Car of the Week Reviews—Mazda LM55 Vision Gran Turismo Gr.1

2020 may have marked the end of the world as we knew it, but for a Hikikomori like me, something much bigger to me ended—my nonexistent racing career. It just so happens that the Mazda LM55 Vision Gran Turismo Gr.1 was the last car I ever raced competitively in an FIA race back in January two years ago. A Group 1 race around Circuit de la Sarthe with inconsequential tyre and fuel use, the usual domineer of Gr.1, the TS050, is rendered completely useless in the race with its comparative lack of top end on the speed focused track, opening up the field to a never before seen variety of machinery in competitive FIA races, ranging from technical LMP1 machines more focused on outright speed, to some obscure VGT converts, and even the dinosaurs of the bygone Group C era were viable! I often criticise Group 1 for being one of the most whack categories in the game, but remove the hybrid cars and their fuel advantage and I think we end up with a class that is much more finely balanced than any sane person could've ever fathomed.

In that hypothetical dream scenario, the Mazda LM55 VGT Gr.1 was, as I recall, one of the fastest cars on the time attack leaderboard, being the weapon of choice for aliens such as Nik Makozi. Me? Well, I spent the whole night before and even a bit of the morning of the race panic–designing a Furai tribute livery for the race and got zero practice in, so I was sleep deprived come race day, and well, the completely random track limits pushed me over the edge into deciding to quit Sport Mode entirely. It simply has become too much dedication, too much work, too much stress, too much frustration, too little control over the chaos, and too little fun. It felt more like a stressful job than a hobby. And so I quit to spend probably more time and dedication writing car reviews on a weekly basis while neglecting my real job most of the time to do more research, testing, and writing. Hey, what's a man without his passion, right? At least this is fun. Testing the LM55 Gr.1 this week in Car of the Week then, feels to me like coming a full circle... especially because I was similarly sleep deprived during this week's meet.

*dodges a thrown tomato* "GET TO THE CAR ALREADY!", I hear you yelling from the back of the room in the dark.

Maybe the reason I'm padding the word count by telling you about myself is because I don't know much about the car. All we can know for certain is that this car is NA and AWD, because nowhere has its engine type been confirmed officially to my knowledge, nor has its placement within the car been made clear, though any sane person would have to assume it's rear mid engined given the flat nosed silhouette of the car. The "brap brap brap" at idle, the stratospheric 9,000rpm redline, and its peaky nature all suggest a Wankel Engine, though the number of rotors, its displacement, or the type of fuel the highly adaptable engine uses is still a complete mystery. The whole reveal trailer for the thing is literally some corny Christmas musical before Mazda goes through its usual resume of winning 1991's 24h of Le Mans while harping on its styling and nothing else. How much does it weigh? How much power does it make? Pssssshhhhhh, is that important? You know it's inspired by the 787B and shaped by KODO design philosophy! What else could possibly matter?

So far then, so very typical of a Vision Gran Turismo car: no one has any idea WTF is going on, who the car's for, what it's meant to do, what its specs even are, and what this means for the company or its customers alike. Very surprisingly for a car in Gran Turismo, an area where we know more about the LM55 than any fictional Gran Turismo car is under its sheet metal: there is an official render of a car with its external shell removed, exposing inner mechanicals such as suspension, exhaust routes, its sole gullwing door in its open position, and even a fully rendered interior that went totally unused in Gran Turismo 6! Were opening body parts or a much more detailed cosmetic damage model ever in the cards for the Gran Turismo series? Or did Mazda go the extra mile in designing their Vision Gran Turismo car because they're passionate, detail oriented folk? Only the team who worked on it can say for sure.

The innards of the LM55 VGT, unseen in any game. Source: https://www.gran-turismo.com/us/vgt/mazda/

The interior of the LM55 VGT as seen in Gran Turismo Sport.

While Gran Turismo Sport does give the LM55 a new interior, it's clear that the interior in Sport is of a completely separate design from the initial render. With a two–tone interior based on the exterior paint of the car and an immensely helpful HUD on the windshield using Mazda's old font, it certainly looks more uplifting than the initial render, which looks much more soulle- I mean, race focused. A neat detail in the interior to me is how the car's ingress and egress point is very clearly the right side, just like a proper LMP car. Very oddly for a racing car however, the interior of the LM55 in Sport features... air con vents? And no reverse camera? Why do I get the feeling this is the work of PD and not Mazda?

In darker areas of the track, such as in tunnels, the mirrored HUD can even be seen from the outside of the car! How cool is that?

With a fully fleshed out interior, it's such a shame that the car's windshield and windows still retain their high opacity and blackened look, as though still trying to hide a lack of an interior. I personally dislike tinted windows, as it just somehow makes a car look smug and haughty, like sunglasses on a person, and I automatically assume a person to be a jackass if they use either. Is that a fault of mine or the car? Probably mine. I still don't like them, though. I think clear polycarbonate windows would suit the airy theme of a car painted in Atmospheric White with SkyActiv Technology better than TAMIYA sticker windows.

