GT7 W21: Daihatsu Copen RJ VGT '17

So, we already know the Daihatsu Copen RJ Vision Gran Turismo costs a million credits, hasn't even 150HP to show for it, is Fail Wheel Drive, has next to no adjustability as a typical VGT, and to top it all off, I think it looks bloody ridiculous. As if it needed any more damning points, it's even more useless than the reproductive organs of an incel in the game's campaign, to paraphrase RX8 Racer's succinct and excellent post a little.

Style by tsubo_ms-14s: RALLY JAPAN 2022 カラー

#rallyjapan #copen #dsport

Hell, the 2002 Copen Active Top we tested back in Week 2 won't even cost a fifth of the 2017 Copen RJ VGT's asking price, even when taking into account the cost of bringing the former close to the RJ VGT's performance level. While the 2002 car can't quite reach the 2017's raw specs even with a blank cheque, the 2002 car is a much more useful investment than the 2017 VGT simply because the production car has the classifications of a Road and Kei car, both of which the 2017 model completely lacks, thereby disallowing the RJ VGT in events where it might actually stand a fighting chance—and this is in spite of the RJ VGT's newly added in–game description for GT7 vehemently insisting that it's very much built to Kei regulations. The RJ VGT also cannot fit dirt tyres for some bizarre reason despite rocking a whopping 140mm (5.51in) ride height, which is 35mm (1.38in) higher than that of the road car which can fit dirt tyres. The fact that Copens in real life have been fielded in dirt rally stages, as the livery on my car shows, just adds to the bewilderment. If, like me, you don't like to tune, a 1997 turbo MR2 with just an upgrade to Sports Hard tyres to match those shoeing the RJ VGT's would be a close match assuming a rolling start, and a factory fresh S15 turbo from Week 11 wouldn't as much walk the RJ VGT as it would wrap the Racing Jacket around the VGT's neck and drag the Kei car wannabe through the mud.

And this I think is all that would be relevant to most people, and they can take this very obvious "Beater" verdict and get on with their lives. But, there is just one thing I've read from maybe two people having wrote about this car back in GTS' COTW: that it drives well. Maybe the RJ VGT is a really expensive toy that only excels at its one job and nothing else, which is just fine—A set of anal beads wouldn't be a bad set just because it can't help you gain a competitive advantage in a chess match, right? It just has to give you the fizz to be good.

So, does it fizz?

I'll start by saying that, if you're not the kind of driver that enjoys driving FF cars, this is not the car to change your mind; it's no DC2 ITR or a supercharged Mini. It will still make you hate your life with wheelspin and power understeer out of corners whilst beating you up via the steering wheel with nonstop judders and clatters, with no recourse other than to accept your own failures for having trusted too much and be forced to swallow your pride and accept your loss by backing out. It didn't give me that sense of driving nirvana, that place of Zen, a fizzing feeling, or whatever superlative people come up with to describe that very place so very few cars can bring a driver to.

While others may generously describe the rest of the car as "good", I'll instead say that it's just fine... to the point where it feels completely lacking in any personality. The soulless 3–Cylinder engine has torque everywhere, which makes shifting almost irrelevant. Turn–in is sharp on its own, but the car will respond further with proportionate and immediate trimming of its turning radii with trail braking, which only gets better the further rearward the brake bias is shifted, and why wouldn't anyone with this current set of physics? The only thing to really watch out for when driving the RJ VGT is that the front end will get extremely high on gasoline, and OD–ing just a little on corner exit can send the RJ into a disproportionately long and arduous road to recovery—The front lifts on power as though a telescope, causing the car to struggle to put down its eager 202.5N⋅m (149.4lbf⋅ft) of torque, and using even the mildest traction control setting just kills the engine cold. All told, I'd say that the RJ VGT is better behaved than even bona fide Gr.4 racecars saddled with the FF layout, but at the same time, it's so well–behaved and unremarkable that it ends up not having much character to it, either. I was so, so tempted to just condense this whole paragraph down to, "it's a powerful FF, watch for power understeer".

