GT7 W56: Renault 5 Turbo '80

It's often been said that there's only a thin line between genius and insanity, and unfortunately for the radical Renault 5 Turbo, Audi's genius quattro system made sure Renault's pioneering efforts would forever be relegated to automotive asylums. Here in Gran Turismo 7, we pretend racers only get access to the road–going production R5 Turbo that homologates said insane rally car. Can the pedestrian R5 Turbo fare any better on digital tarmac from the safety of living room couches and sim rigs?

1983 James Bond Livery by Gruzzlebeard1

#r5 #turbo #bond

If you ask my peers, yes, actually! Too bad I have NO IDEA what they see or feel in this heap of a car. I find its handling to be floaty, vague, and indirect. And yet in spite of this, it's violently allergic to small patches of grass and even minor rumble strips, unhesitating to break its rear end out with little provocation from those slight off–road excursions, not helped at all by the fact that the car is wider at the rear than the front, making it unintuitive to precisely place and punishing to push. Its brakes are barely strong enough to be considered adequate for slowing a 159HP, 970kg (119kW, 2,138lbs) car, and they have absolutely no bite to them whatsoever. Couple this with spitefully thin front tyres and a steering wheel that talks as much as a gagged mute, and it can often feel like there's just no response from the front end whatsoever. More than a few times during this week, I've caught myself wondering if I've somehow managed to puncture my front tyres in a Gran Turismo game, because that's what it often feels like deep into a corner.

I don't even think tuning can fix much of this car's problems. Sure, its incredible lightness means it can tango with Gr.4 cars and even rival their fuel efficiency when maxed out, but giving this thing more speed just highlights even more how tall the cg is, making the mirror smooth asphalt of Tokyo wear away at the overly stressed rear tyres of the R5 as though sharp gravel. I don't even want to think about how the rally car handles in tight, walled–in stages.

It genuinely baffles me to hear the boundless praise heaped onto the R5 Turbo from my friends over the course of the week's lobbies, because I can't see much to like about it at all. Look, I get it: the R5 is a historically significant car that deserves to be immortalised in Gran Turismo. It's born from a sorely missed and much beloved time in rallying, and it's rare to see a French manufacturer go balls to the wall insane like this. It's the very first of the very exclusive club of RMR hatchbacks, and every car it inspired to adopt that layout become historic beacons themselves. Hell, they even inspired Audi of all people to follow that formula decades later. Take it from a guy who ardently refuses to have a TikTok account and think touchscreens in cars are stupid, though: a modern day hatch, even an unassuming one, is much better than the R5 Turbo in every aspect. A 2007 Suzuki Swift Sport has much more stable and direct handling, costs a ninth of what the R5 goes for, and is readily available for purchase in any stock colour in the Brand Central. Around Streets of Willow, the Suzuki would even edge out the Renault despite the Swift weighing more, having less power, being FF, and undercutting the R5 by some 10PP when both are bone stock on their default tyres (CS for the Swift, CM for the R5).

That is to say that, you'd have to really appreciate the R5's historical significance to want one. Or just be insane like the car.

GT7 W51: Honda Civic Type R Limited Edition (FK8) '20

The 2020 Honda Civic Type R Limited Edition. What the hell are we even doing anymore?

Indulge me for a bit as I show my age a little by waving my DualShock 1 at the clouds yelling about how good things used to be: I remember the first Honda Type R—the 1992 NSX-R. The original NSX blended together supercar performance with plush ergonomics, and the NSX-R was simply a track focused version of that with stiffer springs, less creature comforts, and lighter mass. From the outside, the 1992 NSX-R would've been completely indistinguishable from a base NSX if not for its Enkei wheels, sporty interior, and red Honda badges. The engine didn't even get a power increase! It felt to me like taking away all the chores, responsibilities, bills, and the day job of a person, and telling them to just concentrate on doing their best at their hobby. It didn't seek to completely change the person; it just took away everything holding them back and let them focus on the one thing they loved to do to fully realise their potential in that field. Just these small and unapparent changes however, resulted in changes so prominent that, from the cockpit, it was almost difficult to feel the resemblance between a base NSX and an NSX-R, proving to the world just how much potential was slumbering in a base NSX. In short, a Type R doesn't transform the base car; a Type R simply awakens it. Aside from the slightly bonkers but completely brilliant 2nd NSX-R in 2002, Type R models followed that ethos pretty closely until the gloves got yanked clean off (weight savings, bro) with the FK2 Civic Type R in 2015.

Suddenly, the sacred purity of a high–revving, naturally aspirated engine would be blown away by turbochargers. Suddenly, being a Type R meant needing to proclaim to everyone in the neighbourhood that they have a more expensive car via gaudy boy racer parts. Following up on the FK2, the FK8 CTR that debuted in 2017 was so radically different from a base Civic, boasting widened fenders, completely different suspension hardware, and a turbocharger that almost doubled the power output from a base Civic, all of which allowed it to reclaim the Nürburgring lap record, albeit with non–standard tyres, a floating cage, and deleted audio systems and rear seats. It just feels to me like modern Type Rs have completely lost the plot and spirit of the original Type Rs.

