W207 Mercedes-Benz A 45 AMG 4Matic '13

Alright, show of hands: who didn't even remember that this car is in the game?

I, for one, forgot. The 2013 Mercedes-Benz A 45 AMG 4Matic has a knack for eluding attention, even if taken out of the context of an e–sports focused game that largely ignores German sleepers. It doesn't have flared fenders, bonnet bulges, or fat exhaust pipes that are the rare but typical giveaways of souped up German performance, and even IF they're there, they're so subtle that I can't tell at all. I mean, for gosh's sake, even the "4Matic" in its name just makes it sound like it has a 4 speed automatic gearbox geared towards grandpas driving from the retirement home to their graves during morning peak hour jams, too scared to pass a cooperative cyclist. It simply isn't a shouty car that wants to be noticed. In fact, the only thing that even hints at the enthusiasts' intent underneath would be the utterly ridiculous 19 inch wheels optional on the AMG, an inch up from the standard items. I'm sure there are more giveaways to the trained eye, but by and large, the A45 is so good at making me forget that there's a 355HP (264kW) AWD hatchback lurking in this game that, even if I do remember its existence, it just ends up as background prop to populate a photo featuring another car.

At this point, I might become the GTS' version of SomePlayaDude, and my JCW Countryman is the Cayman GT4.

...if you didn't get that reference, you really ought to check out FH5's COTW thread, which has been pretty great so far.

So, the A45 AMG has got insane performance and a talent for flying under the radar. Sounds exactly like the sort of car we here at Car of the Week are all about, then?

To drive, the A45 AMG shows similar grace to its beautiful interior. Despite packing 50 more HP than the next most powerful hatch, the FK2 Civic Type R, the A45 never sweats putting all its power down to the road at any moment it's asked to in the dry. Of course, it's got AWD which helps to do just that—that's what the "4Matic" in its name stands for and I definitely knew that before writing this review okay?! But, even by AWD standards, the A45 AMG puts down power gracefully and effortlessly like a Mercedes ought to. I never got any inkling of the car struggling, any tyre chirps under power from any corner or anything of the sort, that would signify the car struggling to put down its power. Rather, the car simply understeers vehemently when the throttle pedal is pressed too much, putting all the cards back in your hands by forcing you to lift off that way, making the driver feel like the inept tool in the whole situation while it barely breaks its graceful demeanour. And don't think it puts power down neatly by hiding its 355HP behind a peaky powerband either, as a turbocharged 1,991cc engine having to make 178HP per litre is well entitled to do, because this M133 Inline 4 makes its peak torque of 450Nm (331.9lbf⋅ft) from 2,500rpm, and holds it all the way in a plateau till the power curve overtakes the torque table at 5,252rpm.

As you can probably already piece together by this point, the price to pay for that graceful power and effortless destruction of its hot hatch rivals is in... well, the price tag, yes, but much more so in the corners, I'd argue. The A45 may have 50 more HP to the next hatch in the game, but it's also 175kg (386lbs) heavier as well while costing around 50% more than an FK2 CTR. It is, after all, an understated luxury cruiser instead of a shouty track toy, and nowhere is that more clearly shown than in how soft the suspension setup is, which in my opinion is much more damning on track than its 1,555kg (3,428lbs) mass. It is definitely not a car set up with any sporting intent in mind, with just enough composure to make sure the car doesn't roll or spin out, nothing more. What that translates to in layman terms is "horrible, never ending understeer", which, when further translated into legal speak, means that "if you try to sue Mercedes for an accident in the A45 AMG, know that you don't have a case at all: the car was stable and composed; you clearly went in too fast". This I find is such an oddity, because the only telltale sign of this car's performance I can pick out is the ridiculously large wheels and accompanying low profile tyres barely hugging them, which you would think was intentionally fitted for more precise control and feel for the suspension so that they can work some real magic. On the contrary, the suspension is just... limp. Look, if I'm going to end up with a limp car anyway, can I just have softer, normal sized tyres and wheels and a stiffer suspension instead of the other way around? If you're going to make a car look understated and stealthy, why give it ridiculous looking wheels and puncture prone tyres?

To be fair, the A45 AMG isn't hopelessly terrible in the corners. To borrow a recurring quote from Pickle, the A45 is "still better than the MiTo" in the suspension department. The A45 as a whole doesn't excessively squirm, roll, or seemingly contort and decompose when pushed hard in a corner; it very much keeps its composure. It's just that there's annoyingly enough give in the suspension to take away any and all sense of control and feedback when this big red metal slug is thrown hard into a turn, and there's only a tiny friction circle to work with from the 235mm tyres up front. All that results in is the most frustrating kind of understeer that would kill any hope of a car becoming an enthusiast's pick: the kind you can't do a damn thing about other than to sit on your ARTICO man-made leather seat and wait in excruciating pain while the car slows down enough and regains grip to pull itself out of the sand trap. It has an okay initial turn–in, but at longer, wider corners that make up most paved racetracks, the A45 will struggle, with its unwillingness becoming uncomfortably clear at high speed sweepers such as the Schumacher S of Nürb GP.

Despite the 40:60 torque split and light rear end of the A45 might lead one to believe, the A45 has zero tail happiness to help with that understeer. In fact, it feels like it actively hates that side of itself and fights to hide it from the rest of the world, and it's very successful in that regard. Even in the few off road whoopsies I've had which has broken out the rear end, the car corrects itself almost instantly even when encouraged otherwise with throttle input and steering in the direction of the slide. I'd say the car is idiot proof if idiots can be trusted with a 64,000 Credit, 355HP, 250km/h capable, flame spitting monster.

That said, once you get used to braking early and taking corners slowly, there aren't many hot hatches in the game that can even dream of keeping up with the unbridled power of the Merc. In fact, I think only the GR Yaris can beat the A45 in lap times around Tsukuba, going by Alex's hot lap videos. Combined with its idiot proof handling, understated styling, and that pleasant interior, the A45 AMG is a tool for a comically casual destruction of the hot hatch competition. It is for someone who's had enough of trying, and just wants to win. As much as it's an unsportsmanlike thing to say, I think I'm at the age where I can understand that mentality. Even more frightening than that however, is that I truly think that there's a lot of optimisation that can be done handling wise with just its suspension setup that can unlock even more speed from the Red Slug. I mean, a much older R34 GT-R that is similarly AWD, comparable weight distribution, but with less power, more mass, and even softer suspension does just effortlessly leave the A45 in the dust around Tsukuba. Even though the A45 is a gentlemen's nuke, I think it is more than capable of becoming a genuine sports car if tuned right. Someone just has to take the initiative after being reminded that it exists in the game and told of its untapped potential.