The 7 speed gearbox on the RJ VGT may look incredible, almost overkill for a car with only 147HP (110kW), but there are 2 caveats to that gearbox: the first is that 3 of the 7 gears in it are COMPLETELY useless, and the second is that this box is seemingly based on the second generation Copen's 7–Speed "Super Active Shift" CVT, which makes about as much sense to me as an overachieving couch potato, so don't ask me how it works. All I know from the comfort of my sweaty sim rig is that downshifts are particularly annoying in this car, because the drivetrain won't blip the throttle to rev match at all, and for someone whose T300RS eats downshift inputs when I click them in too quickly, not having the car affirm my inputs to have registered is particularly annoying. 1st and 2nd gears in the RJ are so short that they essentially serve as a normal car's first gear—completely useless once on the move. 3rd gear in the RJ is then the equivalent of a normal car's 2nd, corner exits at 80km/h (50mph) is taken in 4th, etc., etc.. It seems to me as if Daihatsu has somehow invented a dog–leg paddle shifter, because the RJ VGT makes me offset one gear number in my mind when shifting. So, not only do I have to manually count my downshifts with the lack of throttle blipping, I have to do mental gymnastics in my head to be one gear higher than would be intuitive. Great.

A 5 speed manual isn't that much of an ask, is it? After all, that has the exact number of useful gears on a racetrack as the 7CVT we wound up getting.

The Daihatsu Copen RJ Vision Gran Turismo may cost a million credits, hasn't even 150HP to show for it, is Fail Wheel Drive, has next to no adjustability as a typical VGT, built for Gran Turismo games but is completely useless in said Gran Turismo games, doesn't give me the fizz, and to top it all off, I think it looks bloody ridiculous. But, none of that is the reason why I most dislike the RJ VGT—The reason why I most dislike the RJ VGT is that it's so clearly based off of a second generation Copen, with its exterior styling, gearbox and engine options, and even its dashboard being ripped straight from the production car. It makes me yearn for a GR Copen with a proper 5 speed stick shift, which would undoubtedly be cheaper by several magnitudes, not to mention eligible for so much more of the game's events. The usual excuse of, "it most likely is a licensing issue" hardly sounds plausible in this context, does it?

In essence, the RJ VGT is a very bad tease, like a woman getting super flirty with me at a bar just to get a very expensive drink out of me, with zero intention of anything beyond that, short or long term. It's confusing at best and impossible not to begrudge at worst... especially when she isn't even attractive enough inside or out to try to get a free drink from anyone in the first place.

GT7 W20: Volkswagen ID.R '19

The Volkswagen ID lineup is supposedly VW's way of turning over a new leaf by going extremely eco. They then chose to introduce that lineup to us with the ID.R, a car with the singular goal of tearing apart entire mountains and countrysides to carve out the fastest lap time humanly possible through the roads that snake through those scenic locales, with no rules other than those of nature and physics. Probably a good thing. We know how well VW and rules mix.

(God damnit, me, really? The first paragraph of the review?)

Style by akacerbera15: ID.R Test livery

#test #replica #carbonfibre

But it does seem to be the magic formula that generates undisputable results. The VW ID.R has broken so many records within its short lifespan, it's hard to imagine that it was the stricken firm's first attempt at an all electric bookkeeper: Fastest electric car at the Nordschleife. Fastest ever at the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, Goodwood Festival of Speed, and Tianmen Mountain Big Gate Road. VW has now retired the car... with plans to work on an Evo version.

One might be forgiven for thinking then, that the ID.R must be properly terrifying to drive at its limits, especially if they've followed motorsports from a certain era. Contrary to this however, the ID.R is perhaps one of the most well behaved cars I've ever sampled in GT7! The ID.R has "only" 670HP (500kW), which goes to all four wheels via an electric motor at each axle, making it an extremely neutral car up to, and even past its limits; the car never threatened any shenanigans with under or oversteer, and even when I accidentally upset the car by putting a wheel or two off–track, the resultant slide was so easily and quickly corrected with just a flick of counter steer, with the lifting of the throttle pedal being for my own comfort moreso than the car's. It's almost brain dead easy to drive at inhumane speeds, which no doubt has played a big role in helping its driver build the confidence to cinch so many records at treacherously narrow tracks with nothing but certain death awaiting past the tarmac. About the only nitpick I have with the car is that I personally struggle to trail brake with it, as it sounds to me like the rear engine completely cuts out its regen braking to stabilise the car when less than half the brake pedal is depressed, suddenly dumping all the workload to the front tyres when they ought to do the most turning, and yes, this is a prominent issue even with a full rearward +5 brake bias.

