GT7 W98: Mercedes-Benz Unimog Type 411 '62

The Mercedes-Benz Unimog Type 411 '62, truly one of the most "...why, PD?" additions to the game... or so it would appear on the surface.

Mariott Hotel on Wheels by stowe07
#funny #hotel #mariott
ウニモグヤマトの宅急便 by abe1974tom
#kuroneko #unimog #mercedes

For the blissfully unaware, the 411 Unimog in this game weighs in at 1,940kg (4,277lbs), and has a mere 29HP (30PS, 22kW) to carry that heft around a racetrack it now finds an uncomfortable home. A full lap of the comparatively tiny Tsukuba Circuit takes over 2 minutes in this thing, and needless to say, it would struggle to get out of its own way, let alone have a race with. Its top speed, which you'll find only with the help of a sheer drop off a cliff with gale force winds in the truck bed, is gear limited to 94km/h (58mph), so it's going to have one hell of a time merging onto the expressways of role–playing lobbies too.

Just like the real life customers of the 411 I suspect, we GT7 players will have to get our digital hands dirty to find any use out of our Unimog, and it's an undertaking well worth the effort and Credits in my view. Despite its completely unassuming looks, the Unimog can be one hell of a hoot if one decides to upgrade it to become the most stealthy sleeper of a weapon. What I haven't mentioned thus far is that the Unimog comes stock with 6 forward gears, which is still the standard for many categories of racecars even today. With GT's esoteric limitations, having 6 forward gears straight from the factory means that it also gets 6 forward gears when a custom gearbox is equipped on the car, immediately giving the Unimog a leg–up on comparable tuning bases like the Suzuki Jimny. And why do I compare an agricultural truck to a Kei off–roader? That's because, despite its looks, the Unimog is actually a really, really tiny vehicle by modern standards; it measures in at 3,800 x 1,670 x 2,140mm (149.6 x 65.7 x 84.3 in), and for some context, that's a whopping 155mm shorter and just 5mm wider than a 2014 Honda Fit Hybrid (and a staggering 615mm taller even before one fits the racing exhaust or the camper attachment, but ignore that!). The Unimog's tall ground clearance, AWD, and front biased weight distribution makes it an incredibly stable and planted car to hustle around, and its tiny wheelbase ensures that it's always willing to rotate. With the SRC spec damn near maxing out the potential of the Unimog, bringing it up to 130HP, 1,590kg (3,505lbs), and 284.33PP, the Unimog drives so very incredibly neutrally with nary a hint of understeer and absolutely zero oversteer even when pushed incredibly hard with a relatively unstable setup. And, I really love racing low powered, high–drag vehicles, because they're more forgiving and therefore accessible to a wider variety of skill levels, and the high drag brings racers closer together. The Unimog in SRC guise then, is one hell of a spec racecar!

That said, being an incredibly old agricultural vehicle, the Unimog does present a rather big hurdle for tuners to overcome. First off, the most fun bed attachment option for livery makers, the camper box, has a humongous drag penalty once out on the track, and the downforce it miraculously gives is just irrelevant with a vehicle as slow, heavy, and inherently stable as the Unimog. I highly suspect that by itself will turn off many a prospective builder and tinkerer. Second, the diesel engine has a very, very narrow powerband, even with a Low RPM Turbo Kit; it only gets into its groove at around 2,700rpm and starts to run out of breath at around 3,500. And that narrow powerband makes setting up the gear ratios a nightmare, as one has to consider not letting the engine bog off a standing start while maintaining a reasonable top speed. Even with the SRC spec boosting and lightening the Unimog, I've had to set an incredibly low first gear that tops out at just 32km/h (20mph) just so it would actually get off the line, and 6th has to go up to somewhere around 170km/h (106mph) so it doesn't bounce off the limiter going down Foxhole of the Nordschleife. 2nd to 5th then, have to be incredibly wide apart to connect those two polar opposites, and it's a precarious balancing act in the settings sheet, even with the luxury of six gears to work with. For those inexperienced with tuning, I can absolutely see this hurdle in tuning know–how being a serious turn–off as well; it's not a car that just magically fixes its problems when aftermarket parts are bought for it. But if you can work magic with the game's sliders, the Unimog would shock many, many racers at low PP events I suspect, and you'd look pretty damned awesome doing it.

