Your updates here are very much welcome, no problem, take your time… it’s a nice ritual seeing that a new entry is available and following your journey!
Re Altezza:
Oh be still my heart ~~~
The Altezza-style rear lights made me fall in love with the IS, even before i knew that you could get the inline-6 in the IS300. Sitting on the rear bench for a 40ish mile drive curbed my enthusiasm for it, and the dial cluster was too advanced for young me to understand, so i passed on the chance of buying one when they were available for cheap, and went with the Xantia. Very likely missed out on owning a great JDM icon, but you know what? No hard feelings, the Xantia was the aesthetically more pleasing one to my eyes, and it had hydropneumatic suspension.
Test drove the successor IS, having a lukewarm reaction to it is putting it nicely… the new IS might have wooed me, but is not offered in yuropistan, so that’s that.
Ah well, this feels somewhat like with the girlfriend where the relationship never got off the ground; a shame, but it was a nice time when it felt like it could work out!
There are still a lot of one make races to complete in East City. I counted around twenty left.
These regular cars aren’t gonna race themselves! It’s time to head to Mitsubishi. They’ve made a lot of interesting cars over the years. Of course there’s the Lancer Evo, the GTO/3000GT, the FTO, the Eclipse etc.
But tonight we’ll race the lowly Mirage. These cars always fell under the umbrella of cheap econo-box here in the states. I don’t think we ever got any sort of hot Mirage here.
Clearly hot Mirages existed in Japan, though! There are plenty to choose from at the Mitsubishi dealer. We settle on a used '92 Mirage Cyborg R in Twilight Blue. We name the car Sabrina.
Imagine going back to 1999 and paying a bit over six grand for a practical hatchback that weighs less than 2300 lbs and has an 8,000 RPM redline! This car also makes over 100hp per liter. Madness!
Sabrina and I head to the full Seattle course for the normal style race in the Mirage Cup. We get a first place finish.
I love a good hatchback, but the wheels are a bit on the large side at least in the dealer shots. On track we seem to have a bit more sidewall.
If you mistook this car for an EF hatch at a glance, I wouldn’t blame you.
We’ve got proper stock suspension body roll going on in the corners. The car is happy to rev all day. I wouldn’t call it fast, but it’s definitely a stress reliever.
Initial turn-in is a bit darty. This car will oversteer if you aren’t careful with your throttle and steering inputs. And it’s not as easy to correct as some of the more legendary hatchbacks of this era.
that asti (almost added an -o, astio) RS-R is a parts bin wet dream, Lancer rear lights + spoiler, and looks susssspiiiiiciously similar to the also-FF, Mitsu FTO
Today we upgrade Sabrina to a race car. Three weight reductions and a racing modification leave us looking pretty slick. I love the Falken livery! I love the blue and green! I forgot to take a screenshot of the modification screen, so you’ll see it in the action shots.
I also forgot to take a screenshot of the Mitsubishi writeup. I’ve always looked at Mitsubishi as one of those giant megacorporations that does everything. I guess that’s basically what they are. I own a DLP TV made by Mitsu. I have never owned one of their cars.
As tempted as I am to slap a turbo on Sabrina, I decide to see if it’s possible to be competitive without ever popping the hood. We head to Apricot Hill Speedway for the racing style Mirage Cup. The field is actually pretty well-balanced. None of the cars pull way ahead at any point in the race. It feels like everyone here is also on the stock powertrain.
A well-balanced field does not mean the race will be easy. It’s very hard, in fact! One of the most challenging races we’ve done yet! We go from sixth to first to fourth to sixth then climb our way back up to the lead for the win. We barely keep first through the final stretch on the final lap. This is classic one make action!
Below around 6500rpm, this car is basically gutless. Keeping the revs as high as possible at all times is probably the most challenging part of driving this car. We shift right at 8500rpm every time. The usual cost of high revving naturally aspirated street engines is weak low-end torque.
That upshift leaves you what feels like just slightly out of the power band. So you have to time it well and consider whether it’s worth it depending on how close the next corner is.
Time to finish up at Mitsubishi. The mighty Lancer Evolution will get a chance to shine tonight.
In reality, the Mitsubishi Lancer is just a practical FWD economy sedan. Another decent if unspectacular choice in a once-crowded segment of vehicles.
The Lancer Evolution is a different beast altogether. I’m only typing from memory and my own conceptions of the car, so I may get some stuff terribly wrong here. Feel free to correct anything I get wrong.