So, we know the interior has been revamped for the LM55's return in Sport. The real question however, is whether its handling has been updated for Sport, because back in October of 2017, Car of the Week tested the LM55 in Gran Turismo 6, where the crew found... a distinct lack of the Jinba–Ittai feeling any good Mazda should have, to put it lightly. To summarise if you for some reason don't want to read it straight from the horses'... mouths?, the car suffered from horrendous understeer and braking distances longer than the legacy of the Rotary Engine, both of which may be attributed to the excessive camber angle PD gave all racecars in a later patch—1.5 and 3.5 degrees front and rear respectively, causing more than 6 degrees of separation between itself and the road. Now, Gran Turismo Sport is hardly the game that even gets close to replicating a car's real tendencies and behaviour if their horrendous MR GT3 cars are anything to go by, and so things just seem destined to go from bad to worse for the LM55... unless of course, if two wrongs make a right.

And I'm very pleased to say that that does indeed seem to be the case for the LM55! The detuned Gr. 1 version of it, at least!

While I've previously expressed slight doubt regarding the engine placement of the LM55, any scepticism in the name of being factual gets erased immediately when one pulls the steering wheel off centre in the car—the featherweight front end immediately slices in to hunt down the apex of a corner like only a rear mid engined racecar can if you as much partially lift on the throttle, the ferocity and precision of which I'd go as far as to argue exceeds that of many racing cars that are being trail braked. The LM55 truly blends together the best of a rear mid engine layout with All Wheel Drive, while cancelling out the weaknesses of each, and it almost feels like Driving Nirvana at times because of it. One would have to think that a car with such an eager front end would usually have very loose handling, like a fighter jet that's intentionally unstable, but the rear end of the car has never once threatened to break away from me no matter what my half awake self had unfairly thrown at the car, from corner entry to exit, through bumpy rumble strips or even slight off road excursions, no matter what brake bias I've tried with it. Whatever the situation, the LM55's front tyres will always be the limiting factor before the rears ever approach theirs, making for a very easy, stable drive that can be pushed almost to the point of abuse. I have no idea what the centre torque split of the car is, but I wouldn't want to mess with it even if I could! Thanks to this miraculous AWD system, it allows drivers to give it that much more gas that much earlier in a turn in comparison to other MR racecars I've sampled. Because it's driven purely by an ICE engine without turbos or hybrid systems mucking up the power delivery, there are never any nasty surprises with over or understeer like the LMP1-H cars are liable to spring; just a smooth, gradual raise in power and torque with the revs. With eight closely geared forward cogs, you'll always have revs for any corner as well!

787B Post Tsunami by Spicy_Nikorasu livery link

As if Gran Turismo Sport doing justice to a car isn't big enough a surprise, the fact that this package comes courtesy of Mazda of all companies is just mind boggling! Mazda is probably one of the very last companies to come to mind for anyone when the topics of stellar rear mid engined cars or AWD systems come up. After all, the only AWD systems the company makes are just FWD converts, and quite literally the only rear mid engined road car I can think of that can be associated with Mazda is the AZ-1, which didn't even start life as a Mazda, nor ever bore its badge. I really think they should try thinking out of their comfortable, front engined box more! MR layouts are rare for Mazda even in concept car land, but when they do somehow decide to make one, it stuns the entire world and leaves an unforgettable silhouette in its wake, such as the Furai, and now the LM55.

I swear to god, if the engineers at Mazda somehow manage to get a two door, two seat, rear mid mounted NA Rotary sports car with AWD greenlit, I would happily clean their restrooms for the rest of my life if it means that I could be part of the team that helps make it possible! I really do think rear mid engine, AWD makes all the mechanical sense in the world, and the LM55 is proof of that!

...right?

Well... the LM55 is a non TS050 car in Gr. 1, which renders it immediately outclassed and therefore useless in this highly competitive game. The LMP1-H cars can hang with the LM55 in the corners, and will blow the latter's gullwing door off SkyActiv high on the straights with their hybrid power. The LM55, or indeed any non hybrid car, will need a high speed stretch of road, such as the back straight of Maggiore for example, to reel in the hybrid cars and stand a sporting chance against them, and the LM55 is no different. Despite having excellent fuel economy, it is, again, say it with me now: not a hybrid, which means it loses out on longevity as well. The braking prowess of the car, a noted sore point in GT6, has also been addressed, but still leaves something to be desired—the car stops well enough for its power and mass, but it's still not amazing, spectacular, or anything of the sort. In comparison to its Gr. 1 brethren, I find that it still requires markedly earlier braking points, especially for high speed braking zones. With eight forward gears to shift through, your left fingers would be incessantly busy in braking zones, as though furiously scratching an itch that just won't go away. I mean, I get it, it's a peaky Rotary Engine car set up for Le Mans, but isn't eight gears a bit too much? You could probably achieve more with the game's sole aftermarket gearbox option—a fully customisable seven speed.