So, the Unimog. Before driving it, I thought it'd be a neat canvas for livery makers and role players. After driving it stock, I've come to realise it's too slow for even the latter. But after driving the SRC spec? I think it's one of the most underrated, deceptive sleepers ever introduced in the series, and I am INCREDIBLY glad for its inclusion in the game, because it's a hoot whether you're looking to make a livery for it, shoot it, tune it, or race it. Trust me, I've done all four!

My setup for the SRC spec, for anyone interested.

GT7 W97: Hyundai Ioniq 5 N '24

While Hyundai and Gran Turismo both want to persuade sceptics like me that EVs can be fun to drive, the 2024 Hyundai Ioniq 5 N has had the complete opposite intended effect on me: it's convinced me that there is no substitute for a simple, lightweight sports car, and that there is simply no replicating that feeling in an EV, no matter how technologically advanced it may be.

Ioniq 5 Singapore First 100 by rckpnts
#hyundai #singapore

MDMG-01 mark 1 by RSoDthevirusGT
#madoka #kaname #itasha

To be fair, the I5N does at least try be a fun car, unlike the the Lamborghini Urus, arguably its closest rival in the game. The I5N has glimpses of magic when it uses its computational wizardry to defy its stats and body shape to corner like a bona–fide sports car, whereas something like the Urus is just endless understeer everywhere. I'll admit: there have been a few moments where the I5N well and truly stole my breath away, making me think, "did... did that just really happen? Did this 2.2 tonne electric SUV really just dive for the apex like a lightweight RMR sports car? What tyres am I— SPORTS HARD?!" The only problem is that you can't ever outright defy the laws of physics; you can only find loopholes and back alley deals with it, and sooner or later, all those shenanigans will catch up with the car, and unlike paying your dues on time, you don't get to choose when and how you pay when physics comes kicking down your door.

While the I5N's wealth of onboard electronic wizards can work black magic with its incredibly sticky Pirelli P-Zero 275/35R21 tyres, the car ends up not just being numb, but also completely unpredictable at the limit because so many computers are working behind the scenes in baffling ways, resulting in a car that just feels like it has a mind of its own. One moment, it feels damn near indistinguishable from a lightweight, rear mindship sports car in how it slices in to hunt an apex, and the next, it's understeering like a typical nose–heavy AWD on corner exit. I never know what the heck the car is doing, which tyres have grip, or how much torque each wheel is getting at any given time mid–corner. I never know what to expect every time I roll onto the accelerator pedal or turn the steering wheel off centre. Sometimes, it cooperates, and sometimes, it resists. Sometimes, it saves itself and sometimes, it doesn't. And sometimes, we both try to save it, and we end up over–correcting as a whole and end up facing a barrier. The way the I5N's tyres can go from having ample grip to suddenly screaming out in surrender is so sudden, it's almost akin to watching a terribly distasteful video with awkward jump cuts. The end result is not just an extremely disconnected driving experience, but one that's also rife with distrust; I not only constantly under–drive the car, but I don't even know how near I am to its limits when I under–drive it, and that's just the complete opposite of what I'm looking for in a fun sports car. The problem with EVs, of course, is that they're much, much heavier than a comparable ICE, and thus, they always need technological wizardry to cheat physics just to do the same things an ICE can naturally do. And until battery technology gets to the point where they can be just as light as ICEs, and/or a car manufacturer can somehow make cheating software feel natural to drive, I will never be convinced by an EV as a replacement for the ICE sports car.