W205 Toyota 86 Gr.4

Just like the Z33 featured last week, the Toyota 86 is a front engine, rear drive, two door sports car in a lineup that has faster two door sports cars. Unlike the Z however, the 86's place in its company is very clear, being the lightweight, low powered, fun to drive, pure and simplistic sports car of its family tree, and one I much prefer over its more expensive sibling. That said, the 86's role in the Toyota family is much more evident in the context of this e–sports focused title, Gran Turismo Sport, being the sole representative of Toyota in Gr.4 events owing to the elusive Supra Gr.4's unavailability in FIA events.

In fact, even among the 28–strong list of Gr.4 cars in this game, the 86 Gr.4 stands out. Unlike its low effort fictional brethren that sports featureless interiors and generic race displays, the 86 Gr.4 instead lifts its interior from the #166 Toyota GAZOO Racing TOYOTA 86 that raced in the SP3 class of the 2012 24 Hours of Nürburgring, a car that has appeared in Gran Turismo 6. Sporting a colourful red bucket seat, the road car's original tach, Gazoo Racing steering wheel, fully functional gauge clusters that display pressures and temperatures, and even a 6 speed stick shifter as opposed to paddle shifters on the steering column, the 86 Gr.4 has a very strong and authentic presence in any setting that sets it apart from the barely inspired fictional Gr.4 competition, be it simply sitting in a garage or lining up on a grid.

On the track, the 86 Gr.4 stays true to the calling of the road car on which it's based; featherweight, agile, gentle on tyres and fuel, easy to toss around, but utterly lacking in straight line pace. Making 358HP (266kW) from its 2L Boxer 4 without the aid of forced induction before BoP takes its 1% cut, the powerband of the 86 Gr.4 is smooth and linear, making peak power just 1,000rpm before its 8,000rpm redline. However, this also means that short shifting to save fuel costs the car a lot of its grunt, and it's totally hopeless from a standing start, being totally unable to spin any racing slick tyres in the dry. So gutless is it in fact, it completely falls flat once pulled out of a fellow 86's slipstream, aligning their speeds together without first putting the nose of the chasing car past the rear fender of the leading car. Overtaking another identically specced 86 in a one make race is difficult enough a task as a result, let alone another Gr.4 car—It gets out launched and out dragged by a Cayman GT4 with BoP applied. That... might have been the single most heinous thing I've ever written in a review, despite meaning no malice.

But of course, no one drives an 86 expecting to crush the competition with raw power; they expect a lightweight, corner craving, cooperative steed that will let them out dance their opponents in a dramatic show of skill and tyre smoke backed by Eurobeat and badly drawn 2D women. To this end, the 86 Gr.4 largely delivers, being so natural and easy in the corners, I rarely had to fight the car to force it into doing more of something it wasn't doing enough, or correct it from doing something I didn't expect. It was so just so neutral, natural, and agile, it felt like the car could read my mind at times. The last four turns of Tokyo South Inner Loop, the right–left–right–left into the main straight, felt less like maneuvering a 1,200kg (2,646lbs) hunk of metal through a series of bends and more like simply being one with the water of a river gently flowing around the rocks in its way; it barely felt like it was something I had to actively affect at all. Any hyperbole or cliché in the book you can hurl at the 86 Gr.4, it will live up to it and then some. In fact, here's one more hyperbole to throw into the pile: Tackling corners in the 86 Gr.4 is simply effortless.

...way too much so for its own good.

Remember that part about "smoke"? This is where that comes in; for some reason I can't fathom, the steering feel of the 86 Gr.4 is uncannily light, almost as if something was broken in my Logitech G29, and I even had to jump ship to my Cayman GT4 just to make sure it wasn't a hardware issue on my end. I usually try to refrain from commenting on steering feel in my reviews because the Force Feedback in the Gran Turismo series has always been notoriously lacking, but the 86's steering feel is decidedly off even in the context of Gran Turismo, almost as if someone forgot to program it for the 86 Gr.4. As I said before, the 86 corners effortlessly, but a large part of that might be down to how light the steering wheel is. As a consequence, there is nearly no feel, no feedback at all from the steering wheel when driving the 86 Gr.4 at the limit. I never know what the tyres are doing when push finally comes to shove, or if they are even in contact with the road when going over crests of hills or bumps and rumble strips, which has led me to explore alternative offroad routes in every paved racing circuit I brought my 86 to, even the ones I'm intimately familiar with like Bathurst. Driving an 86 Gr.4 feels almost like meeting a romantic partner on a blind date, with whom I share amazing chemistry and get along super well with, only for them to completely ghost me at the altar come wedding day. It's utterly bizarre and downright disgusting how quickly it earns the trust of its driver, egging them to trash it harder, only to completely go limp on them at the worst of times when we need that communication the most.

I know Igor Fraga might prove the following statement I'm about to make wrong at any given moment, but I genuinely think the 86 Gr.4 is WAY too slow to make any sort of impression in a field of Gr.4 cars, especially if tyres and fuel aren't an issue in the race. Simply as a plaything, the obscene lack of steering feel immediately makes it an awful car despite its sharp and otherwise intuitive handling. I genuinely think that it'd be a strong contender for the title of "Driving Nirvana" in my head, currently held by the Cayman GT4 Clubsport, if the steering feel were to be fixed. For friends who have followed this thread for years, they'd know just how deeply I love my Cayman GT4 CS, and in turn, how high a praise that would've been. For now, I'd much rather drive the Supra Gr.4 if I for some odd reason need to drive a Toyota Gr.4 car, because much like the 86, it's a well balanced, corner craving handling machine with no straight line grunt. Last I checked, the Supra Gr.4 actually has steering feel too. Funny how Toyota is blessed with having two cars in the spartan Gr.4 category, and they're both set up to have the exact same strengths and weaknesses. Baffling.