However, it's not even the car's competitive shortcomings that I dislike the most about it. Rather, it's the sound of the car that grates on me. It sounds like it was copied and pasted as–is from the public registry of ear rapists that is Gran Turismo 6. It sounds phony, plasticky... synthesised. Monophonic. I'm no audiophile, so please forgive me if I misuse terms or don't know what I'm talking about. While other engine notes raise and lower in frequency with revs, the engine note across the rev range of the LM55 sounds to me almost like it's made up of several sound samples of increasing frequency from each other. When the car's revs climb, it sounds like the game simply switches between the sound samples on the fly, and it's as jarring as sliding down a flight of stairs when you were expecting a waterslide. It also sounds just like a sound sample, instead of a sound in a 3D space with reverb... I can't describe it well. It just sounds incredibly flat to me.

I consider myself a Mazda fanboy, and I love their Wankel Engines with an obsessive passion, but the engine in the LM55, whatever it's supposed to be, is just... eww. It's so bad that it makes me never want to ever touch this car unless I have to. I even prefer the similarly phony sound of the 787B in this game than the LM55's engine note, and that's saying something.

In conclusion, I... still don't really know how I feel towards the LM55. It's a VGT, and despite having two versions of itself, both are equally useless. It sounds stupid and awful, and its mechanicals and specifications are just a murky mystery at best. But, it drives like a dream, looks stellar, has shown improvements in its interior, and even has unseen mechanicals rendered! For what it's worth, it's by far the single best driving VGT I've ever driven, and proof that Mazda goes several extra miles even in their off time, break room creations, which is just one of the very many reasons why they're the single best car company ever, bar none. Yes, I'll even fight anyone who disagrees.

Car of the Week Reviews—Chris Holstrom Concepts 1967 Chevy Nova

Not long after I made the blanket statement that all vintage muscle cars are indistinguishable from one another because they all have bias ply tyres, no ABS, leaf springs, open diffs, powerful NA V8s, gearing that only pulls for a quarter mile, and heavy bodies, Vic pulls this thing out his behind and forces us all get intimately acquainted with the steaming extract.

Okay, fine, it's still got a big, powerful V8 up front. Powered by a 6.2L V8, Chris Holstrom Concept's take on a fourth generation Chevrolet Nova uses many modern mechanicals underneath its totally nondescript, period correct body. So thick is the sheep's clothing on this "1967" Nova in fact, that the only hints that this has a nuclear powered wolf underneath are the 4 wheel ventilated disc brakes peeking through modern Forgeline RB3C wheels, wearing impossibly low profile Continental ContiSportContact 5P tyres, with a width of 275mm up front and 305 in the rear, and a modern number plate if your base Nova is registered recently before being driven into CHC's shop in Puyallup Washington. Apparently there's also a small, hand–made cowl vent and air dam below the bumper that could tip off onlookers, but even after spending the week with the car, I still see nothing that really sticks out. It's that incognito.

Powered by a LS9 engine that usually propels a sleek C6 Corvette ZR1 however, any pretence that this is a modestly quick grandpa's car that might have existed in anyone's mind will be eviscerated quicker than the fuel in its tank the moment the engine is started. "But why would I want to spend 300 grand on a brick with a ZR1 engine if I can just buy a ZR1 at a third of the cost?", I hear you echo my past self. How about the fact that the LS9 in the Nova has been mutated to produce another 94HP? No? The fact that it has a five speed manual? A locking diff? Or the fact that this package weighs just 1,366kg (3,011lbs), a whole 142 kilos (311lbs) lighter than said C6 ZR1?

(Golly I sure hope this thing has ABS...)

Okay, so it's super impressive on paper. That much should be a given for a car that has won a GT Award at SEMA, right? But how is it to drive?

That's me in the RX-7, narrowly avoiding getting speared in my rear by a Nova doing 165km/h... in reverse... airbourne.

It's TERRI–FLIPPING–FYING to drive. As if you needed to ask!

(I'm sorry, I usually don't highlight people wiping out, but this is just way too damn funny to me! No hard feelings?)

Modern mechanicals this car may boast, but a racing car this thing is by far not. The suspension is set up way too soft for the power it has and the mass that it doesn't—racing drivers become part time astronomers with how much the nose of this thing lifts on power during corner exits, causing orbital amounts of understeer which, now that I think about it, might be a deliberate design choice so that you might actually see the wall you hit instead of the anal alternative. As a result of the soft suspension, the car sorely lacks the precision one would depend their life on in a car with a better power–to–mass ratio than a Veyron. It will squirm, it will flex, it will protest, and it won't at all hesitate to snap and spit you off the track if you think you've any bargaining power in a relationship that involves your partner having 732HP (546kW). It's a car in which I don't much endeavour to use every millimetre of the road and nail every apex, because I'm more than happy enough to simply make it through a corner alive.

