GT7 W71: BMW Z8 '01

The name's Z8. BMW Z8.

BMW Z8 Alpina by ram-toxot

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Unfortunately, unlike the famous movie character that drove it, the Z8 actually needs an introduction to most, as it's a very obscure car by BMW standards. With just 5,703 produced and each costing upwards of 135,304 USD when new (about 248,155 USD in 2024), not many were in the privileged position of getting to know the elusive car, and so I thought it'd be a good idea to familiarise ourselves with the Z8 by quickly dropping some names and comparisons: It's meant to be a tribute to the BMW 507, perhaps the company's most influential car yet. It's got a near perfect weight balance thanks to its transaxle layout, just like a Porsche 924. With a 4.9L NA V8 from its stable mate, the M5, it can go from 0–100km/h in a claimed 4.7 seconds, which lets it keep up with modern cars like the C7 Stingray. It's styled by Henrik Fisker, whose last name you may recognise, only to be sawn into two halves by a helicopter in the James Bond Movie, "The World Is Not Enough". Oh, and some guy by the name of XSquareStickIt drove one in GT Sport back in 2021 and said he didn't like it very much.

But perhaps the most relevant name drop comparison is this: the Z8 drives like a beefed up, loaded out Mazda Roadster: it's much too soft to be a hardcore sports car, requiring its handler to keep the heavy, obscure gadget in check, lest they attract unwanted attention (i.e. ridicule) to themselves. Yet at the same time, the Z8 possesses incredible balance and poise, thanks to a nearly perfect 51:49 weight balance front to rear, and the Z8 is proportionate, cooperative, and—dare I even say—agile, before its springs reach the end of their travel, at which point the car quickly lets go. While capable, the Z8 very much wants to be treated like a Fairlady; it doesn't respond well at all to brute force, instead asking of its driver to be a cognisant gentleman and to be smooth, gentle, and attentive to the car, because it's certainly not shy about wanting a show of heroic saving from its driver every now and then.

And so, just like driving an old, rear–engined car like the Alpine A110, the driver has to be ultra aware of where the weight is on the Z8 when driving it hard, knowing when to use the full capabilities of each component of the car, and when to show gentlemanly restraint. The brakes on the Z8 are ABSURDLY strong, but fully depressing the middle pedal at speed unsettles the rear end greatly, and even mild trial braking will see the transaxle car swing out its laden rear end all too easily. The NA V8 not only barks out a soundtrack that would rival American muscle, and it has solid torque from as low as 3,000rpm, but just like the brakes, the full power of the engine has to be sparingly used, because the rear springs will run out of travel soon before the engine can deliver all its power on the default suspension and Sports Hard tyres, easily resulting in a fishtail. 2nd gear is just about redundant after a standing start with how much shove this M5–derived powerplant has, and so its driver will have to know when to use which gear out of which corner for the best performance. In other words, any driver looking to win the Z8 over has to remain calm and calculated at all times; after all, the last thing a spy can do even in the most dire of situations is to panic, and the Z8 is here to remind any prospective spy of that.

Treat it right however, and the driver is rewarded with an open–top luxury experience that has enough poise and firepower to stay within a second of a contemporary track toy in the 996 GT3 around Grand Valley Highway, and even make the Porsche's standard steel brakes feel like they've come right out of a luggage cart's while it's at it. In that respect, it stands alone as its own unique thing incomparable to anything else in my mind.

...buuuut, I'd also be remiss if I didn't mention that, ever since our barn burner race at Brands Hatch, there's a car that I haven't been able to stop thinking about, and every time I lay eyes on it, I just melt into a puddle on the inside and giggle. It's also FR with an NA V8 going through a 6–speed manual, with on–track performance nigh inseparable from the Z8. It's not an open top car, but it has a see–through roof and a pair of headlights among the sexiest mankind has dared conjure, and v1.50 of Gran Turismo 7 has arguably given it much more of a glow–up in driving experience than the Z8.

I'm sorry, Bond, but I'm going over to the dark side.

A "Small" Rant:

The Z8's horizontal interior piece is supposed to be body colour. However, in GT Sport and GT7, it's stuck as silver regardless of the car's base colour, with no way of changing the look of it in the livery editor; it can't be painted, nor can decals be applied to it.