Toyota GR Supra Nur24h 2019 #90 by yn221 livery link (GTS)

Team Gazoo Racing by seshibon1640 livery link (GTS)

W204 Nissan Fairlady Z Version S (Z33)

Just like the Camaro and Challenger of Chevy and Dodge, I never really understood what the point of a Z car is, being a heavier and more unwieldy 2 door sports car in a lineup that has faster 2 door sports cars. However, the 5th generation of the Fairlady Z, known as the Z33 in Japan or the 350Z elsewhere, was produced from 2002–2008, almost as if a tailor–made stopgap to tide over Nissan fans who had to make do without a GT-R in the showrooms for a very peculiar period in the brand's history. And so the question naturally becomes, "how good is it?"

S-Tune Red by SomePlayaDude livery link (GTS)

By contemporary standards, the Z33 is a bit of a porker, weighing in at 1,480kg (3,263lbs) in Version S trim. However, you wouldn't ever guess it with how flat and neutral this thing behaves in a corner. The springs gave me some E46 M3 levels of shock and awe in how well gauged it is, allowing for just the right amount of body movement to put weight on a relevant tyre, and nothing more. If you had told me the springs are some costly Nismo aftermarket items, I'd have believed every word of it and told you in return that they were worth every cent!

Not only that, the car as a whole has been set up to be incredibly stable, nigh impossible to upset in the dry—quite the feat to pull off considering the 2007 model year had been revised with an output bump of 34HP from "276HP" to 310HP (231kW). While stability is usually euphemism for "so much hand–holding understeer it crushes your hands and will to live" in modern RWD cars, the Z33 actually handles quite neutrally, with the only hints of understeer being gradually peppered into the experience instead of being passively dominated by it. It will understeer slightly on power, yes, but what you'll really have to watch for is the understeer when trail braking. It stops well, but it also asks of drivers to turn in early for a corner and trail brake it well, because there's only so much you can ask of the slim 225mm tyres up front, with 53% of the car's weight pressing over them at rest. Trail braking for a corner then, requires early turn in and proper technique, lest the car sails right past the apex. That's not to say it's incapable, but you just have to drive it the way it wants to be driven, which is in a rather measured and calm way, making it rather unconducive for racing and overtakes, I find. But, there is a lot of overlap between "calm" and "relaxed", and soon I found myself in a very comfortable zone, a sort of "zen", to borrow again from the FH5 COTW thread. And in that mental zone, I found the Z33 to be a very predictable, fun drive, the sort I might enjoy as a retired old fart that wants to keep pace sometimes... not that I'm very far off from that mentally right now, but still.

So, how good is the Z33? Surprisingly, very! It may look completely unassuming, and even fat and awkward at times, but it utterly destroyed my shouty Evo X in practice around Yamagiwa, owing to the Z having more power and less mass. That put things into context yet? The Z33 is such a sleeper that it actively flew under my radar for well over a decade, and the only reason how I found out about its prowess is because I was made to drive it for COTW and then had the bright idea of running an Evo against it. If you thought that German offerings were your only options when it comes to understated performance cars, then that's just a testament to how subtle and unassuming the Z33 is, and you'll do well to not make any further mistakes of underestimating it henceforth.

And so that's the one question of, "how good is the Z33?" answered, then! But what if we were to ask more questions? "Is the Z33 good enough to carry a brand?" "How does it compare to a GT-R?"

Mine's R33 GT-R Magia Record by redmist223 livery link (GTS)

Well okay, the R33 V • spec completely destroys the Z33 with more power and AWD. An R32 would've been a closer comparison, but "R33 vs Z33" just sounds snazzier in writing, and no wannabe writer would ever pass that up. Even after taking 3% of the R33's power out of the car and keeping everything else stock, I was very much keeping up with the Z33s around Tokyo South, and I think I had a very good shot at winning the race outright had there been one more lap. Around Tsukuba, an unmodified R33 was more than a second a lap quicker than the Z33, and most of that pace difference was in the corner exit, where the less understeery, AWD car could put down power quicker and easier.

BUT, that is not to say that it was an easy win in the GT-R. Having just jumped out of the Z33 prior, the R33 was a huge shock to my system, as suddenly I had to deal with the insane tail happiness of the R33 that the Z never once bothered me with. While I was relaxed and zen in the Z, I was boarderline panicking and hyper vigilant in the R33 with every downshift I made. I also had to think about where I shifted the turbocharged RB engine of the GT-R, as its power completely dips off way before redline, whereas the Z's powerplant is simply a peach to operate, having ample low end torque and hiding its 310HP near redline at 7,000rpm. In other words, it was an engine that just begs to have its nuts revved off, and it sounds pretty good wherever you're at. The Z, despite being the RWD car in this comparison, was much, much easier to drive than its AWD older brother, and that I think is really saying something.

So in conclusion, the Z33 is almost as fast as an almost R34 running at almost max power. Is there a point to running the R33 against the Z33? Not really. At least, I didn't do it thinking there'd be a point. But, thanks to that race, I think I now finally understand the Z's place in the Nissan lineup. The GT-R is the cruise missile of the Nissan lineup, whose only purpose is to destroy anything in its path. The Z on the other hand, is an understated grand tourer that has way more sporting DNA and capabilities than any grand tourer has the right to have, and this crazy old fart here thinks it's a more entertaining drive than an R35.

W196

So um... quick warning before this piece commences: it's really negative, to the point where even I hesitate to put this out in public. I just... haven't put out a review in weeks now and I feel guilty for it, and driving the Aventador made my mood that much worse.

"It feels like Lamborghini doesn't get chosen that often so why not bring out the SV", says Racer. Well, they don't get chosen that often because we all know they're hot garbage.