While the CHC Nova shares the same engine as a C6 Corvette, its aerodynamic properties are more akin to a block of C4—never before in my four years of playing this game have I ever caught air at the back straight of Maggiore GP, but lo and behold, that's exactly what happened at a GT3–esque 255km/h (158mph) on said back straight.

All these atrocities is even before this car reaches its peak power output at 6,500rpm. Redlining at 7k, you'll need to wring this Corvette engine as though a Wankel to get the most of it, but the thing is, this engine propels the car so quickly, and the car has so little finesse in comparison that you'll never really have 732HP most of the time, let alone be able to use it. The engine is so peaky it almost feels like a turbocharged unit with how severe a spike in power this thing gets near redline. That's right; all the horrors I described above? Those are all before we even get to the meat skewer of its powerband. It feels fine with however much it produces in the mid–range, and like any good muscle car, it's receptive to being lugged in a lower gear despite its power and torque curves suggesting otherwise. Trust me, it's enough. In fact, many a times I've to make very short lived upshifts when approaching a corner, and I often over rev the engine because the last 500 or so rpm goes by so disproportionately quickly.

To be entirely fair, once if you get over the shock and horror of the power that dominates the experience of driving a CHC Nova, the car itself doesn't handle too horrifically. Yes, the suspension is soft, but that also means that kerbs are a total non issue for the car. The car itself is also surprisingly balanced! I'd really love to know the exact mass distribution of the car, because it feels to me something like a FC RX-7–esque 54/46 F/R, which would be quite the feat considering it's got a 6,162cc engine up front that requires custom headers just to fit under the anvil bonnet. It stops superbly well for a road car with zero aerodynamic devices on it—far better than many of the modern super and hypercars that pack comparable power to it, even with their heavy active aero crap. The fact that this car is one of the very select few to be equipped with non Sports Hard tyres by default from Brand Central—Sport Medium tyres in this case—probably has a lot to do with that stopping performance. It's not a car that's unreasonable or unpredictable—you "just" need to get used to having 732HP and the resultant speeds, learn to brake early, and be gentler on the gas pedal than you would a newborn kitten on corner exits. And uh... watch the body roll. And the power understeer. And the power oversteer. And the torque spike. And the aerodynamic lift at high speeds. Hey, I never said it was easy! I'm just saying it could be worse! Way worse!

So what have we learnt so far? That the CHC Nova is expensive, powerful, difficult to drive, and terrifying. Are there any alternatives to it that can give similar performance though, and preferably at a cheaper (laundromat) cost? Well, as Baron has proven on race day, the Mustang Mach Forty is just as fast, if not more so, than the CHC Nova even when kneecapped to the Nova's original power and mass as per our lobby's regulations, while costing the exact same 300,000 Credits. Not sure how much I want to deal with a rear mid engine layout though, if the Nova is already so bloody terrifying at these power levels. Despite having less power and more mass on paper, the 2018 Camaro ZL1 1LE is much better set up for track use, and will happily hang with its resurrected ancestor with a transplanted heart while costing less than a third its asking price. If you can wring any enjoyment from driving that soulless lump of marketing metal, or if you can actually get a read on the damn thing, the Taycan will utterly destroy the Nova, saving you 70 grand in the process in exchange for proving to the world beyond any doubt that you're more a benevolent, unfeeling machine whose sole reason for existence is to destroy other racers than an actual human being capable of emotions.

But all that is completely irrelevant, isn't it? A person shopping for something as niche and focused as a CHC Nova will know exactly what they're looking for, where to find it, the price they'll have to pay for it, both financial and practical, and won't settle for anything else—because in spite of having modern mechanicals, the CHC Nova is, in my culturally ignorant opinion, the purest muscle car one can buy (sort of...) in the 21st century.

Sure, Chevy, Dodge, and Ford still make muscle cars, and I thoroughly enjoy the Camaro ZL1 1LE and Charger Hellcat that are both in this game. But they don't... have that raw, bleeding edge to it. They feel compromised from having to adhere to modern day safety and emissions regulations, customer demands, and so on. Maybe this is just the opinion of someone who was never a fan of muscle cars and doesn't know a whole lot about them as a result, but to me, what makes the persona of a muscle car is obviously its straight line speed, but also how everything else has to utterly, shamelessly, proudly, unabashedly SUCK. Cornering, safety, fuel economy, build quality, comfort. I feel like that shameless sucking is part of the charm of a muscle car. It speaks a lot of the person who would knowingly own such a thing, about their priorities, their sense of security, their inner child, and their ability to be responsible enough to restrain themselves when driving the sort of deathtrap on public roads and still be alive to this day. Modern muscle cars just don't have that cool, shameless aura of, "Yeah, I know this this and this about my car is awful, what of it? It's cool, I like it, and that's all that matters" that seemingly makes the driver larger than life.