In '99 we were on the sixth version of the car. So this is the Lancer Evolution VI. It’s powered by the legendary 4G63 2.0L four banger with a turbo making 276hp. The car is AWD and has beefier suspension components. There is also a pretty clever computer with selectable road surfaces to tell it how to behave.
With the Evo, Mitsubishi never really tried to fancy up the interior or make the car seem more premium than its economy roots. I respect that. So what you end up with is a very spartan and cheap feeling interior. You’re paying for a potent engine and a rally drivetrain.
So you have your huge front-mounted intercooler and functional hood vents and a silly rear spoiler that probably does provide some decent stability at some of the higher speeds this car can reach pretty quickly.
Anyway, we head to the Mitsubishi dealer and pick up an Evolution VI RS. I am not well-versed in RS vs. GSR Evo things, but the RS is cheaper with the same power rating. And it appears to have steel?! wheels. The only available color is Scotia White. This is a hell of a performance machine for twenty-six grand brand new. We name the car Peter.
We head out to Trial Mountain for the Evolution Meeting’s only race. It’s a normal style race. I get the feeling that we will not need to touch this car at all to make it competitive.
That feeling is correct. Peter accelerates very quickly. The five speed transmission has very short gearing, but it’s perfect for this course. We hit the top speed of around 123mph in one section of the course before needing to brake for a corner.
And this car has ridiculously good handling characteristics. You can brake late, you can lift abruptly mid-corner with no drama. You can fling it hard into a turn and easily recover from the slide. This feels like GT easy mode.
I swear I never modified Peter, but somehow this car got an HP bump to 305hp between our purchase and the end of the race. This must be one of those factory unicorns I’ve read about
[quote=“DaleNixon, post:286, topic:11829”]
With the Evo, Mitsubishi never really tried to fancy up the interior or make the car seem more premium than its economy roots.[/quote]
Until you get to the Evo X’s around 2011, then they ended up chasing a swankier market and more-or-less tanking the brand, even though demand for the niche it had previously targeted remained, in particular, in the Chinese market. So circa 2017 they restarted production with the same interior as the previous generation with mostly new exterior for said market.
Today is the day we do a race I have been dreading for a while. The Daihatsu Midget race. I guess these qualify as Kei cars with their single jingle 3 cylinder engine and super low power/weight figures.
I don’t believe these were ever sold in the states, but I see very similar little vehicles downtown in my city being used to transport landscaping materials and other stuff.
We pick up a Midget-II D Type in Red. 30hp and 1256lb. Wow. But hey, it has a midship engine and FR layout. I wonder if the front mounted spare tire even matters in the grand scheme of things when it comes to aero. We name this car Lupe.
The only thing to do now is get Lupe out to the Midget Contest. This race is for normal Midgets. There is no racing style available. I would love to see a race livery on this thing. I would hate to pay one hundred thousand credits for it though.
The race takes place at Trial Mountain. As expected, this car is phenomenally slow to accelerate. We barely get the revs high enough to launch during the race countdown. Twenty-two seconds in we’re going about 44MPH.
Oddly enough, I’m not as bored by this race as I expected. The car is rev limited to 74MPH in top gear. Once we get up to speed, we basically keep it floored and try to maintain the best racing line possible as to not lose any momentum.
One turn in particular requires a quick lift or two of the throttle, but we never touch the brakes. This car will understeer at top speed in full lock, but it’s not particularly difficult to correct. This race is far from trivial, but preserving our momentum nets us a win.
I admire the utilitarian nature of this car with a questionable name. I could even see it being fun to drive in the right conditions. I shouldn’t have dreaded this race as much as I did. Thanks, Lupe!
The Midget II left such an impression on me through Gran Turismo that I absolutely freaked out when I finally saw a first-generation Midget in person at the Toyota car museum around Nagoya.
Tonight we continue at Daihatsu with the Mira Challenge. This looks like your standard Kei car of the time to me. And it has the usual Kei car specifications (tiny turbo engine, dimunitive stature and weight, AWD, etc.)
Not feeling like spending over ten grand on a new model, we head to the used section and find a nice '90 model in Scuro Gray for around three thousand credits. What a deal! We name the car Albert.
It makes sense that this car rivals the Alto. They’re very similar looking. Tho I can’t help but feel less excited to drive this over Francine.
We take Albert out to the Mira Challenge normal style race and end up at Grand Valley Speedway. We’re starting to regret our decision on going cheap as the race proves to be a pretty tough challenge against a field of much newer Miras. We only manage third place.
This car has very quick initial turn-in that can surprise you when cornering at high speeds. It also feels pretty slow even at 80+ MPH. I’m sure that sensation would be different driving the car in real life.