AVENTADOOR SV　ミウラオマージュedition by mshow1215 livery link (GTS)

It's a Lamborghini! It's their flagship car! It's a lightened, more powerful, winged version of their flagship car! You'd think all that would make the Aventador LP 750-4 Superveloce a car that is amazing enough to make anyone crap hexagonal vents and doors. But, even Lamborghini themselves don't seem to hold the Aventador to such high regard. After all, why is it that their record–setting GT3s, Performantes, and STOs are all Huracáns instead of Aventadors? I mean, sure, the Aventador was the base for several reskins into cars costing thrice its price, such as the god–awful Veneno, but that's hardly much to shout about, is it? It appears to me that, when Lamborghini needs to peacock, they use the Aventador, and when things actually need to be done, they call upon the Huracán. And that is exactly how I would describe the driving experience of the Aventador SV.

Yes, the Aventador SV has a NA V12 boasting over 700HP and revs over 8,000rpm. Noise and straight line speed have never been a problem with Lamborghinis—the problems arise when they have to shut up and stop, because the Aventador will ask of its drivers to be hard on the brakes at distances where most drivers won't even begin to think about approaching said corner, much less be setting their car up for it. To give just a few examples of how freaking long the Aventador requires to adequately slow for a corner and hit its apex, here are some of the things I had to do on race day while running Sport Medium tyres, an upgrade over the Sport Hard tyres that it comes default with in GTS, and the default tyres for the car in GT7:

• Turn 1 of Sardegna A: Brake on the uphill leading to T1, well before the crest of the hill, i.e. before you even come close to seeing the corner you're braking for.

• Turn 1 of DT Seaside: No, I don't mean the left–right chicane; I mean the gentle right kink that leads to said chicane. You need to lift for that to hold a narrower line going into the braking zone for T2.

• Bus stop of DT Seaside: Usually, cars need to brake only for the second set of chicanes for the bus stop at DTS, a.k.a. the "Chicane of Death". In the Aventador, you'll need to brake for the first set, an inconsequentially gentle right–left.

• Tokyo South Inner: you know that high speed right kink in the middle of the tunnel, right before the roof of the tunnel opens up? The Aventador will need to brake for that. You know what doesn't have to brake for that? A freaking Challenger Hellcat weighing 455 kilos more, with its engine up front, and two more doors.

Braking points on a track can certainly be memorised, if you like to drive in the same way us Asian kids are told to study for exams, and can somehow find these charades fun and fulfilling. But if the front tyres of a car can't slow it quick enough, it certainly won't turn the car, either. The Aventador understeers as though it were allergic to apexes of corners and has a self–destructive fetish for the outside barriers of any track. It's not just the front end of the car, either, but the whole car feels glued to its axis under braking, as the rear end feels like a lifeless carcass that cannot be coaxed into showing any signs of life, such as rotating into a corner under braking and corner entry. You might be thinking at this point, "well yeah, most modern supercars are set up with hand–holding understeer in their suspension setup because the people rich enough to afford these prohibitively expensive cars generally speaking don't have the driving skills to keep themselves out of trouble", and you're right about that.

...except the Aventador also oversteers on power in spite of having AWD and a spiteful suspension setup heavily biased towards understeer. I suppose that oversteer out of slow corners can be quite fun, in the same way that having a beautiful nurse tend to you when you contract anal cancer is fun, because the AWD can quickly "cure" the slide with not very tricky throttle modulation. The fatalities arise when you fight the understeer on high speed kinks that aren't even corners to any other car, such as the left kink on the back straight of Sardegna A, where I've had the Aventador step out on me at speeds in excess of 250km/h, and when it snaps at that speed, hoo boy, you better be prepared for some Fun, with a capital F. If this is supposed to be "improved aerodynamics" over the base Aventador, god forbid anyone drive that. Don't think that that's just a problem I have, either, because here's a photo of me losing the rear end on said kink, and RX8 mirroring my exact mishaps just a few metres down the road.

At this point, you might say to me, "Whatever Square you're just a hater because you're poor, can't afford these cars, are born in the wrong place given your passion, and have had your hopes and dreams so thoroughly crushed and every initiative and idea shot down before you in every waking moment of your life and now you're a mentally scarred degenerate who is completely disconnected from society, can't fantasise, or feel happiness anymore, whose resultant cynicism lends itself well to critiquing the one thing you know, cars, without offering any solutions to that which you critique." First of all, ouch, who are you and how do you know so much. Second of all, driving the Aventador put me in a bad mood and made me say things I wish I hadn't. Yes, it's the car's fault. Rob even said it before I did, "this car makes me angry". And third, even when removing my cynicism from the mix, what does it say about the Aventador SV when it:

• Got consistently spanked by a Nissan VGT of all things, which has 42 HP less and weighs 50kg more;

• Struggles to fend off a third gen Ford GT with half its cylinders, ballasted up to match the SV's mass, while having a hundred less HP, lacking AWD, and not even in track mode;

• Couldn't shake off a Grand Touring car, the SLS AMG, boosted up to the 622HP of the Black Edition with none of the other Black Edition enhancements, resulting in the car still having over 100HP less than the Aventador?

And yes, in case you hadn't picked up on it from the photos up to this point, most of us jumped ship from the Aventador on race day, because no one wanted to drive it.

Also, have I pointed out how it costs 1.2 million credits for some reason? As GT7 has more clearly demonstrated, GT credits are a 1:1 replica of the Japanese Yen, divided by 100 in international releases to roughly equal the US dollar, with Kaz even going so far as to consult Hagerty for the sale prices of classic cars. Real world prices of the Aventador SV start at around half a million USD before options according to Autotrader. Unless you're telling me "options" can more than double the price of a half million dollar supercar, the Aventador SV is a straight up rip–off in GTS, though it does cost exactly half a million in GT7 like it should. And for 1.2 million, whomever specced the Aventador PD scanned couldn't even afford the factory option SV decals? What, the 6.5L V12, garish styling, and rear wing are subtle enough, but an SV decal on the SV car is going too far? I usually try to refrain from being this mean in writing I share publicly, but is the owner of this Aventador a complete buffoon? Do they need help?

Lamborghinis don't get chosen often, because no one chooses a Lamborghini; they end up with it. The Aventador SV is a trophy car. It looks pretty, but is useless for being anything other than showing off and being paperweight.