Idealistic ramblings and subjective interpretations of intent aside, 20 years of technological advancements and accrued know–how are impossible to ignore when the FK8 is brought out onto a racetrack; despite the FK8 being much heavier, much larger, and much more powerful than the original EK9 Civic Type R, the older car is some two to three times more difficult to hustle; the suspension setup of the EK9 is soft and tends to tangle the car up if driven without a great deal of care and precision, and the engine is almost uselessly peaky. The FK8 in comparison, is so composed it boarders on being completely deadpan. The turbocharged engine has such a tabletop torque "curve" that most tight corner exits in Tsukuba are best taken in third gear, and understeer is so minimal on power that it genuinely creeps into AWD territory. I know I'm an old–fashioned prude when it comes to cars, but I'm also old enough to remember an old adage of, "you can't put more than 250HP into an FWD car". The FK8 wipes its fake grilles and triple exhaust tips with that adage, packing a whopping 315HP (235kW) straight from the factory, which goes through a 6–speed stick shift gearbox and a limited slip differential to the specially lightened 20–inch forged aluminium BBS wheels of the Limited Edition, coated with the black magic that is Michelin Pilot Sport 2 tyres, 245mm wide all four corners. All told, the serious hardware of the FK8 mean that the car routes its tidal wave of power so efficiently that tyre squeals only serve as affirmation that all the grip available is being used, instead of being a surrendering cry that is typical with powerful FFs. At this point, I'm almost convinced that the only reason the FK8 hasn't adopted All–Wheel–Drive in its radical Type R transformation is only so that its engineers can flex how well they can tame an FF car.

That said, sometimes the car feels a bit too smart for me. With enough brake pedal input over laden and turned front tyres, the rear end will come around a bit to rotate the car into an apex to counter the understeer inherent to an FF car. That's great for tighter turns, but it just makes the car needlessly squirmy under trail braking for mid to high speed turns with deep apexes, such as the U–turn on the end of Trail Mountain's back straight. That is to say, the seemingly intentional tail happiness doesn't always marry up to the corner at hand, and it feels a bit artificial and very unintuitive to me, as I never feel like I know just how much the car wants to turn. Maybe I'm just not good at it.

Overall, I can recognise what a feat of engineering the FK8 CTR is, and it is menacingly fast; it outgunned stuff like a FR Hyundai Genesis and an AWD WRX STi handily during race days, and will even harass a stripped out GR Corolla. It's an easy prize car for attaining all bronze in the "Beyond the Horizon" mission set, and additional copies of the car are readily available to buy at around a fifth of what an NA1 NSX-R would cost in GT7's terrible economy while offering comparable performance. If money is no object, though, I find the FK8 hard to recommend not only because I don't enjoy driving it, but also because the FL5 CTR that succeeds it is somehow, an even better car on–track. Plus, I don't care how old you are; you can't tell me that you'd prefer a Civic to an NSX on a track.

GT7 W50: Ford F-150 SVT Raptor '11 & Toyota Tundra TRD Pro '19

As I've previously ranted on not too long ago, American cars bewilder the ever loving freedom out of me, but much, MUCH more befuddling to me than the muscle car is the utterly baffling obsession Americans have with their dangerously—and wastefully—large pickup trucks, two of which we're featuring this week on Car of the Week.

Hoo boy.

You see, where I'm from (Singapore), we use light lorries and vans—such as the Toyota Dyna and Nissan NV350—to carry goods for small and medium companies and to make deliveries. Despite their much smaller silhouettes and mass to your typical modern day American monstrosities, these lorries and trucks seem to me to be no less practical in terms of cargo space. In fact, because a lorry has its bed so low, one could put and retrieve smaller items from the bed without even setting down the tail or side gates, and forklifts could load and unload them from either side or the rear. A van on the other hand, doesn't have to worry about its payload when it starts to rain. None of these advantages apply to a pickup truck as far as I can tell, which by comparison, makes those big pickup trucks look like silly caricatures at best, and the one video I watched that constitutes my entire research into the history of pickup trucks make them sound way, WAY worse than a bad joke.

Even worse than the lighting and composition of this photo.

Of course, these industrial vehicles are hardly built for luxury or fun, and can be properly terrifying to drive even at sensible speeds, especially in the wet. And maybe that's where pickup trucks come in to fill in that large void—or at least, the two atheletic examples of pickups we get in this game seem built with the specific aim of driving just like a normal car. Both the Ford F-150 SVT Raptor '11 and the Toyota Tundra TRD Pro '19 have weight distributions closely aligned with a sensible sedan, at 57:43 and 56:44 respectively, and both have specialised, competition springs just to drive that point home. Both have big, F–off naturally aspirated V8s that's been taken from more sensible cars and hooked to lightning quick 6–speed automatic gearboxes, driving thick, chonky tyres designed to handle multiple terrains/seasons, both Comfort Mediums by default in GT7. And, you know, they have ABS. I like that. I like that a lot. Don't ask.

On a closed racetrack, I'm tempted to say that both these trucks achieve that goal of driving just like a sedan, but that would be slightly disingenuous because in practice, they flat out drive better than some "sensible" cars of I've sampled in this game, like a GC Impreza! In fact, these trucks drive so well initially that, if it weren't for the ridiculously tall seating/camera placement and unintuitively wide bodies, it'd take me a while to figure out that I'm in something that's way too big and heavy to even have any right to fantasise about doing the speeds I'm doing, both in the straights and corners. In terms of sheer pace, they will both decimate any sensible family transport without a Tesla badge on them (if Teslas make sense to you, that is). It's truly mind–boggling what the engineers of both these trucks have managed to achieve with their respective trucks.

But that's all the praise I can give them: they drive like normal cars. There's nothing remotely sporty, exciting, or attractive about them, and to prove that, I brought a gun to a knife fight. A water pistol of a sports car to a chainsaw deathmatch involving the trucks, but a gun nonetheless.