But, bafflingly, even the one thing an EV ought to excel at, the I5N isn't very good at; it gets out–launched by many an ICE car from a standing start, even with the Overtake button held down since standstill. An NC1 "nsx" would dump the Ioniq as though a short–lived clutch, and the base Urus would leave the supposedly hot 5 N feeling more than five shades of blue when the lights turn green. Heck, even an Ioniq 5 N would leave the Ioniq 5 N dead off the line if the driver of the latter Ioniq doesn't hold down the Overtake button. It may not be that palpable of a boost when conveyed through just a TV screen, but the extra power the Overtake button unleashes on the I5N is enough to pull out a difference of 1 or 2 car lengths from a standing start to the first corner of most racetracks. And yes, that does mean that, to get the optimal pace out of the car, one must hold down an extra button for almost the whole lap, and that's just so incredibly stupid. The car would sooner vector torque for me and smash me into a wall than to just give me full power when I have the throttle pedal fully depressed. Back in my day, if we wanted to maximise the range of our sinful petrol cars, we'd short shift them, put them in eco mode, or set a leaner fuel mix, and that was it. We set it and forget it. We didn't have to hold down an extra button to maintain maximum performance from our petrol cars. I'd sincerely like to meet the genius who thought the Overtake button was a good idea, and I'd very much like to shake their hand vigorously with a cheese grater, stopping only when they give me a massage with their free hand, just to see how much they like it.

ionic megumin by Nataenist
#anime #megumin #konosuba

"Hurr you don't need to hold the Overtake button when you're slowing the car down durr gottem!", you might be thinking to yourself sometime reading the previous paragraph. And you'd be right: when slowing the Ioniq 5 N down for a corner, you don't have to hold the Overtake button... you need to hold the parking brake button instead. Yes, the parking brake button, doing triple digit speeds. And if that sounds suicidal to you, then consider yourself lucky to have driven normal, well–sorted cars for most of your life to have formed that sane opinion, because the I5N sure as hell isn't normal nor well–sorted. The I5N's tyre grip is so underutilised under braking that, on a smooth, level, and dry racetrack, the ABS hardly even intervenes when the car is shod with its default Sports Hard tyres. Engaging the parking brake in braking zones makes use of so much of the unutilised longitudinal grip left in the tyres, and as long as the car isn't too off neutral when the parking brake is engaged, it stays remarkably straight and stable for about half a second before the rear tyres start to even squeal. The effect of using the parking brake to slow the I5N down are simply mind boggling: it goes from "okay yeah it takes about a time zone to stop, but I guess it's pretty good considering its mass", to, "oh my god I CAN OUTBRAKE OTHER CARS, IN AN ELECTRIC SUV!". So, driving one of the most technologically advanced cars of the mid 2020s quickly devolves into something as unsophisticated and uncouth as riding a bicycle, wherein you have two brake actuators, and to get the most of the vehicle, you have to manually balance the use of both. Next thing Hyundai will be telling me is that I have to wear skin tight pants with no underwear and flagrantly ignore road rules to be a sweaty hazard to everyone around me to drive the I5N... which isn't super far from the truth. If timed right, the parking brake can be held when the steering wheel is initially tipped off–centre for a VERY short instant, which can provide very useful rotation into a corner, but you have to really, really time and execute it right, or the car will just piledrive armco. I don't know about you, but I like my cars with proper brake balancing done before I get into the car so that one pedal is all I need, rather than having to rip the handbrake just to stop the damn thing before hitting a wall. IRL, I doubt the car would even let drivers engage the parking brake when the car is in motion, anyway.

If you told me five years ago that I'd be recommending the NC1 "nsx" over another car, I'd have bopped you in the head and told you as nicely as I could to never talk to me again, but here we are: the NC1 "nsx" is a better track car than the I5N. Aiko ran one in most of our Wednesday lobby races, and more often than not, he'd be several seconds ahead of the pack of I5Ns at the end of a 10 min sprint. They're both rated similarly to each other, and the "nsx" is much more predictable to drive with much, much more range. While the I5N is an impressive feat of engineering, it's not even fit to fantasise about being a poor man's 981 GT4 on a racetrack. The notion that the Ioniq is supposed to excite a petrolhead on a track is ironic at best and moronic at worst.