Reading about the ID.R's shocking feats in real life is one thing, but even with the knowledge of its breakthrough capabilities, nothing could have possibly primed and prepared me for the utterly ludicrous and visceral driving experience of the ID.R, even in a virtual setting. Standing starts are so lightning quick in this car, it genuinely feels like unpausing a rolling start rather than a standing start. This thing shoots off the start line so quickly that I genuinely think mixing in other cars, especially ICE cars, together with the ID.R in a standing start is akin to putting them before a railgun firing squad. As with any car, it stops faster than it goes, and under hard braking, the motors clamp down so hard like a pair of loan sharks reaping back what they've given, loudly winding down and tightening their noose on the axles, bringing the car to a crawl to its knees much quicker than even the fastest category of closed cockpit regulated racers of Gr.1. In fact, together with its no holds barred aero, the ID.R I estimate needs just half the stopping distance of even a Hybrid LMP1 on matching compounds. It pulls and stops so hard that it feels unhealthy, even through a TV screen!

And that's even before I realised this thing has a Drag Reduction System (DRS). Because, you know, why not.

In practice, I find that the DRS on the ID.R seems almost bugged; I ran my bone stock ID.R in a custom race at SSRX starting 2nd on a standing start with both the throttle and DRS fully depressed from loading screen to terminal velocity, and I could not make up any ground at all to the AI–driven ID.R that didn't use DRS. The drag reduction is almost negligible, but the downforce reduction is properly tangible, making me think that "DRS" on the ID.R stands more for "Downforce Reduction System" rather than Drag. Just like the 2019 Audi RS 5 Turbo DTM also chosen by Baron, DRS on the ID.R is only available to activate from 140km/h (87mph) and above with at least three quarters throttle application, which I find is such an arbitrary and crippling limitation, because in this game, reducing downforce at the rear simply makes the rear end of the car so much more willing to cooperate and rotate going into high speed turns such as 130R and Eau Rouge, without sacrificing too much stability. If, for whatever reason I have to lift mid–turn, like, say, in an emergency situation to avoid a wreck ahead, the rear wing immediately snaps back into its understeer generating position, and that's just bloody dangerous. It makes me not want to use DRS going into the turn, even though it would be much faster, simply because not using it is much safer. The ID.R is supposedly built with no rulebook in mind, and I think such an arbitrary limitation to its DRS is at a stark clash with the car's character that shouldn't exist.

While the ID.R boasts independence from atmospheric air to generate power with its all–electric drivetrain, the car is still painfully old fashioned when it comes to generating grip: via air reliant wings, splitters, and canards; enough of it to whip up enough dirty air to start another scandal. This of course makes the ID.R a terrible car to race, even in a one–make scenario. Adding onto this woe, said all–electric drivetrain has a rev–limited top speed of 280km/h (174mph), and the car transcends to that speed so quickly that it won't even need half of Conrod Straight to hit terminal velocity. What this translates to in a racing scenario is that the car struggles to even line up alongside a fellow ID.R driver in a one–make race for an overtake on the brakes into the next corner, let alone get an overspeed to pass with the aid of slipstream, and DRS cannot help at all once at terminal velocity, given that it's rev limited rather than drag limited. I daresay overtakes in an ID.R one–make is impossible if the drivers didn't have a significant skill gap between them. This thing was built as a Time Attack tool and never meant to race, and it shows when we do our usual thing of trying to squeeze some meaning out of these overlooked cars by racing them bone stock against copies of itself.

And that, ultimately, is the one fatal blow against the ID.R, severe enough to nullify any praise or fancy descriptions I can adorn it with: it has absolutely zero use case scenario in this game, aside from being a quick shock and awe experience like a roller coaster. I don't know about you, but if I ride a roller coaster enough times in succession, I'll get used to it and become bored of it, no matter how bloody fast it goes.

The ID.R has deeply impressed me, so much so that someone who isn't a fan of VW like me would wholeheartedly rock it in Gr.1 or 800PP events if events at that level didn't always involve stupidly high fuel use multipliers. I want so badly to just run out and tell the world that they're missing out on life, and that they owe it to themselves to try driving the ID.R if they haven't already. Hell, I wish I could do my daily Sard A grind with this car, but even on 1x fuel use, this thing struggles to last 20 minutes on full tilt. I can't even make a salvaging claim that this thing is at least good for one–make races like I could most of the road cars I really enjoyed testing in COTW. If the car was affordable, eh, sure, why not. We've all paid for plane tickets to a foreign country to get gouged by tourist traps in our lives. But would you be willing to pay 2 million Credits for what is essentially a roller coaster ride alone? I, of course, can't answer that for you. I'm just in pain that something this awesome is so hard to justify having.