This here is a base model 2015 Toyota 86. It's got a pansy naturally aspirated 2L 4 cylinder engine incapable of even 200HP, and it's equipped with a millennial anti–theft device known as a 6–speed manual gearbox that makes it a little slow and awkward to drive fast, even when not being stolen. Aside from a JDM spec Mazda Roadster, this is the slowest sports car money can buy brand new in the last ten years, and it has so little presence that most English speaking folk don't even say its name right! (It's read as "eight–six", by the way.) And yet, this unassuming 86 absolutely devoured both trucks alive and spit their fat–clogged hearts out on any stretch of road that has curvature any sharper than that of the earth's surface, and just in case you're thinking that I ran these three vehicles on a winding mountain pass to favour the 86, na–uh. I ran them on Watkin's Glen Short Course, which has 2 long, flat out sections not including the home straight, and it's there where I found out that, somewhere around 160km/h (99mph), the trucks get strangled so badly by atmospheric air that the 86 reels them in like dead fish in the desert, earning overzealous truck drivers an excruciatingly rare distinction almost unheard of in the car industry: Being utterly DESTROYED by an 86 in the straights!

And wait till you get to a corner with these trucks!

While both trucks drive incredibly neutral and much like a sensible car, that illusion crumples away completely when I ask either of them for their front tyres to do their most under trail braking for a corner. Turning these trucks hard with more than a third of the brake pedal applied—or simply turning the steering wheel too quickly for that matter—will just cause the sidewall of these ultra high profile tyres to flex, surrendering almost all grip instantly and resulting in the trucks suddenly going limp and becoming completely vague, liable to send the trucks into a complete spin in extreme cases. Before you ask—the trucks barely have enough torque to hold a slide on loose surfaces like dirt and snow, but both their gearing are way too widespread to make sliding viable even when grip is at a premium, much less on paved roads.

This tyre flexing issue and easily losing grip not only forces me to keep braking and turning almost entirely separate, but I also actively drive these trucks up to about nine tenths their grip limits at most, simply because anything more is a crapshoot at best and asking for trouble at worst. This problem can be remedied somewhat by simply fitting the largest diameter wheels you can find in GT Auto to minimise tyre sidewall and flex—I've seen up to 24–inch hula hoops on offer for these things, which succeeds not only in largely fixing the tyre flex problem, but also in somehow managing to make these trucks look even more stupid. Imagine making a truck completely useless for anything a truck might actually be used for, all just to still get spanked silly by an 86 around any given track in the game.

If you absolutely, positively MUST drive a truck in the game, either for morbid curiosity or simply to check off the truck events in the campaign, just go with the Ford F-150; it's better in every aspect compared to the Toyota Tundra when both are bone stock. It accelerates much better in a straight line with more power and a very even torque curve, and despite the F-150 being heavier and less balanced in comparison to the Tundra, none of it shows in the corners at all. The Ford is cheaper, too! The Tundra, despite being the newer truck, is a bloody disaster to drive, having a uselessly peaky engine that's extremely picky with revs. Worse still, it comes with a wide open diff that makes it freak the hell out if even half a wheel is dipped past paved tarmac, while making it an unwieldy and moody mess that is nigh uncontrollable in torrential downpour and loose surfaces. I don't know what Toyota were going for when they set up the TRD Pro, but to be outclassed in every on–track measure by a Raptor much older than it is frankly a hell of an embarrassing look.

In terms of aftermarket options, the Tundra might have a sliver of a chance at outshining the F-150, thanks to the engine swap options both these cars get. The F-150 gets the utterly bonkers 7L twin–turbocharged V8 Windsor 351 engine from the hot rod Maverick, capable of a stupefying 1,199HP (894kW) even before aftermarket parts bring that further up. While the 516HP (385kW) of the naturally aspirated V8 available to swap into the Tundra sounds pitiful in comparison, the donor of that engine is the Lexus PETRONAS TOM'S SC430 GT500 machine—a racecar. That means racecar fuel efficiency in a game that gives racecars unreal mileage out of these fire breathing competition engines, allowing a maxed out, stripped out 838HP Tundra to drive from lights to flag non–stop with minimal fuel saving in the notorious Tokyo grind race! Imagine that, in a truck with the aerodynamic properties of a house wrapped in sandpaper!

Still, neither truck is particularly fun to drive. Riding high on a truck is sort of like riding on a Ferris Wheel; it's fun and novel the first or maybe even second time, but after that, it just becomes boring after the novelty wears off. I would legitimately prefer a Daihatsu Midget over any of these things, and the only use I might see for these pickup trucks is to ferry a Midget back home on Bring A Trailer. I've heard that the trick is to befriend someone who owns a pickup rather than having one yourself.

GT7 W49: Mazda Atenza Sedan XD L Package '15

The 2015 Mazda Atenza Sedan XD L Package is probably one of the saddest looking cars in the game.

広島カープ赤ヘル応援タクシー by XSquareStickIt

#hiroshima #carp #taxi

Originally a part of Gran Turismo Sport's anorexic car list at launch, the third–generation "GJ" Atenza was arguably only included in the e–sports centric title only to serve as the base for the fictional Atenza Gr.4 and Gr.3 racecars, itself having no real purpose in the barebones single–player campaign even after taking all the updates into account. Being a semi–luxury product, the Atenza's credit–to–performance ratio is understandably horrendous—Its 39,690 Credit asking price will net curious players merely 172HP (128kW) with which to push around 1,600kg (3,527lbs). For just over 2 grand more, players could have a brand spanking new 2014 WRX STi in their garage. To add insult to an old injury, with Mazda officially becoming a business partner of PD, more up–to–date Mazda racecars, namely, the Mazda3 Gr.4 and the RX-Vision GT3 Concept, were added into the game and given very competitive performance via BoP right out of the gate—something neither Atenza racecar got at any point in their existence, and most likely will never get in the future so as not to take the lustre off the newer models.

