm "ambivalent" towards, over the SS. Or, you know, I could just get a Gr. 3 AND a Gr. B cars and still have 100k change left over. The only thing I cherish from my time with the SS is Lapiz Blue, and my car isn't even blue. Boo.