The problem is that modern cars simply cannot suck nowadays. Everything has to be accountable, responsible, sensible, and perhaps most importantly I suspect, legally unassailable. Don't get me wrong—that's wonderful for us consumers, but I feel that it does hinder the character of some cars, such as Lamborghinis for example, and muscle cars. If a muscle car handles well, has a nice interior, and salvageable fuel economy, then it's just a sports or GT car with a high drag body, isn't it? I've even said before in my 2016 Camaro SS review that "I can very easily see (it) being the FD RX-7 or 993 911 for somebody else who grew up in a different time or place". I meant it as high praise, but I'm not entirely sure if it's a good thing.

The CHC Nova on the other hand, is like a fusion of eras that permeates beyond its retro body; it drives like a vintage muscle car in spite of its modern equipment. It has sloppy, lopsided handling that no person in a suit and tie would greenlight in a big company. It would still sooner deactivate your heart than any of its cylinders, and it will properly horrify anyone who drives it. What those modern mechanicals do is, instead of taking away the horrors of driving a muscle car, they instead take away any excuse a driver might have for a sloppy display at a track. It invalidates the excuse of, "it's not me, it's the car". And what that results in is, quite frankly, a glimpse into an alternate reality we never had. A reality where cars can have and embrace faults and character. A muscle car that can be a muscle car thorough and through in 2021. A car that can scare its drivers and intimidate onlookers. It is a car that can only be driven someone who thinks that they know what they're doing, and may God bless them like He did America if they think they do. Me personally, I wouldn't go anywhere near striking radius of that thing, which, given the speeds it's capable of, I'd say... maybe 500 miles? THAT, to me, is a muscle car.

The CHC Nova feels very personal. Intimate, even. If I have to provide an analogy, the ZL1 and Hellcat is like reading the biography of someone, and the CHC Nova feels like reading that person's diary—one is a product, and the other is a passion. A product can be good or bad. People can enjoy it or dislike it. But it needs to justify itself to others in order to continue its existence. A diary on the other hand, is entirely independent of the needs or enjoyment of others, because it's a personal thing with unmasked feelings and unique perspectives, whose worth stems from being different from others, and therefore deserves to exist by definition. There is no benchmark, no measure for how good or bad a diary entry is, and any such judgment therefore becomes completely subjective, if not irrelevant. I may not like the person, but every time I've managed to read the thoughts that someone else has penned down, I've enjoyed the experience and gained new perspectives, making me more empathetic a person. It's why documentaries and autobiographies of murderers and other such criminals exist, isn't it? The contents may be raw, it may be rough, it may even be repulsive, but there is a lot to be said about the purity and honesty in a diary that money cannot buy, and there often is a priceless sweetness buried in the ugly emotions. The 300,000 Credit CHC Nova then, feels almost like a diary or a love letter with a price tag slapped onto it. It has that nonchalant, self–assured charisma to it that makes a muscle car a muscle car, that modern muscle cars have lost a little bit of. I hugely respect CHC for putting this out there to the world, and I'm very glad I got to experience it even if only through a digital divide. Because gosh knows I'll never have the balls to in real life.

I mean, hell, even writing these long, unprofessional, somewhat personal reviews to a small audience is pretty much at the limit of what I dare do.

small talk: Experimentation and Exhaustion

The good thing about this job is that it basically lets me work whenever I want, for however long I want to. It's flexibility like that that lets me do other things, like having medical appointments that are only available during office hours, and partaking in the weekly Car of the Week races.

It's precisely that flexibility that made me realise how important to me a routine is. For the past ten or so months that I've been doing this job, I've largely stuck to a routine of 6–10am, 6–when I'm tired enough pm, with a nap in between, Mondays to Fridays. Because I've no plan or routine on weekends, I often sleep those away not even touching my car. In essence, I work 8 hours a day, five days a week, just like your typical office Joe, despite having all the freedom in the world.

I guess the fact that I've decided my own schedule for myself is all the difference there is.

With that freedom also comes a vulnerability to laziness, especially if you've no discipline nor drive like me, and so a dead set, brainless schedule is all that keeps this cog on the shaft of society. For the past two days, I've been trying to find alternatives to that, because broken sleep is terrible, and waking up at 5:30 in the morning is god awful, schedule or not. Oh, and there's also the slight issue of me desperately needing to fit half an hour of exercise into my daily life to be healthier and not feel so lethargic, but being too lethargic and tired to even do enough work to turn a profit. And then having to spend an obsessive amount of time writing car reviews because that's just about the only thing I have that's keeping me going.

I thought I could wake up at 7 or so in the morning, go for a light jog that hopefully doesn't completely snuff out this ember that is my life on this mortal plane, and then work for 8 hours consecutively, maybe with a quick meal break in between. I sort of tried that today, and uh...