The odd thing is, they got it right in GT6! The dash is body colour!

Real life car in blue for comparison:

GT7 W68: Renault Sport Clio V6 24V '00

They may look like any other automaker playing it safe today, but French carmaker Renault has been known in years past to be perhaps the most utterly insane and daring car maker in the industry's history, seemingly just for the sake of it. In the 80s, they were the first to put an engine in the passenger bay of a hatchback and sold it to paying customers, just so they could race that Frankenstein design in rallies, only to follow that up in the 90s by putting a screaming F1 engine into a minivan. No, not an F1–derived engine; an actual, honest–to–FIA F1 engine. One would think then, that not a lot can scare balls–to–the–wall Renault into reconsidering its lunacy going into the new millennium, but ironically, all it took was a seemingly innocuous repeat of the Renault 5 Turbo formula to scare Renault—and other car makes—into never selling another rear midship hatchback to paying customers ever again. One could say then, that the Clio V6 single–handedly scared Renault into snapping back to its senses.

"Really? What's so scary about a 229HP hatchback?", you might be thinking at this point. Given its unhinged family tree, a Clio developed with Tom Walkinshaw Racing of Le Mans fame with a NA V6 engine in the back seems almost predictable, but the car itself was anything but when driven at speed. The initial run of the Clio V6 produced from 2000–2003, dubbed the "Phase 1", quickly earned itself a deadly reputation in real life for being an extremely difficult, if not outright impossible car to handle, with the car wont to spin itself out for reasons as clear and numerous as there are for anyone to spend 240,000 FRF (31,297 USD in 2000, 51,101 USD in 2024) to buy a 2–seater Clio V6 over the 4–seater FF Clio 172 it was barely quicker than to 100km/h. It's only years after the cars' production run ended did we get a clear answer as to why the Phase 1 drove the way it did; evo has a deeply fascinating interview with Steve Marvin, former director of Renault Sport, over the rushed and troubled development of the original Clio V6, where the passionate man goes in–depth into the hows and whys of the Clio V6's tendencies, necessitating the drastic—and arguably overkill—remedies of the Phase 2 Clio V6.

We Gran Turismo 7 players, for better or worse, have only the ill–reputed Phase 1 to accompany us in our campaigns. Thankfully however, the Phase 1's widowmaker tendencies just never seemed to translate across the digital divide into the PS4 era of Gran Turismo; I drove the Phase 1 back in GTS COTW Week 188, when I raced it against the 2015 and 2016 Clio R.S. 220 EDC Trophy, where I found that the older car was not only slightly faster than its newfangled siblings, but I also noted that "All three (cars) corner incredibly flat with very little drama", emphasis on the last three words. When RX8 later drove it in GT7 COTW Week 46, he (presumably) liked it so much that he just told me on the spot to automatically make the Phase 1 his next pick. And now, fresh off yet another physics update, the Phase 1 still feels incredibly solid, neutral, and chuckable in v1.49/v1.50 of Gran Turismo 7.

Like any hot hatch worth its petrol, the Phase 1 immediately gives its driver that emblematic sense of fitting snug in the palm of one's hand, as though all four tyres are within easy reach from the cockpit of the car as it rotates and dances through a corner with unassailable neutrality, with understeer gradually and tacitly being peppered in as the car approaches its limit. Even torrential downpour does little to faze the Phase 1, and classic RMR traps of Bathurst and Suzuka barely register as threats. Sure, it does feel rather heavy within said hand for its size and class, but it also has about twice the displacement a sane person might expect from a hot hatch, and just like the handling of the car, the power curves of this Laguna–derived 2.9L V6 are even and gradual, encouraging drivers to take it near the rev limiter with each shift while being more than capable of punching from below if the need arises. The only residues of the car's murderous reputation in real life found here in Gran Turismo 7 is at high–speed, where the rear can feel a bit floaty, and it dislikes sharp, sudden steering inputs regardless of where the speedo is pointing. Driven with the respect and smoothness any RMR sports car is due however, the digital Phase 1 presents itself as an incredibly well–balanced, communicative sports car that is difficult to fault!