The only lasting takeaway I got from the ID.R then, is that it perhaps helps me understand how PSVR2 users must feel.

ACS150323: FUDGE035

It started with an annoying flu on Thursday, which seemed to have gone away completely come Friday. But then on Saturday night/ Sunday morning, I felt something go incredibly wrong with my body: my throat started hurting incredibly. Runny nose, phlegm, and almost certainly a fever.

Sunday, if I wasn't drifting in and out of consciousness in bed, I was throwing up, either phlegm or said phlegm getting in just that right spot in my throat to trigger a gag response to throw up whatever I last ate. My throat burned. I couldn't breathe. I could hardly think. It felt like COVID all over again, except I tested negative. Because it was a Sunday as well, most clinics aren't open, and those that are only opened for half a day. I guess no one falls sick on a Sunday, and me being the weirdo I am, didn't get the memo as usual.

So Monday rolls around, and I gave my usual clinic a call, and they aren't open because the doctor is on leave that day. That left me with the more convenient choice of the clinic at a mall much nearer to my home. Now, it's not my first time falling ill, obviously, and so I knew that clinic waiting times, especially on a Monday morning when no one wants to show up for work, will be somewhere in the ballpark of 2 hours, and I'm not about to waste that kind of time sitting among the diseased while staring at diagrams of the human anatomy, so I gave another clinic, which I shall just refer to as "MFC" for now, roughly standing for "mother fucking clowns", a call, asking them for their next earliest slot. Annoyingly, the person at the other end instead told me to install some kind of app, with which I'm supposedly able to take a queue number.

I guess I'm getting old, because I remember a time when technology was supposed to make lives more convenient. Upon downloading the app, I was forced to create an account, which required a password of at least twelve characters, one number, and one special character, whatever that means. And I'm sitting here like, "bitch, who's trying to hack into my account, that has no bank account details and barely any personal information?" I swear, the next time I'm unfortunate enough to have to use that app again, I'm not going to remember my password, and it's just arrgh. Oh, and there are several pages of T&Cs to read through before I can create my account. B I T C H, I ' M D Y I N G O V E R H E R E, hello?! Does being forced to agree with the T&Cs of an app while I'm violently ill constitute as being forced to sign a contract while under duress? Because if not, I'm just imagining a bright and smart future wherein I get stabbed in the chest by a good old fashioned knife, and before I'm allowed up on the ambulance, I'll have to read up every law textbook at the bargain price of 80 million dollars while simultaneously having to learn Arabic just to have an "extra special" character in my password so someone can't steal the data of and subsequently impersonate the long dead.

And that's not even the worst part!

The worst part is that, upon creating an account, I'm forced to key in the "clinic code" of the clinic I'm intending to visit. Whatever the fuck be that? I even tried quotation marks Google searches, and turned up empty, and it's not like the app lets me type in the name of the bloody clinic like a good old fashioned old fart, nor does it allow me to pick a clinic close to me like a smart whippersnapper despite needing my location services for god knows what reason. It was looking to me like the only way I can add a clinic onto my list was to have a QR code of the clinic to scan... which is very conveniently located in the bloody clinic.

So what exactly the hell is the point of the app then?! What was the bloody point of me having to haphazardly agree to all the T&Cs and privacy policies I don't possibly have the knowledge nor life span to read, IF I'M GOING TO HAVE TO WALK INTO THE CLINIC ANYWAY.

Still better than what Americans have to deal with currently, I suppose.

So, I walk in, and after 2 hours of staring at walls and diseased people, I had my one minute consultation that costs 20 dollars, and walked out. The medicine was a huge relief, though I do wish I felt taken more seriously. I don't blame them; it's a first time customer walking in on a Monday morning with clear lungs and subsiding symptoms, surely he must me trying to skip work. One minute. Really? And no PRT tests? And only 2 days MC when I was throwing up and drifting in and out of consciousness just the day before?

Today, Wednesday, is the day that I'm supposedly fit to return to work, but I still don't feel fit to face customers, and my head's still rather foggy, and hence I'd really rather not drive. Helps that I had a nightmare this morning about having a horrendous accident, too.