I realised just how goddamn tiring driving in Singapore is, especially during peak hours. I did only about three hours of nonstop work, and at the end of it I could tell I was getting tired, angry, sad, and just plain having a bad time. I honked at someone purely out of irritation, and that's when I knew I had to stop, get out of my car, take a long walk, deep breath, and a nap to forget it all before I allow myself back into the 1.2 ton murder machine. I feel like this is the sort of thing that narcotics and addictions are supposed to help with. To release and forget. And to give justification for this endless struggle.

When the fuel attendant asked me which fuel to put in, I sounded as exhausted and out of breath as though I spent the last three hours running a marathon instead of sitting in a cool, dry environment barely moving my hands and feet.

I'm... a little afraid of myself. Of when I become tired. Of when I become angry. Of when I lose my inhibitions. I've seen what I can do or say. I don't want to ever go back there. I know it sounds dramatic, probably more than what's justifiable, but it is what I feel nonetheless.

Driving is tiring not just because I've to be alert and avoid other brain dead motorists, but also because I need to inhibit myself so much. There are so many things that can happen within mere minutes of each other that make me angry, that is pure irresponsible, that is outright dangerous, that is downright rude. I may not be at fault and I may have the right of way, but the last thing anyone on the road wants is for contact to happen, and so I feel like I've to take responsibility for the safety of everyone who shares the road with me, either because they're genuine dumbasses, because they're unfamiliar with the roads, because they're rude and know that I'll stop before hitting them, thereby taking advantage of me, or because of human error.

I feel like I think I've said this elsewhere before, but I feel like an emotional sponge—I get so easily affected by the actions, tone, mood, or words of those around me and get sucked into feeling what they feel. My therapist tells me that that's an invaluable, sought after trait of therapists, because it lets them empathise with their patients. But the problem is that I'm not a therapist. I'm too dumb to be one and I really don't think I've the compassionate heart that is the forefront requirement of the job. And so I just feel fragile. Unstable. Formless. Weak. Vulnerable. Easy to manipulate. And angry at all that. I wish I wasn't so much a sponge as a rock. I don't want to care. I don't want to feel anything. Feelings are just inconvenient. Feelings tire me out. If I'm never going to have anything I want in life, then what's the point of having feelings? If all I'm going to feel is lethargy, anger, tiredness, sadness, emptiness, frustration, hatred?

Maybe it's all just in my head. After all, common sense dictates that there is both good and bad in the world out there, isn't it? So why is it that when I drive, I seemingly absorb and feel only negativity? Is the world out there really that spiteful, or am I just insane and weak? Which is the better option?

It started out as small talk, anyway...

Car of the Week Reviews—Mazda Demio XD Touring '15

When the 2015 Mazda Demio XD Touring was added to Gran Turismo Sport as part of update 1.47 in late October of 2019, I was most definitely the happiest person in the entire player base of Gran Turismo at the time, and probably by a long, long shot too.

You see, the Mazda Demio, known as the Mazda2 in export markets (and also now in Japan... go figure), holds a very, very special place in my heart, as it's the very first car I've ever driven on Japanese roads when I rented one to navigate Japan back in 2017, and is also the first Mazda this fanboy of the brand has ever driven anywhere. I had to rent a car as Daikoku Futou, my destination on an industrial reclaimed island, is not served by public transportation, and taxis never venture in there on their own. If the name "Daikoku Parking Area" sounds familiar to you, it may well be because it's the venue of a well–known RX-7 meet every 7th of July (7/7)... or it could just be that it's a Scapes location in this game, released at the end of that year!

I mean, yes, the Demio I rented from Times Car Rental was a 3rd gen model with a petrol engine, automatic gearbox, and (for some very puzzling reason,) AWD, which means that the Demio that's featured in the game, a 4th Gen diesel manual FF, literally cannot be any more different than the car I had driven while still sharing the same name. But pah, details. Who's ever given a rat's behind about those?

Even without my personal experiences and bias though, the Demio has always been an integral part of the Gran Turismo series. The first gen Demio in Chaste White is quite possibly the first car many players have driven in Gran Turismo 1's very first licence test, and has been with the series since through both their incarnations. In fact, in Gran Turismo 6, a 3rd gen Demio Sport had a CVT gearbox, which is an excruciating rarity in the series. Yes, sure, the CVT may have put many a player to sleep, but what better reason to put a tuba of an exhaust on to ensure that you and everyone else driving within striking distance of you stays awake?

Continuing that lineage of slightly off kilter quirks, the 4th gen Demio in Gran Turismo Sport is powered by a 1,496cc SKYACTIV-D engine, making it one of the only two diesel propelled road cars in the game alongside its stable mate Atenza. Anything faster than these, you'll have to go all the way to Peugeot and Audi's LMP1 offerings to find. According to Mazda, this engine, fitted on both the Demio and Atenza, has the world's lowest compression ratio of (road going?) diesel engines, at 14.0:1, fed by a trick two-stage turbocharger reminiscent of the system found in the FD RX-7 of lore. As the cherry on top of the block, said engine is mated to a proper 6 speed stick shift manual gearbox to further set itself apart from even its stable mate, making it quite the curious gem of a car to examine under the microscope this week.

