Many may posit that fictional concept cars in a video game are a marketing tool, but just like YouTube ads, being shoved these products when I specifically asked for something else is just going to make me despise the product you're pushing. We could've had a Prius GT300, a C8.R, or A110 GT4 just from cars that already exist in the game, but nooooooope, here's a vapourware car from a country Polyphony Digital pretends to acknowledge the existence of once every few years, and to transform it into a Gr.3 car, they've even had to turn it from an EV into an ICE.
And it's like whoever had naming rights to the car had never even seen a Gran Turismo game before, let alone sat down and played one; the Gr.3 and Gr.4 adaptations of the X and G70 respectively are called the "X GR3" and "G70 GR4", instead of "X Gr.3" and "G70 Gr.4". Did something got lost in translation, or did someone REALLY not care to such a baffling extent? Last I checked, "GR" in this sport most commonly stands for "Gazoo Racing", the motorsports division of Toyota. Did they have a hand in this? Isn't the original car supposed to be an EV? Why does it have intakes big enough for 3 internal combustion cars up front? It's almost like BMW and Lexus had spite sex slapping each other's ugly faces silly before procreating, and this was the abomination that spawned from that passionate night.
And what does PD do to publicise their newest official partner and show them off in the best light? By putting it in the Circuit Experience of the (then) newly added Watkins Glen track, where it had a setup that understeered it into the ire of many players. Oh, and Genesis as a manufacturer would be guaranteed a spot in the GTWS events, being an official partner, robbing yet one more grid spot from a better deserving manufacturer. Just as "pay drivers" in Formula 1 are the most revered and beloved, so too I'm sure will these "partner manufacturers" be in Gran Turismo.
You'd think that maybe having even a single Scape location in South Korea to shoot these Korean cars in would've been nicer than all that crap.
Originally an EV, the X GR3 has been given a nondescript, barely named 3,342cc turbocharged V6 engine for racing duty in Gr.3, outputting a suitable 547HP (408kW) @ 6,500rpm (525HP, 391kW with BoP at the time of writing). While the engine makes V6 noises and can actually refuel in a pit stop, the turbocharged powerplant delivers its shove in a way that feels to me like it's trying to emulate an electric motor, with its peak torque of 697N⋅m (514.1lbf⋅ft) being available at just 3,000rpm, from which it continues to deliver that tabletop shove all the way till shortly after the power curve overtakes the torque curve at 5,252rpm. This makes the GR3 a very punchy car, one that often feels like a drift car to push out of corners, as the engine always wants to twist the driver's narrative with its abundance of torque, and it does so mostly without even being vocal about it, like a silent killer lurking in the shadows of the low rev range. This forces the driver (well, maybe just me...) to either exercise paralysing paranoia out of corners, or simply use TCS1 to take off the brunt of the bite and replace it with some consistency. On the plus side, that sustained shove does mean the car is very receptive to short shifting to save fuel.
I just prefer the NA V6 of the Hyundai Genesis Gr.3 though, both to drive and to listen to.
I'll admit to never having done a single Sport Mode race in GT7, and hence my understanding of what's currently good or "meta" is limited to Super GT videos. From my understanding, the M6 has always been strong in a straight line, and so colour me surprised when I brought said M6 to a speed track like Tokyo East, and could barely gain on the GR3 in their slipstream! Around Daytona, the poor, forgotten Hyundai Genesis just got dropped like an abandoned kids toy by the Genesis X GR3. I think it's strong in a straight line, just not Supra, GT-R, or Viper levels of strong, but I could very well be wrong about this.
All told, the X GR3 is a passable, acceptable, nothing notable car that has its corresponding strengths and weaknesses; fast in a straight line, but sketchy in the corners... or at least, it would've been, if it didn't have an almost literal Achilles Heel: its rear differential.
Remember the drift car analogy I made earlier? I wrote that the torquey engine busts out the rear end of the GR3 very eagerly, but it's actually the differential of the GR3 that makes it more of a drift car than its engine, which is set up as though the GR3 were a GRD; even moderate power application with the steering wheel turned just initiates a slide, as though an athlete trying to run with both their shoes tied together. This of course makes it difficult to put down any power out of a corner, but the car also becomes incredibly upset by bumps, kerbs, and sharp elevation changes, making corners that involve those extremely difficult, if not risky, to exploit fully, such as the Inner Loop of Watkins Glen. Going over the rumble strips of the Inner Loop feels like a gamble, as there's about a 50/50 chance the car simply won't land nicely and snap off into a spin if there's any yaw angle at all when landing. The Corkscrew of Laguna Seca deserves special mention, as that's almost a statistical guarantee that the car will snap off the sharp downhill right hander, even with an early upshift into 3rd gear.
It's not just corner exits that the rear differential screws up; it's also the corner entries. As noted by many of us in the lobby this week, the GR3 understeers A LOT. But I had an epiphany when I drove this thing down the Chute of Watkins Glen, a long, slightly downhill left hander leading away from the shortcut course, where the front tyres gripped ferociously, with no juddering on the very heavy steering wheel to indicate the front tyres slipping. Yet, there's a very distinctive skipping sensation and an intermittent squeal from the inside rear tyre when you turn too much and overwhelm the rear end. In other words, the front tyres are actively having to fight the rear tyres at literally every turn to simply get the car round the corner, and without the aid of a downhill taking some weight off the rears and dumping that up the front, the tightly bound rear tyres simply can't be overwhelmed, resulting in vehement understeer and insane tyre wear, not to mention making the car wholly uncompetitive and hazardous. Despite the GR3 being on the slightly light side of Gr.3 at 1,280kg (1,318kg, 2906lbs with BoP at the time of writing), the Genesis feels incredibly heavy to maneuver around a track, especially when driven with a steering wheel because the front tyres have to constantly wrestle the rears. Even similarly sized luxobarges like the M6 GT3 and RC F GT3 feel significantly lighter both to steer and to maneuver around a bend.
To test my theory, I simply lowered the LSD values from the Gr.3 standard of 10-30-20 to 5-10-5, and almost ALL of the car's problems immediately vanished; the crippling understeer, the twitchy oversteer, that disastrous snapping down the Corkscrew, the nervousness when taking kerbs... you name it. The only problem that loosening the LSD didn't fix was the god awful look of the car, and the disgusting taste it leaves in my mouth with the realisation that 90% of the car's problems can be fixed by just a quick, simple tweak. After all, this is fictional car made specifically and exclusively for ONE GAME, and yet it has 2 glaring, yet easily fixable faults in said game, with its name and rear differential. It begs a few questions, doesn't it? Did no one test drive this? Who signed off on it? Have they ever driven a racecar before? Why is it being showcased in the Circuit Experience of Watkins Glen when that track highlights its flaws so dramatically? Why is this turd guaranteed a spot in GTWS events? What does it share with the X concept car, aside from looks? Is the X going into production? What are Genesis trying to promote? Am I supposed to experience this and think to myself, "Hmm yes, I do think I quite want myself a Genesis product over a Merc or BMW!"
The Genesis X GR3 is an annoying marketing stunt, looks like a turd, drives like a pig, and it just reeks of negligence from its creators. If even they don't care about it, why should I, or anyone else?
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