I was driving along a nefariously narrow and torturously twisty stretch of road, with an abyss of a canal to the left with no guardrails. The road was barely wide enough to drive on, but apparently it was a two way street? A double decker bus turned to face me from a junction ahead, and I tried to make room for it by hugging left as much as possible. It wasn't a quick, reflex action, but rather, a slow, deliberate action, but I didn't judge it correctly, and my left wheels dipped into the canal. Somehow that sent my entire car falling into the abyss, which was wide enough to swallow my car whole, but narrow enough to pinch it still after falling a certain way down.

I was sitting sideways in my car. The steering wheel is bent for some reason. My arms were somewhat trapped. I tried to shut off the engine but I couldn't even reach the button. Eventually, the engine became starved of oil from being sideways and the car shut itself off anyway. I tried to use my phone to call for help, and for some doggone reason, help was just unintuitive to find. I seriously considered just expiring in that ditch instead of going through all that trouble of finding the correct help I needed.

When I woke up in a sweat, I remember staring at the ceiling with eyes wide open thinking, "holy hell, that was a dream?!" Relief obviously washed over me, sure, but I don't ever recall a time where a dream felt so real that I woke up in disbelief that it had been a dream. They've always been fantasies, subconscious ventings, things of the sort. They've never been set in the real world.

GT7 W18: Toyota FT-1 VGT Gr.3

The Toyota FT-1 VGT Gr.3 may explicitly have "Gr.3" in its name, but it feels to me like what you'd get if you took a GT500 car and hacked off a good chunk of its power and downforce. Predictably, it drives like a confused, bloody disaster as a result.

Panty & Stocking FT-1 Gr.3 by XSquareStickIt livery links (GTS | GT7)

#pantyandstocking #psg# #itasha

But to understand why I assert that the FT-1 VGT is a GT500 car, we need to first take a quick skim through the FT-1's brief history, and make a few quick assumptions as to what Toyota were aiming to do with it.

Unveiled at the 2014 North American International Auto Show, the original FT-1 concept car served as the spark that facilitated the arson of excitement on the camp of people that had been sorely missing and eagerly awaiting the revival of the "Supra" namesake by Toyota. Despite flaunting a clear engine cover cutout on the car's risqué bonnet, what Toyota was envisioning bolting under that see–through space was a total mystery—both in real life where engine covers have oddly become the norm, and in Gran Turismo games where any hard numbers were simply not given to the players. Fortunately, the games did at least have to give the FT-1 a voice, and the voice that was bestowed upon the silhouette of the hopeful Future Toyota was that of a Inline 6, setting up the FT-1 to fall in line together with some of Toyota's most revered creations in the past like the 2000GT and the A80 Supra.

From this, the FT-1 was adopted into the contentious Vision Gran Turismo program, spawning a race–ready version of the FT-1 by first adding the "VGT" suffix to the name, then widening its body, slamming its ride height, bolting on full racing slicks and a towering rear wing, heavily gouging its body panels, and putting it all through an unhealthy diet, all to bring the specs of the car to what the Gran Turismo community derived to be 614HP and 1,000kg in mass (458kW, 2,200lbs). The Otaku among the car enthusiasts may already feel a tinge of nagging familiarity seeing those numbers, but the most telling number of them may just be the number "4"—the racing version of the FT-1, the FT-1 VGT, makes Inline 4 noises instead of those of an Inline 6, and it came with a KERS. 2014 was also the first year that GT500 technical regulations unified with DTM's, which stipulated that all cars are to be FR with 2 litre single turbo Inline 4 engines with KERS... weighing a tonne and outputting a little over 600HP.

If the original FT-1 was meant to preview the production Supra, then I think it's pretty clear that the FT-1 VGT was meant to preview Toyota's plans to represent themselves with a Supra in Super GT's GT500 category.

But, a production ready Supra wouldn't become reality until 2019, some two years after the launch of Gran Turismo Sport—a video game that laser focuses on sanctioned racing with "Gr.3" and "Gr.4" cars, loosely based on real life GT3 and GT4 categories respectively. A Gr.3 86 more than makes sense in my opinion, seeing as some privateer teams have already fielded 86s and BRZs in GT300, but I suppose it's much easier to simply take an existing model and lop some speed off than to make an entirely new car from the ground up, which is probably why the FT-1 VGT was kneecapped to squeeze into Gr.3 as Toyota's representation in the e–sports centric title—at least, until the "proper" Supra arrived. Power was slashed to 544HP (406kW), and the car would have to put back on some the mass that was so thoroughly shed to become a racecar—280 kilos of it, in fact, to fit into Gr.3 at a middling 1,280kg (2,822lbs). Other unseen changes include unplugging the KERS, while shortening and bringing closer together the largely useless ratios of the FT-1 VGT to make up for it.