...wait, isn't a high compression ratio better for any internal combustion engine? Why is Mazda boasting about having the lowest compression ratio diesel? Gah, I don't know. My pea brain is already melting from writing this week's review and staring at all the numbers and Japanese on the spec sheets.

I know it's a bit of a stretch, but I think the Demio is one of the quiet pillars of the series, an integral part of its soul, if you will. If you'll Ittai your Jin with your ba for a moment and take a slow gait with me down memory lane, the Gran Turismo games of old always had players starting out in a cheap box that barely moves, with which you're somehow supposed to win races, thereby scraping together some credits to either upgrade said box or buy something less boxy and more feisty. It's that struggle and progressive training of a player in these attainable, everyday boxes on wheels that set apart the Gran Turismo series from its rivals since its inception, and has come to define the genre it created, named "caRPG". If you're skilled (and mad!) enough, these boxes could even share a racetrack with sports, super, or even racecars! The fact that this e–sports focused title that takes itself way too seriously, Gran Turismo Sport, has included a Demio in it gives me hope that Gran Turismo 7 can rekindle some of that lost magic of past titles, and let me feel that sense of childlike wonder with attainable, oddball cars I never knew existed, and imbue me with encyclopedic knowledge about them.

Now that I (think I) am an adult, it's relatable and attainable cars like the Fit and Demio that excite me more than supercars and racecars, believe it or not. Yeah, the McLaren F1 is brilliant, and it'd be nice to sample a Koenigsegg to see what all the fuss is about, but I'm never going to even be able to close to one of those cars. In contrast, I've been able to rent a Fit Hybrid for my work and even write a long, drawn out review for it, which truly has been one of the greatest highlights of my life thus far. I would dearly love to be able to find a diesel Demio to rent for my work in the same fashion, but surprise surprise, the only Mazda2 that's unfortunate enough to get sucked into this hellhole that is Singapore is the petrol model and only with a slushbox, despite its in–game description stating that over 60% of initial orders for the car were specced with the turbodiesel engine. If there's anything the all inclusive country of mine hates, it's cars and people with a passion... and people with taste. And poor people. And biological males. And hom-

*cough*

Anyway, I'm still hoping that one day, I'll be able to bring you that real life review of a Demio diesel. In fact, I scare even myself with how disproportionately much I want to do it. I'm almost tempted to put myself in a financial vice of importing one myself to do that, the cost of which to do so in Singapore is enough get oneself a robustly optioned 718 Boxster anywhere else in the world. Why doesn't someone just shotgun me in the back of the head already?

Even when comparing the Fit Hybrid and Demio Diesel on paper for my boring real life applications, I really struggled immensely to see just what the latter offers that the former doesn't. A base Fit Hybrid offers more boot space, a better overall Euro NCAP safety rating, and much better fuel economy than even the 6MT, i-ELOOP equipped Demios, such as the one featured in this game. You'll need to order specific grades of the Demio to get a it with a stick with seven forks, pushing the prices up to Fit Hybrid or RS territory (and no, the 15MB doesn't count, cool as it may be). Now, there are almost endless ways you can spec the two cars, but as they are in the game, the Demio costs a whopping 2,700 Credits more than the Fit Hybrid at 19,500 Cr., and this gap in price is something I find largely holds true in the real world as well.

Of course, the Fit Hybrid has problems in the real world that aren't replicated in the game, as I'm sure does the Demio. I regrettably can't compare these two in the real world without bankrupting myself and seventeen generations down my family tree, but what I can tell you even without having an actual physical Demio is that it comes with ACTUAL, PHYSICAL KNOBS FOR CLIMATE CONTROL, along with a touchscreen that you're not "supposed" to actually touch—which on their own are more than enough to justify any price hike over the Fit, and together makes me want to marry the head engineer of Mazda sight unseen. Not only that, the Demio comes optional with Mazda's Active Driving Display—a pop up screen on top of the dash onto which the most vital tidbits of information when driving, namely nav instructions, the current road's speed limit, and the car's instantaneous speed, is projected, so that the driver's line of sight never needs to veer off the road ahead. The pop up display is such a godsend—one that I kept wishing I had in real life with my Fit when ducking under speed cameras (not that I ever go above the speed limit, of course).

I mean, think about it, what's the next cheapest non–Mazda car that has a HUD speedo? Baby, don't even look at me unless your car can give me that sexy pop–up action! Does your Bugatti and Ferrari have HUDs? No? Peasants, the lot of you! Don't even come close to me or you'll infect me with the stench of POOR!

With the Demio falling behind the Fit on paper, I was really hoping that it would make sense once the Ko really starts to Do... oh fine, once the soul really begins to move, for those of you unfortunate enough to be illiterate with the culturally rich language of Nihongo. Unfortunately, the Demio also falls short of the Fit Hybrid in the driving dynamics department, which is such a shocker for me personally. The Demio is so softly sprung that, even on the downgraded, cold Comfort Soft tyres we were running on race day (default are Sports Hard), you'll be shaving off body panels with your tyres under hard cornering loads on a perfectly smooth and level racetrack such as Maggiore.