W194 McLaren Ultimate Vision Gran Turismo Gr.1

Of all the manufacturers out there making cars in the world, you'd think that McLaren, a mainstay name in Formula 1, one part of the "holy trinity", maker of arguably the best car ever made and of some of the best drivers' cars today, would be the least interested in playing pretend with a Vision Gran Turismo car. But lo and behold, the power of peacocking compels, and the McLaren VGT bowed in late 2017 right before the release of Gran Turismo Sport.

Oh, I'm sorry, the McLaren Ultimate Vision Gran Turismo. (Christ...)

Things certainly look plenty exciting in the reveal trailer! The McVGT strikes an impeccable balance between fantasy and reality, with a design that is outlandish with a clear divide from the norm, but not improbable. There's of course the inboard, yet exposed brakes, but most striking to me is the driving position of the car, which has the driver prone on their stomach, which not only allows for greater and more direct visibility to the front wheels, but also allows the bodywork to have minimal frontial area to reduce drag.

I never drive in cockpit view because Gran Turismo Sport doesn't allow for Field of Vision adjustment in the cockpit, but if you were to ask me to race one car in cockpit view only, the McVGT is the car that has given me the most comfortable and natural view of all the cars I've driven in the game thus far. In fact, I would even go as far as to say the McVGT gives the Ultimate view out of any cockpit, on par with that of open wheelers! Being able to see the insides of the front tyre housings through the bare carbon slats that form the structure of the cockpit just feels so natural, just so "right", I can't describe it, and the whole cockpit is set so low to the ground, making me feel like I were truly laying on the road! I imagine if I had the car in real life, I could just trot it up an unfamiliar road at snail's pace just to really study the road surface before an all–out run. The HUD, visible as a mirrored image from the outside, is not only hugely convenient and informative, but is also such a cool touch as well! I think this is the first time a VGT has ever tickled that imaginitive 10–year–old inside me, which may or may not be the obvious point of these cars that I've become way too jaded a person to see.

Nitpicks? Of course I have some—this is a VGT car, after all. I've no idea what the point of having a track map is on the HUD. It's not like I'm consulting it to know the layout of the course as though Suzuka is a rallycross stage, am I? I could think of a few, much more useful tidbits of information I'd rather have, such as... oh I dunno, a mirror or camera, perhaps? Maybe the Ultimate VGT is too Ultimate to worry about having other non–Ultimates behind it, I dunno. I also like my endurance racers to measure fuel in litres to two decimal places, like real GT3 cars do. Hard to ascertain exactly how much fuel I'm using per lap and ration out the remainder with just a tiny bar to the right, you know?

The McLaren Ultimate VGT comes in three paint schemes: Performance, Noir de Noir, and Ulterior Future (what, not Ultimate Future?). Even if you're the creative type that wants to try their hand at decorating the heinously complex structure of the car, you'll want to choose a base colour that closely represents the design you have in mind for the car, as each base colour comes with its own corresponding driver outfit, which to my knowledge, cannot be changed. It's a really neat detail to have three seperate suit designs for the car, when most VGTs don't even bother with a rendered interior.

On the flipside of that futuristic skin of bare carbon however, the Ultimate VGT is surprisingly modern, perhaps too much so. Despite being named otherwise, the twin–turbocharged V8 unit in the Ultimate VGT sounds distinctively like the M838T engine that has been in every McLaren road car since 2010, and you'll hear the distinct whines and wheezes of a MP4-12C and a 650S when you wring out the McVGT. That means that you can still make bad and largely false jokes about how the Ultimate VGT still has the heart of a 20–year–old Nissan despite claiming to envision a future 20 years ahead. Where it differentiates itself from currently existing McLarens you can order is that the McVGT's engine not only has its displacement increased to 3,998cc, but it also has been hooked up to a hybrid KERS system, resulting in a peak combined output of a staggering 1,134HP (846kW), which us laymen can only refer to as Ultimate Power*.

*"Ultimate Power" has been nerfed to 936HP, 698kW, in the Gr.1 variant before current BoP takes its 10% cut of that.

The way the hybrid system works in practice is a little convoluted. The electric motors only kick in to propel the car from 3rd gear onwards and only past a certain point in the throttle pedal's travel, and the batteries that power them appear to be rather low in capacity relative to the output of the motors. I say this because the car will completely exhaust a full charge in a single acceleration burst from 3rd to mid 5th. That might sound underwhelming, until you put into context that you just went from 160km/h to 255km/h in just over four seconds (that's 99 to 158mph) on a full charge! The KERS system of course harvests energy on braking, but for some odd reason I can't at all fathom, the batteries not only charge up slowly under braking, but they also seem to charge just as quickly as when off the brakes and on partial throttle, and I don't hear the engine revving higher to both propel the car and charge the batteries simultaneously as one would in a Honda Fit Hybrid, for example. Because of this rather inefficient regen, it's rare to even have half a full charge out of any corner on most circuits we ran, with the outstanding exception being Interlagos—through the twisty and convoluted infield of Interlagos with successive 1st and 2nd gear corners where the car can't stretch its legs, the ICE ends up charging the batteries to full, thereby squandering away charge under braking when the batteries are topped out. It really is a shame that when the car's overall power output was dropped for Gr.1, both the motors and ICE had their power cut by the same percentage, instead of leaving the ICE on full strength and having a much less aggressive setup on the motors to let it preserve its charge more and avoid wasting any regen. That would certainly help it feel more consistent to drive as well.

I say that because, to drive, the McVGT might well be the ultimate disaster.

Usually, my complaints about how a car drives start from when I'm afforded control of it. I mean, how else does one write an opinion piece if he has not experienced it himself, right? As if to answer that rhetorical question however, the McVGT understeered into and smacked the pit wall on the run out of Interlagos' pit lane under Auto Drive as my first experience with the car during race day.. If that's not a surefire sign that I'm in for a torrid time, then I don't know what is. For some context, even the FF Nissan GT-R LM Nismo cleanly avoids the grass that leads to said wall under the same conditions. Admittedly, upon further testing, this wall smacking is far from a 100% occurrence, but I've managed to replicate it nonetheless to get my screenshot proof just by exiting and re–entering the session a few times. Also, you know what they say about first impressions, and this is my first impression of the car.