So, it's March of 2024. The Atenza, now known as the Mazda6 worldwide, is slated to be quietly discontinued in its home market this coming April, and in Gran Turismo 7, the digital Atenza is still not a very compelling buy. It has no engine swap options, no wide bodies, no roll cages, and what little aero parts it does get in GT Auto are mostly ugly, uninspired items that look completely off–the–shelf, frankly ruining this beautiful car. It doesn't even get an Ultra–High RPM turbo to help breathe more life into the ever–important top end if one fancies tuning it. Drive this to GT Café, and you'll get precisely zero people come up to ogle at and lecture you about your own car. Brand Central's sleazy salesman, Martin, even erroneously claims the thing has a 6 speed manual and "Skyactive" Technology... whatever that is. There's just this sense that nobody, from the fans or developers themselves, gives much of a flying hoot about the car, but is such treatment at all deserved?

Taken as–is from the Brand Central, the Atenza can be a very boring drive. After all, with just 172HP and a frankly overkill AWD system to distribute that meagre power to each of its 225/45R19 Comfort Medium tyres, the Atenza won't be threatening any shenanigans, defaulting to very gradual understeer if an overzealous driver overspeeds into a corner, or otherwise asks too much of the Atenza. But, considering that this thing has a tall and heavy diesel block nestled in a chassis with a lopsided weight distribution of 67:37, the fact that it can even manage to be a boring instead of a torrid drive is itself worthy of praise. While the default Comfort Medium tyres do feel a little under specced to deal with the Atenza's sheer heft, the car itself lets go very linearly and with very tactile warnings, and is such a predictable drive at all times even when raced wheel–to–wheel. The supple suspension setup completely soaks up and trivialises notoriously "jumpy" kerbs, such as those on Alsace Test Course, which will bounce the Atenza like a TOMICA in an inflatable bounce party house just once, before settling back down seamlessly into assuring composure, never losing traction with the road at any time. Said stock suspension setup feels right at home even when upgraded to much gripper Sports Hard tyres, too! The 6–Speed flappy paddle gearbox is both quick and satisfyingly smooth, though the gear spacing is a little all over the place for track driving, necessitating revving out 3rd and 4th gears just a bit longer than others. I love that Mazda insists on physical buttons and dials for everything in the car, with the distracting touchscreen optional. My favourite feature however, is the pop–up glass on top of the dashboard onto which vital information, such as instantaneous speed and nav directions, are projected, making sure the driver's eyes never need to veer too far off the road ahead. It's such a useful feature that I'm surprised more cars don't have! It's just seemingly little things like these that reassures me Mazda knows and cares about driving, something I wish were the norm instead of the exception.

I had really pleasant and calming drives in the Atenza throughout the week, even finding myself in a sort of "zone" in the Saturday lobby at Grand Valley and Red Bull Ring, where I feel like I became truly as one with the car, and drove so much better than I usually do as a result. It's so rare that I ever find myself trusting an intuitive car that much to enter that trance, and the fact that RX8 extended his gap to me in both those races I think must mean he found himself in a similar "zone", too. That is to say, the Atenza is one of those mostly faultless cars that can just seemingly melt into the background, letting drivers simply concentrate on battling or simply driving. And that is praise that I'm stingy to give out even to bona–fide racecars.

Mostly faultless. While I can't back this claim up with any numbers, the Atenza's diesel block feels really heavy and sat up high, and it's something that the default Comfort Medium tyres really highlight under trail braking, oftentimes needing the driver to point the car towards an apex before slamming on the brakes if the corner allows for it. While the diesel Atenza drives well, I just can't help but to imagine what the petrol version of the car must feel like to drive. After all, the 2.2L diesel Atenzas suffer a hefty 60 kilo (132lbs) mass handicap to even the larger 2.5L petrol Atenzas. And while on the subject of braking, the Atenza will take a small—but notable nonetheless—moment to plomp down fully onto its front springs when the brakes are applied, which can add some five metres of the braking distance to what would be intuitive. The big one to watch out for however, is braking on downhill switchbacks, as its unladen rear end can get more than a little airy, regardless of tyre compounds.

But of course, the entirety of the above 3 paragraphs is mostly a rehash of my review of the car I wrote back in November of 2022, when we tested the car in GT Sport. So from here on out, allow me to largely rehash Obelisk's review of the car instead, by taking another Atenza of mine to Understeer and seeing what names it can take with it as it sails off into the sunset.

With the full catalogue of parts and works thrown at it on Sports Hard tyres, my Atenza sits at a slightly awkward 582.85PP, falling just shy of the all–important 600PP benchmark. The thing about the PP system though, is that I believe the PP value of a car is calculated with automatic shifting ill–suited for short shift cars, of which the diesel Atenza is the poster child. I believe that's why the stock Atenza completely smashes any car with comparable PP levels, and if shifted optimally, my tuned Atenza can perform at comparable levels to cars natively around 600PP, such as the VX Viper and LFA. Of course, a performance–focused, money–no–object, regs–be–damned tuner car running roughly the same lap times as bone stock supercars really isn't a super big revelation, but I'm willing to bet that no bone stock 600PP car has the fuel efficiency to no–stop the WTC600 Tokyo money–making race :)

With a Mid–Range RPM Turbo and moderate fuel saving, I was able to no–stop this notoriously stupid race, completely trivialising the chore with a total time of just under 27 minutes, with my lap times in clean air being around the low to mid 2:12 range. For some context, I could barely get a 600PP Alphard with 8 gears to last 6 laps, and finished a lowly fifth. The best part about no–stopping the event is that I didn't even have to race anyone for the win and risk losing the Clean Race Bonus; I just sat behind the AI cars in their slipstream until they disappeared into the pit lane one by one, never to reappear even in my rear view mirrors. That video is probably the most boring one of that race you'll ever watch, but I just wanted to prove that I did it, and show how I did it.