The driving impressions I'm about to dump on you are therefore done on Comfort Medium tyres, which just feel like spiteful, economy, poor man rubbish mashed and melded into the shape of a tyre. Might well be appropriate, given that cars of the Demio's ilk often come with CM tyres by default in previous games, where they actually gave a damn about road cars. *sigh*

In contrast to the Fit, the softer Demio moves around and squirms a lot under stress. It definitely seems to me that the Demio has been set up to be more comfortable than racy. Despite being lower in height and weighing the exact same as the Fit Hybrid even when measured in pounds (2,381lbs, 1,080kg), the Demio just oddly feels like it has its centre of gravity set at SkyActiv heights up front, perhaps because the diesel engined Demios do suffer quite the mass penalty in comparison to its petrol counterparts. In any case, the Demio diesel feels heavier than it actually is, requiring drivers to brake markedly earlier to ease the unwilling car into a corner in comparison to the Fit, which feels more like a go–kart that allows you to brake stupidly late and flick it into a corner without much thought. The Demio on the other hand, feels much more mortal, mechanical, and old–school a drive, reminiscent of the cheap but cheerful Japanese crapboxes that people tend to romanticise. You have to have your finger on the pulse of the car and treat it right before it will reciprocate, and is such an involving and engaging drive because of it.

It may be soft, but it's still a Mazda, the company that continues to sell us the ND Roadster, a sports car noted by many to be soft as well. Similarly in the Demio, that softness does not necessarily mean sloppiness—there's thought and design that went into the suspension setup of the Demio, which becomes evident the moment you find out how to make it Zoom–Zoom. You'll need to trail brake into corners, be cognizant of where weight is at all times, and keep an eye on the tach. And speaking of, the tachometer is large and dead centre in the dash, with 4k rpm where the diesel engine makes its peak power top dead centre, lending this unassuming car such a spunky feel. There is definitely a "click", an eureka moment, if you get things right in the car, and nailing that perfect lap with it feels more laborious and more rewarding as a result. Whether that fits your definition of "good handling" or "fun to drive" is, of course, entirely up to you, but speaking for myself personally, I feel more awake driving the Demio than I do the Fit, simply because the latter simply gives me what I want instantly with no drama... and it really isn't any faster than the Demio after about 4 minutes of flat out racing when it runs out of battery juice.

If you're planning for your career in GT7 and are wondering if the Fit Hybrid and Demio diesel are any good, I'd say that the Fit is the much, much better choice in a racing game that doesn't simulate its horrid throttle response while magically giving you manual control over its cogs. It's tauter, much more immediate in the twisties, and will happily even wear Sports tyres. A 4 minute advantage over the Demio is still an advantage, after which they are more or less equal in pace. Unfortunately, the Demio diesel isn't good for much of anything aside from novelty when translated into the digital realm, and while I personally like both a lot, I can only recommend one.

Cars like the Demio are doomed to never really leave that much of an impression in a game that laser focuses on sanctioned, formal racing using built to spec racecars. It's no FD RX-7, it's no Taycan Turbo, nor is it a Viper GT3-R. It's never going to set anyone's pants on fire or melt their hearts—it's not even going to get any use in the game's utter sham of a campaign mode. You most likely won't be too moved by this car in its digital form, physically or emotionally.

But the thing is, I have been moved physically and emotionally by the car in an area where it excels—in real life, and therefore I'm very, very biased towards it. Half this "review" is me just going on a diatribe about my real life joys and sorrows. I love throwing cheap, light, little cars around, especially if they've a Mazda badge on them. The Demio may have a badge that says "2" on it in most markets, but it is the car of many firsts for many people. It was the first car I've ever driven in Japan, the first Mazda I've ever driven, and the first car that really made me know the joys of vehicle ownership. I remember checking into a hotel in the dead of night bringing only my PJs and a bag of toiletries with me to my room instead of my entire luggage, instead leaving that in the back seat of the Demio. I remember that time I brazenly left the Demio unlocked and running outside a convenience store, a conbini as they call it in Japan, because Japan was such a safe and courteous country. I walked in asking for directions to RE Amemiya, and in hindsight I really should've bought something as thanks. Looking at a Demio brings back to me the heavenly taste of Starbucks' Caffe Latte on a groggy, one handed morning drive. A coffee that I'm horribly lactose intolerant to, yet I need so, so much. A coffee that costs only a mere ¥216 per bottle at any conbini—a price that I've yet to be able to find even closely replicated back here in Singapore, IF they even import it. Seeing a Demio brings all those sweet, sweet memories flooding back to me, and I can't possibly critique or review it in a fair manner. I'm biased towards Mazdas normally, but this one especially so.

The Demio isn't a "2" in my eyes; it's number one.