It's almost like Polyphony Digital simply could not change a single node of how the car looked, out of respect or some licensing agreement—I can't say. Unfortunately, that also meant that they couldn't change the ride height of the FT-1 VGT, which snowballs into a few glaring issues with the car here in GT7.

For some context, most FR cars built from the ground up for Gr.3 come with a ride height of 60mm front and 70mm rear in GT7 (2.36in, 2.76in). The FT-1 VGT Gr.3 however, smothers its own shadow at a mere 50mm front and 60mm rear (1.97in, 2.36in). "But that's a good thing, right? Low cars go faster in corners, don't they?", you might be asking. As with most things, a low ride height is only good in moderation, and the FT-1 Gr.3 comes in way too low, even for a racing car.

With the car being set low enough to spark on some of the less obsessively smoothed over racetracks outside of Japan, the FT-1 Gr.3 is extremely sensitive to road imperfections, elevation changes, and just a nervous wreck to drive in any situation. Seemingly flat and innocuous rumble strips, such as the one on the inside of Suzuka's Turn 2, for instance, will quite literally and figuratively tilt the car, liable to result in a perpendicular meeting with the inside barrier if not caught immediately. That rumble strip, for all intents and purposes other than supporting an FT-1 VGT, is completely flat, even in bona fide GT500 machines and Super Formulae. With a car set so low, the suspension also has to be set that much more stiffer than most Gr.3 cars to prevent the car from completely bottoming out or shaving off its own body panels with its tyres, and what translates to in handlingese is that the car can't seem to put weight on any tyre at all; it takes a touch longer to slow for a corner than most Gr.3 cars, with or without BoP, nor does it much want to bite an apex with trail braking, even with a fully rearward brake bias setting. When getting on the power, I can't "load up" the rear tyres at all, no matter how gradually I ease into the throttle pedal; past three quarters throttle, the rear end just instantly snaps off if there's any steering lock applied. The car simply feels set up to have much more grip than any Gr.3 car can be allowed to have, mechanical and aerodynamic.

Now in the much more liberal Gr.3 category, the FT-1 VGT Gr.3 could have had either the Inline 6 of the original FT-1, or the Inline 4 of the FT-1 VGT. Thankfully, the Gr.3 car went with the latter, because I think it's one of the most flexible and pleasant engines I've ever sampled in both GT Sport and here in GT7! Power output may have been slashed, but the hyphen engine still revs to a Rotary–shaming, Hayabusa–harassing 10,500rpm! It might be a reasonable assumption to make that an engine that revs to such common sense defying speeds would be a small displacement engine, utterly gutless in the low and mid range. That may well be the case, but we will never know for certain because that's where the turbocharger comes in to save the day—it delivers its peak boost of almost 1 bar at around 5,2, past which the boost pressure completely deflates to let the engine's natural peakiness take over. What this combo results in is an engine that I never would have guessed is turbocharged if not for the spec sheets and in–game HUD; it's peppy, responsive, makes no turbo noises, still asks of its driver to rev it out to about 9,6, but has a healthy punch from around 7,5 to overwhelm the maladjusted suspension setup. For some context, most upshifts at 9,6 drop the engine to about 8,2, giving drivers a lot of leeway in where and when to shift. Sometimes I find myself flicking through the paddles just for the hell of it. 9,6, by the way, is also when the car will upshift if driven in AT mode, making this car an extremely inclusive and welcoming pick for players who can't, or don't want to shift for themselves. Drivers can even save an upshift when fast approaching a corner with a healthy 900rpm headroom between the optimum shift point of 9,6 to the engine's fuel cut at 10,5 if this engine ever becomes available to swap into a manual gearbox car, and it's a thought that I'm properly salivating over. I genuinely think this would be the perfect racing engine if it wasn't thirstier than the livery I put on the car!