On gripper SS tyres and less powerful brakes, I managed to get my Atenza sitting precisely at 600.00PP, which saw it completely decimate the spicy Clubman Cup+ race at Watkins Glen, taking the lead at the end of lap 2 and giving me almost 2 whole laps to myself to the end of the race. I'm not even good at tuning, but I'm a little proud of my slightly problematic tune, as is plenty evident in the video, but it does make for a fun time :)

In conclusion, the Atenza looks unassuming at best and completely overshadowed at worst, but that subtle beauty hides something that is truly sublime when driven bone stock, and utterly terrifying when its full potential is unleashed. For those in the playerbase lamenting the lack of understated German performance sedans, the Atenza isn't quite that, but I argue comes pretty damn close. After all, it's been stealthily staring the playerbase right in their faces since 2017, and I'm willing to bet most haven't even noticed.

It is a Sleeper in every sense of the word.

GT7 W48: BVLGARI Aluminium Vision Gran Turismo

The BVLGARI Aluminium Vision Gran Turismo is so, so close to being everything a VGT car ought to be.

"BVLGARI DAY EDITION" by Instax86

"BVLGARI NIGHT EDITION" by Instax86

#bvlgari #aluminium #queen

Vision Gran Turismo cars are cars made specifically for the Gran Turismo games, and thus are almost always exclusive to the GT series. One would expect then, that these bespoke creations would be highlights and selling points of the franchise, but on the contrary, their high price tags, lack of customisability, and oftentimes wonky handling mean that they're among the most useless and reviled cars in the game. Winding the clock back on these traditions however, the BVLGARI Aluminium VGT seems tailor–made to tick (and tock) all the relevant GT7 boxes: it looks good, drives okay, isn't unrealistically fast, has a roofless Barchetta body style that is sure to be a hit with VR users, and most importantly to me, is eligible for all four of the game's big money–making events, completely trivialising the WTC600 and WTC700 events with its racecar–rivalling fuel economy. Just the fact that it can very quickly and easily make back its 1 million credit asking price is enough for me to recommend it on its own, but that's hardly where the good news ends for the Bulgari!

I've had my scepticism on whether a fashion brand could actually make a car drive well, but upon first laying eyes on the car, I can't help but to feel like they've got it more right than most modern car makers! There's none of the bloat, power creep, awful touchscreens, or thick A–pillars that plague modern cars with the Aluminium VGT, and it's so refreshing to see the creative liberty offered by the VGT programme used not to create something childish and useless like a laser propelled origami or a Mars Rover with no rendered interior, but instead to actually create a pure driving machine free of modern day safety and emissions regulations. It even sports hidden headlights! In 2024! There's no logical reason for those, but it's just so cool! That in itself ought to make the car an instant darling to most car lovers, even if the illuminated area by the centre headlights are woeful at best.

Unfortunately, as with most things pertaining to fashion, the Bulgari does trade in some practicality for style, and those that have attempted Week 48's Special Challenge will probably tell you, the centre mounted, sheathed headlights of the Bulgari, while exceedingly cool, illuminates only a narrow area intensely, leaving very little peripheral visibility. For a car with "Vision" in its name, it gives the driver surprisingly little in the black of night. Here's the fashionable Aluminium VGT and a similarly stylish, but also very practical Mazda3 Gr.4 sat in the same spot of Bathurst's pit lane, and you can see for yourself just how bad the laser pointer of a headlight is on the Bulgari:

BVLGARI Aluminium VGT:

Mazda3 Gr.4:

While the headlights may compromise practicality for style, the brake lights are just outright stupid. Like most modern cars, the Aluminium VGT comes with three brake lights, two to the sides, and one high mount light in the centre, nestled in a valley between the roll hoops. The problem is that someone in their infinite wisdom and/or artistic trip also decided to make the rear wing double as a flip–up airbrake, which completely blocks out the middle brake light the very moment the brakes are applied. I can't... I don't even have a witty remark about that. Did anyone playtest this at all? How did anyone greenlight these brake lights? Airbrakes and active wings are hardly a new thing in this industry, you know?

(Cough) Anyway, in keeping with the trend of subtle style, the stats on the Bulgari are modest, but extremely capable, producing 394HP (294kW) from a naturally aspirated engine, although its cylinder count, arrangement, and displacement are all left a complete mystery. Despite revving to a heady 9,500rpm, this mystery engine has such healthy mid–range torque that it feels as if there's a small turbo or motor helping it breathe down low. That miracle engine is strapped midships, driving the rear wheels via a flappy paddle 7–speed gearbox. That well oiled clockwork of a drivetrain alone would ensure any production car today would be pretty brisk, but this roofless package weighs in lighter than most ND Roadster grades at a nice and even 1,000kg (2,205lbs), making sure that time truly flies with the Bulgari.

Those numbers might look unassuming, especially by VGT standards, but it's only when the car is ran alongside very stiff competition that the sheer speed of the Bulgari creeps into one's consciousness, like the merciless, indifferent march of time. On the track, any semblance of modesty and restraint is completely lost when the Aluminium VGT effortlessly outruns a Suzuki VGT despite the Suzuki having more power, less mass, a hybrid system, and gripper Sports Soft tyres, or when it casually embarrasses a Ferrari 458 no problem. It also fought a higher rated 992 GT3 RS on equal footing, and it's capable of overwhelming slicks–shod Gr.4 racecars around a relatively tight track like Laguna Seca! Throughout the week, I simply couldn't find anything within reason to compare against the Bulgari's on–track capabilities, and that's only taking into account its raw pace; the Bulgari also has racecar levels of fuel efficiency thanks to its lightness: it has more than enough mileage in one full tank for an easy no–stop around the Tokyo grind race, completely trivialising the event, and can do 8 laps and change flat out around Sard A's grind race as well, making it viable in the 800PP event despite being almost a whole hundred PP below said limit on Racing Soft tyres.