Despite being puzzlingly listed as an MR in the game, the McVGT has been explicitly stated in its car description to have electric motors that drive the front wheels, making it similar in drivetrain layout to existing LMP1 cars such as the Toyota TS050 and Porsche 919. What this results in is that upon power application, the front wheels can easily become overwhelmed trying to put down all that torque of the electric motors, resulting in the car "locking up" and refusing to turn not unlike the sensation you get when locking up when braking without ABS, only this time on throttle instead of the brakes. As previously mentioned, the electric motors only engage past a certain point in the throttle pedal's travel, meaning that at one moment, you'll only have a fraction of the ICE's power as it's charging the batteries while propelling the car, and the very next moment, you're smacked in the face with the full ICE power plus the shove of the electric motors, resulting in understeer so severe and sudden that even Auto Drive can't deal with. As you can tell, this makes planning a smooth, neat, gradual line out of a corner completely impossible, and you'll find yourself lifting a few times in the acceleration zones out of a corner to mitigate the sudden, explosive understeer that comes with that abrupt jump in power. It really is quite crass. Even FF hatchbacks can trace a neater and more consistent line out of corners.

To get to that point where the motors would cause problems however, would involve braking for a corner and surviving the turn–in, which is quite a tall order even without all the blood rushing to your head from all the longitudinal g forces and the prone driving position. The Ultimate VGT with Ultimate Power also comes with the stopping power to match, granted, but to achieve those stupendously short stopping distances, the ABS in the car spares nothing in the friction circle to let the car turn when using the default (and strongest) ABS setting, with the front tyres chirping loudly under full braking even on a level, dry road. Turn the wheel of the car in this state, and the front end understandably understeers, but what you will NOT expect is the rear end violently swinging out, causing the front end of the car to continue its straight trajectory, but now with very unwelcome and unusable yaw angle that will most likely cause the car to torpedo into the inside wall of a turn and kill its driver lest he can Chaos Control out of the car mid drive, because I don't know if airbags are enough to preserve your life in a frontial crash when the momentum of your body from the neck down compresses upon said neck and you end up French kissing glowing red hot angle grinders that are the brake discs inside the cockpit with you. So yes, under trail braking, the front end understeers and the rear end oversteers, and I don't know about you, but I much prefer to have the complete opposite of that in a car.

The spicy rear end I believe is caused by McLaren's signature brake vectoring, wherein the car applies a little more braking force to the inside wheels when turning to help the car rotate. In the MP4/12 Formula 1 car that pioneered this idea, the feature was activated via a second brake pedal controlled by the driver, and in the road cars that have had the system since, they were at least advertised and had rather mild effects, so you could prepare for it if you even noticed it. In the Ultimate? Same pedal, no mention of it anywhere, and it causes near instant death. You found out about it only by oversteering under braking and damn near killing yourself. Not very user friendly, methinks, but I don't suppose an Ultimate needs to explain themselves to us peasants. Even after the initial shock of damn near killing myself, I find myself forced to brake gradually and only in a straight line, and then almost completely letting off the brake pedal before daring to input any steering angle. It makes me drive the car so gingerly and corner so slowly that I once got taken round the outside by Vic's 919 at Spa's Paul Frère! Say what you want about the insane speed of the man, but being taken round the outside is still a new low for me, and the McVGT is the one that took that cherry of humiliation for me. Maybe if there were an option to adjust the severity of the brake vectoring, it could be useful, but as it is currently, it's just daft and downright dangerous.

Due to the car's horrendous inconsistency with its braking and power delivery, coupled with the usual shenanigans of following high downforce cars in a downforce reliant car yourself, all combine to mean that precisely placing the car, which regularly exceeds 300km/h even on modestly sized circuits, is the ultimate crapshoot I suspect even the Ultimate life form would struggle with. I'm no Shadow the Hedgehog, so I end up having to leave football fields worth of buffer zones in braking and turning in anticipation for the car's inconsistency, which not only meant that I never dared to even find the car's limits, let alone stay near them even in a race, but it also adds yet another layer of danger to the experience, as my peers wouldn't know when I'd brake and turn, because I didn't know when my car will stop and turn. Just ask Rick, whom I wiped out twice on race day, once by braking way earlier than he expected for Suzuka's Casio Triangle, and when I nudged him wide at Spa's No Name. I wasn't sure if I even made contact in the latter incident, and so I asked him if I nudged him, to which he replies, "I have no idea lol". THAT'S how bloody inconsistent and unwieldy the car is—we don't even know if the car itself is sending itself off the track, or if someone else pushed us! The driving experience of the McVGT is so taxing that it screws with the internal stopwatch in my head, and I often cross the Start/Finish line thinking, "are we not done?!" Races always felt twice as long as I've come expect, even in something that laps tracks in half the time as the machinery I'm usually driving.

After just two races, I begged for Balance of Performance to be enabled so I could bring something else just to prove a point: the Mazda LM55 VGT Gr.1. The driver sits upright in it. It's got an engine without turbos or hybrid systems. That engine is hooked up to a gearbox. Gearbox sends power to the wheels, which have traditional brakes attached to them. And it utterly destroyed the "Ultimates" around Dragon Trail: Seaside. And yes, our COTW resident Stig, Vic, was in one such "Ultimate" as well.

(I mean yes he was held up my other competitors, but if you've ever partaken in a race with us, you'll know how big a deal winning a race against Vic is, so just let me have my moment, okay?!)

Let's be clear: with Balance of Performance applied, the LM55 isn't really much faster than the Ultimate, if at all. It most likely doesn't have the fuel economy of the McLaren either. But it is just so much easier to drive! At least the Mazda gives me the option of running out of fuel instead of killing me way before I've used a tenth of the tank! The Mazda behaves exactly as I intuit it, and I was at ease the whole race. I wasn't leaving acres of buffer room waiting for the car to betray me. I wasn't worried about it changing between its tens of personalities mid race on me, It was much more consistent, its limits came gradually and with ample buildup and warning, allowing me to stay near or at the limits from lights to flag. It proves that having 600HP going through 4 wheels doesn't have to be scary. And that comes from a company that has a 120HP FR Roadster as its sportiest product. What excuse has McLaren to be utterly destroyed by a Mazda on a track? What is the point of all those gimmicks like brake vectoring and hybrid systems if conventional engineering can perform just as well, if not better?