Of course, serious structural changes and hardware are needed to transform an FF grocery–getter into a midship motorsports machine. Despite still looking very much like a regular Clio to the untrained eye, the Clio V6 measures 171mm wider and 66mm lower than a regular Clio, with increased track width and wheelbase to accommodate the rear seats' permanent mechanical passenger and the power it brings to the rear axles, which can reach a healthy 229HP (171kW) when the tach sits square at 60. Handling this power are Michelin Pilot Sport tyres, 205/50ZR17 up front and 235/45ZR17 rear, Comfort Soft by GT7's standards. A six–speed manual gearbox is the only option offered on this track focused wolf in sheep's clothing, though it does come with amenities like air con, power steering, leather–wrapped steering wheel, and an ample 61–litre petrol tank to make living with this exotic pet a little easier. The entire flared package balloons the Phase 1's mass to a frankly astounding 1,335kg (2,943lbs)—stupendously heavy for a hot hatch by contemporary standards.

All told, the RMR Phase 1 does the 0–100km/h dash in a claimed 6.4 seconds, which wasn't exactly slow. With this newfound power and rear drive, the Phase 1 can not only duke it out with much more modern hot hatches of today, but also lets it fit right into a conversation among some of the industry's most well known sports cars like the RX-8 and 86 twins despite its heavy mass figure. Cars in this performance bracket are my favourite to drive, because I feel that they have just the right balance of power, handling, and lightness to let the whole package shine without anything dominating the experience, with some of the industry's most renowned sports cars like the 901 Carrera RS 2.7, M3 SE, and S2000 falling within this bracket. None of the aforementioned cars however, are rear mid–engine, rear drive, and so the Clio V6 fills an aching void together with the MR2 Turbo and Elise, the former of which just isn't as quick as the Clio, and latter of which is sorely missing in the game.

In short, the Clio V6 fills a niche within a niche in GT7, and it takes some proper lunacy, or just laser–focused passion, to fill a gap so specific. It's just a shame that the Phase 1 in real life was so ill–received that it seemingly scared Renault into growing up, never to try anything this experimental and outlandish ever again, because the virtual car in Gran Turismo shows the world just how brilliant the Phase 1 could've been if the idea had been given the time and resources to properly blossom.

GT7 W69: Ferrari 430 Scuderia '07

In my mind, Ferrari cars in Gran Turismo games are simply beyond compare. Don't get me wrong, however; that's not meant to be a compliment. You see, almost every Ferrari in the series has hugely optimistic, completely unrealistic stats in–game, with egregious examples being a few hundred kilos lighter digitally than tangibly. Combine this with the fact that Ferrari in the real world have been known to set up their cars specifically for comparison tests, how they try to control the media (bad language warning for the linked article) and in some extreme cases even choose who can and cannot buy their cars, and you hopefully see how little value there is in reviewing, or consuming a review of any Ferrari, real or digital. It's not even worth the effort of typing out that most of the Ferraris I've sampled in Gran Turismo drive like their specs in Gran Turismo: utter horse shit.

The recently returning Ferrari 430 Scuderia '07 however, is a little bit different from its stable mates.

#27 PACIFIC NAC イカ娘 ferrari '12 by hiyaatsu_dai (Edited)

#supergt #pacific #ikamusume

Take its quoted power and mass of 502HP (374kW) and 1,350kg (2,976lbs) for what you will, but the 430 Scud is the first road–going Ferrari I've driven in this game that actually feels as light to drive as it is claimed to be, with a featherweight front end that actually responds to trial braking and can hence find apexes without resorting to the in–car navigation system. Power? Oh, you bet: this thing can get squirrely taking corner exits in 5th gear. It makes one hell of a sound, too, and thanks to its "F1 Superfast 2" gearbox that can shift in a claimed 0.06 seconds, that symphony of shrieks never has to take a pause as the stallion wails past 8,500rpm and 310km/h (193mph). 997 GT3? Sah–LOOOOW. LFA, Viper, GT-R? Soft and unwieldy. Gallardo? Understeer city. Simply put, contemporary peers to the 430 Scuderia are excruciatingly rare in this game, and even if we disregard the "contemporary" part of it, not much else can come close to touching the track focused Scuderia in terms of driving sensation.