Time tells no lies, and the Bulgari is undisputedly quick around any racetrack. It's just... driving it is a pain, personally, and that holds doubly true for anyone else I happen to collect with me as I wreck the extremely nervous Bulgari on the track. First things first: the Bulgari comes with incredibly skinny tyres. Of course, the game doesn't provide us the exact section width of these massive 22–inch steamrollers, but these tyres look like they were sized for style first and performance second, and bafflingly for an RMR car, don't appear to be staggered front to rear. Even for a car as light as the Aluminium VGT, the grip that these skinny Sport Hard tyres provide is extremely lacking for the speeds that this thing is capable of. A car can have many problems and imperfections, but to say that it has terrible tyres is kind of like saying the face of a watch is really opaque... it's a real discussion ender.

The most immediate of the litany of problems arising from the lack of grip is the time it takes the Bulgari to stop, better measured with a sundial than a stopwatch. The suspension setup, as already noted by many before me, is incredibly stiff: stiffer than most Gr.4 racecars, and so there's little to no pitch and roll to load up these skinny road legal tyres to dig any grip out of them, not to mention making the Aluminium VGT jump across several time zones when hitting kerbs. The final screw in the case of the Aluminium VGT is the Limited Slip Differential in this car: I've found that whoever is in charge of giving fictional cars their default LSD values at PD, such as the Genesis X GR3 and the Mazda Roadster NR-A*, really, really likes setting the differential to be stupidly tight, resulting in an extremely nervous and snappy car that struggles immensely with understeer one moment, and then snaps suddenly to oversteer when the front grip overwhelms the rears. These cars are also a bloody disaster around kerb jumps like the Inner Loop of Watkins Glen necessitates, and completely trip over themselves navigating corners with sharp elevation changes like the Corkscrew of Laguna Seca. It can't put down power at all out of turns, while ALSO wearing out the rear tyres in no time at all with the incessant slipping and snapping of the rear. While overall tyre longevity is good thanks to the Aluminium VGT's light weight, the disparity between the front and rear tyre life is so bad that I'm forced to run a front -3 Brake Balance just to even out the tyre wear front to rear. Fitting a differential as tightly binding as that to a sports car is like asking an athlete to run with both their shoes tied together, and I really don't understand why the diff needs to be this tight in a car that has such stiff suspension and minimal lateral load shifts. It feels set up to drift or something, and one always needs a quick flash of counter steer primed at the ready when taking corners in the Bulgari. In a smaller, much slower car with communicative Comfort tyres like the Roadster, sure, it's fun. It might even be quicker to slide around. In a car that does speeds greatly exceeding those of Gr.4 racers, and with horrible Sports tyres that let go so much quicker at their limits? Yeah, ain't nobody got time for dat!

*I'm aware the Roadster NR-A is a real car, but I don't believe they actually scanned a real one for the game.

Oh, and by the way, aside from tyres, power, mass, and brake balance, nothing else about the driving dynamics of the Aluminium VGT can be changed; not the suspension setup, not the LSD, not the downforce, and certainly no wide bodies to give fatter tyres. And this is the part that perplexes me to no end: with other VGT cars, one could maybe argue that the way those drive is the automaker's adamant vision, and out of respect for their business partners, PD disallows us players to mess with the setups. But why would the Bulgari be similarly restricted like that? At the risk of sounding completely disrespectful, does the bloke who drew up the Aluminium VGT as a styling exercise even know what a diff is? Would they really mind if we tweaked it to make the car suit us better? It doesn't even change the look of the car! If I buy a $5,000 watch from Bulgari, are they not even going to let me adjust the strap length to fit my wrist, or change the time to match my time zone? This is just inexcusably dumb, and it holds a deeply flawed car with so much potential back from ever realising any of it.

The BVLGARI Aluminium VGT may be one of the most useful VGT cars that's easy to recommend in GT7 for its money–making capabilities, but that's a niche that's so specific to GT7, and I fear that its flaws will persist much longer than its strengths when it comes time to transition into a later game. That is to say that, ironically for a car inspired by a classic chronograph, I have a feeling that the Aluminium VGT isn't a car that time will be particularly kind to.

GT7 W47: Suzuki Swift Sport KATANA Edition Gr.4

Gran Turismo 7's Group 4 category of racecars is the rough equivalent of the real world's GT4 class, and it is, as politely as I can put it, an unmitigated, unabashed, and unabated flustercuck of a category, populated by actual GT4 racecars, Cup Cars, FF hatchbacks, 5–speed family sedans, a DTM racer from the 90s, 7–speed midship AWD Huracáns, a 433HP Bugatti Veyron, and Kaz knows what else.

You know what else Gr.4 has? Balance of Performance. Supposedly, anyway.

To compensate for their complete inability to preserve their tyres or put down power out of a corner, FF cars in Gr.4 are given comically over–the–top power–to–mass figures to help them vaguely compete in Gr.4 against all the other mumbo jumbos in Gr.4 better suited for racing. This immediately gives FF Gr.4 cars speed unapproachable by their Gr.4 peers, both in a straight line and in races where tyre wear is not a factor. And so, if all six FF Gr.4 cars are going to be completely untouchable in a straight line, it would only make sense to pick the lightest one of the bunch, wouldn't it? After all, the lightest car ought to corner quickest and preserve its tyres the best, desho?