After that Ultimate humiliation, I can't help but to wonder what exactly is the point of VGT cars. With real cars that handle terribly in the game, one could at least make the excuse of, "well the simplistic simcade physics of Gran Turismo Sport likely can't replicate all the complex systems at work in the real car," or that "the default suspension alignment really do these cars a disservice," and I truly believe in those statements, because I've cited those reasons to explain why certain cars just drove like coffins on wheels. But with a VGT, especially one from late 2017 like the McLaren, it has no excuse to drive as terribly as it does, because Gran Turismo Sport is the only medium in which it exists. It needs only to perform and impress here, and nowhere else, and it conversely has nothing to fall back on as an excuse or saving grace if it sucks. Polyphony Digital didn't have to adapt, scan, or measure anything to replicate in the game—because it was built from the ground up FOR this game! And so the only reason I can think of as to why the McVGT handles as terribly as it does in this game is that it handles this way by design. It was the creators' intent that this thing handles as snappy, inconsistent, and counterintuitive as it is. And I just can't bloody figure out why a company would willingly besmirch their good name like that in an exercise to proclaim themselves to be the Ultimate. For many other car manufacturers, I might understand the need. But from McLaren of all companies? I just don't get it.

The McLaren Ultimate Vision Gran Turismo may not be the "Ultimate VGT", but it may well end up as the ultimate beater of 2022 here in Car of the Week.

W192 Alfa Romeo MiTo

A common saying in the community goes, "You can't be a true petrolhead until you've owned an Alfa". By that logic then, this... thing, qualifies one into the club.

At 28,500 Credits, the Alfa Romeo MiTo is by far the cheapest modern gateway into that supposed club, but it's not exactly cheap in the grand scheme of things: it costs over 10 grand more than the much more reliable, economical, and practical Honda Fit Hybrid, so it's clearly not meant to make logical sense. As a performance–oriented proposition however, the MiTo falls completely flat on its malignant face, costing roughly the same as a much lighter, much more powerful, and somehow, also more practical Focus ST. When judged by its numbers alone, I really can't tell you what the hell the MiTo is and who exactly it is for, and you'll have to forgive me if I judge the car by numbers alone this week, because any more than that would involve me having to permanently scar my soul by looking at the grotesque automotive accident that is the MiTo's styling.

"But XSquare," I hear you interject. "I am a selfish burden to society with no concern of how others perceive me, much less any conception of the consequences of my existence upon humanity. I therefore don't care how it looks as long as I don't have to be the one looking at it from the driver's seat. Is it good to drive?" First off, unlike a G80 M3, you can't escape the ugliness of the MiTo simply by becoming one with the ugly, because there's an obnoxious amount of fake carbon fibre lining the entire top surface of the dash. Fake carbon fibre in a product that's supposed to make you a petrolhead? Why don't you try wearing a thong made out of freshly used dishwashing cloth at the Paris Fashion show?

Secondly, the way a MiTo drives is simply tragic, accident or not. It makes at least 152HP (113kW) at 5,500rpm, but I can't give you a definite answer as to how much a MiTo is supposed to make because I think the engine in my particular car exploded at past said point while being dyno tested. How else can one explain this sheer drop in both power and torque?

Exploded engine or not, 152HP is still a lot to shove through just the front wheels of any car, let alone one wearing skinny 205/45R17 tyres. Now, ask anyone who's ever had to set up a powerful FWD car for any application, and doubtlessly they'll tell you that a lot of the magic is in the differential of these inherently understeery cars. The Alfa though, defies convention by having a completely open differential, which I can only presume is in attempt to salvage some reliability from the car by removing one more component that can go wrong. I mean, I get it. Differentials are such expensive trinkets that are so prone to going wrong. It's not like they're things that get slapped onto an entry level subcompact like a Diesel Demio costing ten grand less and be expected to work just fine. So yes, there's no risk of the differential exploding mid drive and firing electrically charged sharpnel into your spouse and kids, but the tradeoff for that is that the driving experience goes very, very wrong any time you attempt to put down any power out of a turn, with the unladen inside wheel siphoning away power from the car and the passion for life from my soul. Combine the nonexistent top end of the engine with the criminally slow shifting manual cars of GTS, and with the car's inability to put down power cleanly in low gears, you wind up with a car that asks of you only one downshift for turn 1 and one upshift on the back straight per lap at Tsukuba, with the vast majority of the time spent on said lap being lugged in 3rd. It feels almost like driving an automatic gearbox on these small tracks, which are normally where small, low powered cars shine.

And that's only the beginning of the tragedy that disguises itself as the experience of driving a MiTo.

The suspension of the car is made from overcooked, expired pasta. The homemade suspension is so soft that even on the default Comfort Soft tyres, you'll be shaving off body panels with the tyres and wheels. It's a non–issue in GTS, but it's something that you'll have to immediately fix upon receipt of the car in GT7. What, you thought 28,500 Cr. car was a lot for a lukewarm hatch? You'll need to fork over 20k more on a full custom suspension to convert your purchase from coffin to car.

Despite the MiTo being quite the porker by supermini standards, weighing in at 1,145kg (2,524lbs), the car itself stops short. But because of how fluffy the springs are, simply slamming hard on the brakes deeply upsets the balance and composure of the car, to such an extent that you have to ease off the brakes almost fully to coax some neutrality back into the car before slowly feeding in steering angle at a rate comparable to Polyphony Digital feeding us content in GT7, meaning that drivers will need to brake early for corners to allow the requisite space and time for all the aforementioned shenanigans despite the car stopping well. If you force the issue and steer the car too much too quickly before it's been allowed to regain its composure, the MiTo will simply pitch and lean so much that it makes grip from all four tyres vanish from right under you as though grip is but a busted myth. The unruly lack of control and composure along with the resultant under and oversteer is so atrocious to the point that this compact, low powered car makes Maggiore feel too narrow to drive on, which is quite the feat considering that it's a track smooth and wide enough to race LMP1 cars on for gosh's sake.