That said, the unrelenting speed of the thoroughbred 430 Scuderia is by no means easy to rein in under control. If judged just by the human ear, the F1 Superfast 2 gearbox does indeed shift seamlessly, but ask the 285mm Sports Hard tyres shoeing the 19–inch wheels at the back though, and I think you'll get a very different opinion: both downshifts and upshifts at any rpm range can—and most likely will—greatly upset the rear end of the car if done with steering lock applied, breaking the stubby rear end of the 430 sideways with no warning whatsoever. It's not just the idiosyncratic gearbox that will knock the rear end loose, either; the engine also wants in on the fun. The 4,308cc naturally aspirated V8 nestled aft the cockpit of the 430 Scuderia has some sudden bumps in its power curves, presumably due to cam profile changes. A cautious driver short shifting the Scud to manage power oversteer—or simply to avoid having to shift mid corner with that gimmicky gearbox—might spin the car all the same as the engine's personality explosively switches on an unsuspecting driver. As if having peak power at 8,500rpm—just 140rpm below the rev limit*—isn't punishment enough for short–shifting on its own!

*the 430 Scuderia in GT7 revs to 8,700rpm.

Both the engine and the gearbox already make for a wildly unpredictable ride that can see the Scuderia breaking sideways at a urine–extracting 180km/h (112mph) in 5th, but I haven't even mentioned the cherry beside this sideways cake: the E–differential. Counter–steering to fix a slide just makes the E–diff think the driver is trying to turn the car, and so it can over–correct just as quickly as the car broke away in the first place. All in all, this is just a package that is COMPLETELY. UNDRIVABLE. in the wet. Touching a puddle at speed is just an instant death sentence without trial, even with copious overdoses of driver aids. The 430 Scuderia has ABS, of course, and Ferrari claims that it is equipped with "Stability and Traction Control with new traction control logic F1-Trac integrated with thenelectronic differential"... whatever that means. If I had to guess, it must be Ferrarese for, "the aids barely do anything, get rekt n00b trollololololol you now owe us 380k for the car", because last I checked, F1 cars don't have Traction Control nor ABS.

The spec sheets may claim that the 430 Scuderia is a lighter, more powerful, and therefore faster version of the regular F430, but in practice, I find the 430 Scuderia to be a needlessly ruined version of the F430. The base F430 already has most of what I like in the 430 Scuderia—the noise, the styling, the seamless shifts, most of the speed, and easy accessibility in Brand Central—but with none of the electro–psychotic episodes of the Scuderia. The only thing I like in the Scuderia that the regular F430 doesn't have is the stripped out interior upholstered mostly with bare carbon fibre, which suits a racing livery much better than the brown interior of the F430 I'm not so keen on. The 430 Scuderia would've been a fast, enjoyable track car chock full of infamous Italian quirk if it stood alone, but the F430 that has been in the game since launch has ruined the recently–added Scuderia for me, possibly even before the latter was just a text string in the game's data. All Ferrari had to do was to strip out the car, give it go–fast stripes, and maybe give it more power to justify the price hike, but they had to go fix something that was decidedly not broken and broke the whole car in the process, and I just don't understand why.

Honestly, the 430 Scuderia feels set up by and for one person and one person only: Michael Schumacher, who is lavishly credited for helping develop the car. Unless the driver has a high level of precision and/or a similar driving style to Michael Schumacher, the 430 Scuderia seems to violently reject any and all attempt to get to know and tame the car, and I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm not Michael Schumacher. I don't have his skills. If even his own son is struggling to live up to the standards he set, I don't fancy my chances of ever coming to an understanding with the 430 Scuderia. It is, in my mind, set up for one person and one person only.

And that makes the 430 Scuderia a car that is truly beyond compare.

SPOILER: Wide Body–ing a 430 Scuderia

The 430 Scuderia loses its front fender yellow Ferrari logo when a wide body is applied to it.

SHOT 01

Liveries shared on a wide body may have replacement decals on the front fenders. Take note if you're applying a wide body livery to a narrow body so as not to end up with double Ferrari logos on the side like I ended up doing on both our weekly lobbies.

SHOTS 02, 03