Enter: The Suzuki Swift Sport KATANA Edition Gr.4.

But here's the thing: the Swift isn't just the lightest FF car in Gr.4; it's the lightest car in the entirety of Group 4, and by a ridiculous margin, too! Fresh from Brand Central, the Swift doesn't weigh a tonne—LITERALLY—coming in at a mere 900kg (1,984lbs), and even after current Mid–Speed BoP adds a whopping 95 kilos (209lbs) to the car, it's still lighter than the next lightest car, the Alfa 4C Gr.4, by 55 kilos (121lbs). And while it may only have the second lowest power in all of Gr.4 under Mid–Speed BoP, beating only the aforementioned 4C, its unmatched lightness means that it really needn't that much power to achieve the best power–to–mass ratio in Gr.4 BoP: 303HP (226kW) when bopped down for Mid–Speed competition, and 345HP (257kW) when allowed to drink and breathe freely after the kill. It's one thing to be the lightest car in its class, but to also have the best power–to–mass ratio quite frankly renders the other five FF cars irrelevant, impressive in their own rights as they may be.

Version 1.43 BoP data taken from the incredible resource that is gt-engine.com

Dizzying numbers and abstract charts that a Samurai would never have are nice and all, but what do all those geeky stats mean for the Swift Gr.4 out on the battlefield? The FF Swift will obviously struggle with drawing its blade from a kneeling start, but once it's up on its feet with its glistening blade out, the Swift lives up to its suddenly threatening name. GT Engine claims that the Swift, under Mid–Speed BoP, dances through the 100–150km/h kata in 3.64 seconds, which the keen eyed among you might realise is faster than the freaking Veyron, and if I were to call on my own experience like a decent reviewer should instead of pulling studies from other sources, my svelte and smooth Cayman GT4 got gapped by a Swift that just went 4 wheels wide into the grass at Turn 1 of Bathurst. In other words, the Swift has acceleration performance that is completely devoid of honour and valour, at least, until its tall hatchback body drags it down to a stalemate somewhere in the 220km/h (137mph) range, where the winds of change finally catch up to the way of the Samurai.

初音ミク スイフト by Lotus_RacingT12

#miku #miku16th #itasha

The road car on which this Gr.4 warrior is based may sport a 1.4L Inline–4 engine that would seem at times to not even be generating any boost, but that lackadaisical turbo has been torn apart, slapped awake, and (presumably) had its family killed before its eyes at the hands of Polyphony Digital, resulting in the turbo now vehemently blowing out around 0.8 Bar of boost, most of which being concentrated in the low to mid rev range. This transforms the usually rev–happy Swift into a seething, short shifting psycho, demanding its driver to be familiar with where along its 7,500rpm–long blade where there is the most cutting power, lest they lose a tenths of a second on longer straights, or even a few positions off a standing start against other similarly trained Swifts. This possessive boost I find does make the Swift well–suited for sipping fuel if it finds itself on a long and arduous mission, as the car almost doesn't seem to mind being shifted whenever, as long as its revs are kept below 6,7, which is where I personally shift it. That's about 40% of the HUD rev–bar, or just about when the second set of shift lights come on for you VR folk.

So, numbers don't lie, and the Swift is stupidly fast on the straights. Surely the FF Swift must be slow in corners to compensate? Well, the numbers also say that the Swift is the lightest car in Gr.4, and one that has quite a short wheelbase too, so good luck catching this Swiftie in the twisties. As can be expected from a racing machine, the Swift Gr.4 comes with a limited slip diff at the front as standard issue, and with BoP trimming off its unhealthy power obsession while putting more weight over the front to keep it grounded, this Samurai is kept on a short leash, with minimal wheelspin and steering wheel juddering, and the car remains incredibly agile and "chuckable" into corners despite the extra mass. On some sharper turns however, it still is possible to peek into the madness the Swift had prior BoP, spinning up the inside wheels in a frenzy, and so throttle discipline is still very much a necessity. The Swift also stops stupidly well, enabling its driver to stomp on the brake pedal about a car length later than your typical Gr.4 offering for a corner, making this thing an assassin nigh impossible to defend from in conjunction with its swift approach.

As if it needed any more advantages beyond the ones absolute numbers generously confer it, the Swift has some perks where numbers don't reach, too. An amusing by–product of this stopping power is that it makes the Swift stupidly easy to drive in the dark, as long as there's an opponent ahead of the Swift. There isn't any need to grope around for braking points in the dark: the braking point is, "where that guy braked, but a car length later". Also, the extremely tall silhouette of the Swift makes following it closely nearly impossible if driving in bumper or cockpit view, as the Swift would completely block off all visibility of the trailing car. Several times in the week's Wednesday lobby, I've had to back out of closely following a Swift into a corner, simply because I couldn't see where the accursed bend was. The one time I didn't, I choked away a fight for the podium at Laguna Seca. It's not fun being behind that thing.

Just one of those photos taken moments before disaster...

New OnlyFans by Rob_on_Drums

#onlyfans

Don't let its commoner disguise fool you; the Swift Sport KATANA Edition Gr.4 is a stealthy sleeper of a car. Without tyre wear reining it in for longer races, it is an unmitigated menace, both on a spec sheet and on a battlefield. Granted, the power of the Swift may well have changed by the time you read this. The Swift could easily put on another fifty kilos or lose 20 more horsepower with the flick of a pen. After all, the pen beats the sword, right? But, at least for now, "I have found that whoever wields the sword decides who holds the pen", to borrow a quote from one of my other favourite game series.