Mind you, many criticised the physics engine of GTS saying it's overly stable, and that FFs are ultra numb to drive because they never bite back. The MiTo is an FF that bites back even in GTS! To give you an idea of how much speed the Fusilli springs on the MiTo squanders away each and every corner, a heavier and less powerful Peugeot RCZ effed right off into the sunrise lap 1 around Tsukuba, pulling a Vic–like gap on everybody else, including to Vic himself! So not only does the MiTo suck when being judged by its numbers, but when the numbers are in its favour, it shows us all that it sucks so much, no numbers could possibly save it.

I said it after the first race of the day at Maggiore: the MiTo is a strong contender for being Beater of the Year. But, as the day wore on and we raced the thing more and more, I started to learn how to treat the MiTo the way it wants to be treated, to accomodate for and drive around its weaknesses and pitfalls. I learned to go at its pace instead of projecting asinine things like standard onto it. I had learned to work with the mechanicals of the car, to be "mechanically sympathetic" with the car, which @Nismonath5 tells me is a must have racing driver trait. And in that state, in that zone, that "zen", as the FH5 COTW guys might prefer, I even won a race that day! The MiTo may be a troublesome thing to wrangle around a track, but its faults can definitely be worked around, unlike some other Italian cars we've had the misfortune of testing. It was so stupidly and immensely gratifying to reel in my peers because I knew which gear to be in, when to shift the car, how to make it turn, and how to keep it composed. Every thing I found out about the car and did differently to suit it, I was duly rewarded for, and that made me feel like a kid experimenting and being praised, making me want more! I wasn't ready to admit it during race day after having just said it was a strong contender for BOTY, but I was having an immense amount of fun racing the MiTo that day.

I said it after the first race of the day at Maggiore: the MiTo is a strong contender for being Beater of the Year. But, as the day wore on and we raced the thing more and more, I started to learn how to treat the MiTo the way it wants to be treated, to accomodate for and drive around its weaknesses and pitfalls. I learned to go at its pace instead of projecting asinine things like standard onto it. I had learned to work with the mechanicals of the car, to be "mechanically sympathetic" with the car, which Nismo tells me is a must have racing driver trait. And in that state, in that zone, that "zen", as the FH5 COTW guys might prefer, I even won a race that day! The MiTo may be a troublesome thing to wrangle around a track, but its faults can definitely be worked around, unlike some other Italian cars we've had the misfortune of testing. It was so stupidly and immensely gratifying to reel in my peers because I knew which gear to be in, when to shift the car, how to make it turn, and how to keep it composed. Every thing I found out about the car and did differently to suit it, I was duly rewarded for, and that made me feel like a kid experimenting and being praised, making me want more! I wasn't ready to admit it during race day after having just said it was a strong contender for BOTY, but I was having an immense amount of fun racing the MiTo that day.

More surprising than that though, is the a very odd sense of déjà vu I felt after the high of winning the race wore off.

So to recap, it pitches, it rolls, it slides. It has two doors, no grip, a six speed stick shift, and an open differential. It's small, somewhat lightweight, it's underpowered, it needs to be in the right gear and the right revs, it demands to be treated like a dance partner instead of a tool. It costs around 25k Credits and makes no sense when judged by its numbers, and it looks best in its company's signature red. Oh, and it shares a LOT with a Fiat underneath. Why do I have a feeling I tested a car that also fits that exact description not too long ago...?

Oh, that's right, we tested the ND Mazda Roadster this January! And it was my pick! Hell, if you refer to the Roadster as a Miata, even their names sound similar!

Of course, with all the similarities between the two cars I've listed, the main difference is that the Roadster is RWD, much lighter, and less powerful. Might be a Mazda fanboy setting up the ugly Alfa to fail by racing the Roadster against the MiTo, and so I brought the Roadster to Bathurst, a track that favours outright power and top speed, to give the MiTo a sporting chance... but of course, Bathurst also happens to have one of the most treacherous, tight, and technical sections of any track in this game, and so a race here should really highlight any and all differences between the two.

And the differences were as huge as the cars were small. Come any corner that involves the brakes, and the Roadster so severely outperforms the MiTo that it could out brake and go the long way round on the outside of a corner around a MiTo. On corner exits, I've had to dodge what looked like stalled MiToes past the apexes of turns—it's that big of a difference! I've complained about how the Roadster was way too soft and dangerous a drive when we tested it, but having jumped right out of a MiTo, the Roadster felt like a racing car, and I was having a lot of trouble adapting to how much more speed the Roadster could carry through a corner, oftentimes braking and turning too early for turns. If cars had feelings and could speak, the Roadster would definitely be asking me which inexperienced vixen below my standards I've been doing lately, and why!

But of course, with such a disproportionate advantage in the corners also comes with an equally disproportionate disadvantage on the straights if the race is to be close and worth talking about. On the run up to T2, I was losing about six tenths despite having a MUCH better corner exit speed and even the MiTo's slipstream, and on Conrod Straight, almost a whole second. Safe to say I think that the MiTo would set a faster lap time at Bathurst, but can it keep in front of a rampaging Roadster at the moment the chequered flag is dropped?

https://youtu.be/nm42LsN6z14

At the end of the race, I can't help but to pose myself a rather disturbing question, one that I still as of now don't know if I really have an answer to: for all the similarities between the MiTo and Roadster, why is it that one of them is considered one of the best sports cars money can buy, and the other, an awful excuse for a car? I mean, yes, there's the obvious reliability issue I'm obviously in no position to comment on, the whole fake carbon fibre thing, and the fact that one of them is a convertible, but other than that, these two cars are just shockingly alike! Does being RWD excuse all the faults of a Roadster as being "fun", or somehow transform them into strengths? Is it because the Roadster can take corners far faster than the MiTo? Since when was outright speed what made a Roadster great? Is it because the Roadster looks a lot better? Might be.

I went into this week not knowing what the MiTo is and who it is for, trying to compare numbers like cost and lap times to that of comparable rivals. But after driving it hard among friends, I think I finally know what a MiTo is and who it is for: it is an FF hatchback version of a Mazda Roadster, and it is for petrolheads who love a challenge both on and off a track. You may not need to subject yourself to the abject misery and sheer shame of owning one to be a petrolhead, but you would definitely be one of the crazier ones if you did.