To illustrate, I decided to compare the FT-1 VGT Gr.3 to the GT3 version of the car Toyota were looking to replace with the FT-Supra in GT500: the Lexus RC F GT3 '17. Straight from the Brand Central, the Lexus weighs more, has less power, is less balanced with 54% of its weight up front as opposed to the FT-1's 51%, and it doesn't have a purpose sculpted low and svelte sports car body to effortlessly slice through the air, instead having to wear the silhouette of a luxobarge. A car like that, no one would think has a chance in hell against the FT-1, but—get this—the hulking 5 Litre NA V8 of the RC F returned me much better fuel economy, all in spite of heaving around more mass, which let me clear the lucrative Sardegna WTC800 event faster. That, plus the Lexus was just a much more predictable drive. How can the FT-1 have all those numbers and still be this slow?!

https://youtu.be/uMv921H7BiY

Under BoP conditions in our lobby, the two cars are much more closely matched. The FT-1 seemingly still has some pace to match the midfielders, but it got utterly destroyed when matched up against a currently strong pick for Gr.3 in the Mazda RX-Vision GT3 Concept '20, with its only saving grace being Vic behind the wheel of the Toyota.

The RX-Vision GT3 is similarly a high revving, racing version of a long hood, short deck FR concept sports car from around 2014. While the shrieking RX-Vision similarly doesn't have the hot lap pace to compete against the current meta that is the Gr.3 Supra, it still has a strong presence in Gr.3 races nowadays, owing to its scrumptious looks and equally bewitching handling—traits the FT-1 Gr.3 used to boast back in GTS before the Supra replaced it. But, handling impeccably is just the RX-V's side hustle; it's main draw is that it's incredibly light on tyre wear and fuel use, making it a very quick car in races where pitting is involved. With its biggest strength being nullified in a short 4 lap sprint though, how does my RX-V fare against Vic's FT-1 around Big Willow?

https://youtu.be/IcluKRYEiXs

...insultingly well, actually. Races against Vic usually come with a rapidly impending sense of doom; "oh boy, Vic's in 2nd now, I hope I can hold onto this 3 second gap with 2 laps to g— HOW DID HE JUST TAKE HALF A SECOND OFF ME IN ONE CORNER OHMYGOD". In that race, though? Even with cautious driving within known limits as a result of fading FFB, I was gapping Vic's FT-1 consistently come the straights. Understand, the RX-V is not a straight line missile; it has longer ratios than the FT-1, and under v1.35 BoP when we ran this race, it also has a worse power to mass ratio! Yet, it gapped the FT-1 in the straights, simply because it can actually put down power out of corners. For the first time in perhaps ever, I felt a sense of reassurance and calm when being chased by Vic, simply because I knew I had a much, much better car.

The FT-1 VGT Gr.3 has gone to great lengths to fix the flaws of the original FT-1 VGT: it doesn't hide its specs or power curves, fixes its useless gearing, while offering upgrade potential via turbo kits and adjustability to its suspension setup, both of which completely unavailable in the original, all while coming in at less than half the price. And, sweet baby Buddha, have I mentioned how astounding this thing looks yet?! Its outlandish, free, and expressive design makes a A90 Supra look like a pale, castrated imitation of what ought to have been. Just like how a pretty girl can make even pajamas look pretty, the FT-1 makes just about any livery on it standout masterpieces. There wasn't a single "eh, that's pretty good" livery from my peers during race day; they were all bangers I'd love to rock, from Baron's badass skull design, Vic's adapted Woodone livery that looks like it had been designed for the FT-1 and borrowed to the A80 Supra instead of the other way around, to Candy Lam's patriotic Hong Kongese car. Had the production A90 Supra looked like this, revved like this, and drove well, I might finally feel again that indescribable magic feeling that the bubble era of Japanese sports cars made me feel.

While politics will understandably work against the FT-1 now that a fully fledged Supra race car is available in Gr.3, the only way an FT-1 can win hearts and eke out a niche for itself is via subjective fronts. Me personally, I really, really wanted to like this car, especially after I spent about four days obsessively making a livery for the car. I don't even care of it's slow; I just wish it drove better. I would happily take this car and punch up against the meta if it had the prowess and consistency to do so. Ask my peers how many times I brought my Cayman GT4CS to race in Car of the Week over the 3 or so years I've been doing this, knowing full well its shite and uncompetitive. If I can trust the car and know it well, I can push it much closer to its limits, making me faster than if I were in an unfamiliar meta car. What makes or breaks the appeal of of a handling car for me is that it should earn the driver's trust, and perhaps entice them to play just a little bit, even in the context of a racecar. None of the FT-1s made me feel that. And unlike the Genesis X GR3 of Week 13, there unfortunately is no quick, easy fix to the FT-1 Gr.3's problems, and so I find it very, very hard to like the car, and it breaks my goddamn heart that I can't fall for it.