Videos from this Saturday's small, but fiercely contested lobby:

HSR:

https://youtu.be/8AFzMlNTQNA

CroixB

https://youtu.be/0OIEkbUlNNA

GVH

https://youtu.be/mEoRhj5p7mM

A Long Tangent: About My Tamaki Iroha Itasha

As described in the Swift's announcement post, I had made an Itasha out of spite for a friend a little prior to Swift week. The problem with actually showing that off is that, because I've made it for them specifically, it's full of decals closely associated with them, with me even going so far as to spell out their name in archaic runes of the MadoMagi series.

They uh... yeah, didn't want to be identified publicly.

Alright then, small matter. All I had to do was to take that livery and make it mine, editing out all identifying decals on it. The problem arose in the two days between the announcement post and our weekly Wednesday lobby, when the damn livery refused to load for editing. I've read that this is a rare, but prominent nonetheless issue that some decals can cause, and as I don't usually deal in complicated creations, this is my first time encountering the problem. To my knowledge, there's no surefire way of fixing this issue, other than testing each and every user–made decal by saving a design with one decal, and then loading it back up. Yeah, I have about 300 layers in my Itasha up to that point. I'd sooner show up in a default livery than to go through that madness.

When shooting photos for the review, I just thought, "what the hell", and tried loading it again. It worked this time! Though, I couldn't complete all the edits I wanted in one sitting, and the livery chose to not load again the next time. It was a game of trail and error, with me going to GT Auto with the car each time I played the game, hoping it'd load. I kinda "found out" that this extremely cursed livery only fancies loading at around 2–6 A.M. Singapore time, so... yeah, that's why the review was so, so late—all just because of one photo. But hey, I don't know when will be the next time I'll get to show off my hours of hard work on the Swift. It's not an efficient use of time, but I'm willing to sit on a review to have something I can truly be proud of. It's not like I have a deadline or am getting paid or anything. This is entirely for my own self satisfaction, and rushing out a bad piece of writing or livery would leave a bad taste in my mouth forever.

But the "completed" Itasha was only half of the envisioned end result.

The original impetus for the Itasha was that the higher–ups of a certain league didn't want our regular blatantly teasing this idiot guy by showing up in an Itasha, because the idiot guy thought Itashas were super uncool. Now, it's not my place to tell others how they run their leagues, but to me, it seems a bit extreme and incredibly wrong to disallow everyone from running a safe and inoffensive Itasha just because one guy doesn't like them. And so my idea was: I'm going to go ALL IN on creating an Itasha, only to then cover it up with censoring to make it look dirty, despite it being completely safe. After all, can you call it an anime livery if you can't make out anything on the car? That toeing the line of definitions really excited the rebellious part of my brain.

That's all the logical and rational part of me can tell you. I have no idea why I took such "playful offence" to the higher ups disallowing an Itasha RX8 made for our regular. I have no idea what possessed me. I knew that I was working way out of my depth with an Itasha, but I just kept playing and kept experimenting, and no one told me to stop at 3 in the morning. I didn't have much of a plan on how the thing was to look, but ideas just popped in one after another as I was working on the car, and I just shut up the rational side of my brain and just flowed with the creative juices.

I usually don't like having very elaborate liveries on my cars. A lot of liveries I find tend to try to hide the shape of the car. Some of them even have very complicated and "messy" background patterns just to fill space and look busy for the sake of it. I hate that. It takes my eyes away from the natural shapes of the car and forces me to look at the utter chaos and confusion. Maybe it's me taking the role of "car reviewer" a bit too seriously, but I really want to see and show the car in photos. A lot of times, I'd just slap a plate on a car and call it mine. It might not look like much, but that small effort I've put in makes my lizard brain go, "I've invested into that. That's me. That's my horse in the race." And that feeling overpowers any sense of satisfaction I can find in Discover.

But it's also that unjustified sense of pride that makes me paranoid of sharing the few things I do create. I'm afraid that a labour of love can turn right around and appear to be insulting because it's so poorly made. Again, I don't invest a lot of time making liveries, and I'm therefore not good at it. I'm not a very artistic person like Baron, Rick, Rob, or SPD. Every time I think to make a decal or a livery, there's always that thought of, "someone out there must've done it already, and done a better job of it than you could". I thus only make and share decals that are absolutely necessary for even my simplistic creations. The only reason I can circumvent this with written reviews is that an opinion is unique, and if explained well, can really open one's eyes up to how one thing can come to be perceived differently by other people. I find that incredibly interesting, and I believe that by itself holds value.

With liveries, I just put stupid amounts of effort into it, sit and stare at it for a few days, tear the whole thing apart and redo large chunks of it, rinse and repeat until I get sick of the process. Then at least I can tell myself I've put in an unreasonable amount of effort into the thing, and if it ends up sucking anyway, then knowing that I've put in stupid amounts of effort into it makes the suckage easier to bear. It's not a very efficient use of time, and it's extremely tiring, hence why I don't like to do it often, or at all.

This one? This was fun, though. I was giggling to myself as I put the censors on the car. Even as a kid, I've always liked spending hours on building things, like houses and train sets, only to destroy it in a quick and violent fashion, admiring the wreckage. I don't know what the hell is wrong with me, don't ask. Censoring my own painstaking Itasha and making it look dirty was hella fun, and something I could only bring myself to do to my own creations. I just really wish our regular could've brought it to their league race, and that I could've shown it off in both censored and uncensored variations on Tuesday. Ahh well. Maybe I'll bust it out next time we run a Gr.4 car.