Our five hundred credit prize for third plus three thousand credits if we can manage first would more than recoup the cost of buying this car, so we give the challenge another shot.
This time we end up at High Speed Ring. This shorter course feels more suited to this car. It’s not an easy race, but we manage to eek out a first place finish by keeping momentum, managing the darty initial turn-in, and maybe a little blocking
I definitely don’t remember flirting with 95 MPH in this car. We never made it to fifth gear here. There’s a lot of room on the table for tuning if one were so inclined.
The Mira Challenge normal style race is complete. Next time we’ll spend a ton of money on a race modification (and probably a turbo upgrade) just to compete for five grand!
love how the fancy cover Picture makes it look like some great speedy racing action is going on, and then realizing in the race, as you described perfectly, that in real life, speed would feel deadly, whereas it feels pedestrian in game(s).
It’s time for Albert’s race treatment. We spend around 120,000 credits for weight reductions, a racing modification, and a stage 2 turbo upgrade. The only color choices are yellow and blue. The yellow really grabs me with the cool red wheels. McDonald’s!
Our turbo upgrade more than doubles the power. I wonder if a stock Mira clutch can handle this in real life Even the engine internals might be in danger. At least it’s just for one race.
Wondering what track we’ll end up at, we take Albert to the Mira Challenge’s racing style event. The destination is Super Speedway. My God. I can’t imagine what it’s like pushing upgraded Albert to its absolute limits. We’re about to find out!
It takes ten seconds to get to sixty, but the turbo is probably large and late to spool. Plus we didn’t install any supporting mods. Albert is a roll racer
We manage to complete this course without touching the brakes. The tighter of the two hairpins can be taken at full throttle and full lock. It’s like this track was made for this specific car’s setup. I can’t stress enough how scary it probably feels to have the wheel fully locked at over 110MPH in a car this tiny. We manage to easily beat the competition. So much money spent for such a quick race and prize.
have to commend them for doing Viper GTS-R Style double strips all the way down to the front splitter, they mean it, obviously… though no proper bootlid-spoilerette++ treatment, a bit of wasted potential lurking there…
(on another note, those tiny cheap cars race meeting type of races seldomly made sense to me, if i am honest:
when you have the money to spend 100+k on upgrades/tuning, you pretty likely have access to more interesting machinery already, the benefits for clearing that race are likely not worth the investment, and trying to find the sweet spot where you aren’t overtuned like hell is wasting several instances more time than it takes to clear the race, so it is pretty likely only a bothersome few minutes to most players aiming to tick off on a list to 98.2% … 100%.
And when you are jaded/old enough, the stock, untuned one make aspect (the Driver makes the Difference™!) is more interesting in the first place!
I feel like this is just another aspect of the game’s rushed development. Doubly baffling is the lack of license requirement.
It’s like they intended these to be the first races one would dabble in to get to know the different platforms and cars. But nobody would have the kind of cash required to participate without doing some seriously tedious grinding.
I’ve never had the pleasure of driving a Daihatsu Storia. What we have here is a very light and very practical wagon with a tiny engine. There seem to be three types offered at the Daihatsu dealer. The two base-ish models both have 59hp, but one is FF while the other is AWD. If those were the only choices available, I’d opt for the FF model over the AWD model simply because I know about drivetrain loss in AWD power trains vs FF power trains.
There’s another Storia available called the X4. This one has about double the power of the other two for only a few grand more. It also has AWD. This is a no brainer purchase for the normal style race.
For the X4, you can have any color you want as long as it’s Puro White. I dig the pedestrian look of this little car. We’ll name it Josephine.
We get Josephine out to Grindelwald for the Storia Challenge’s normal style race.
Grindelwald is a challenging course. Even the computer seems to have some trouble through some of the faster sections. But this car really does have what feels like almost the perfect setup for this course.
The ten second 0-60 time ensures you won’t build up too much speed going into some of the hairier turns and chicanes. The AWD layout gives you the confidence to push a bit harder into turns without as much understeer as you would probably get with the FF version. Initial turn in is very quick but stable. The car remains stable through a corner even with abrupt power application and braking.
This is the epitome of “slow car fast” fun and the real spirit of Gran Turismo. We keep the car mostly in fourth gear with occasional downshifts to third in corners and upshifts to fifth on the straightest section. We walk away with a first place finish and a ton of respect for the humble Daihatsu Storia.
I’d keep Josephine if there were room in the garage. That’s the Storia Challenge complete as we finished the racing style earlier in the playthrough with the Storia rally car we won.
did i share my Storia story already?
scrolled up, didn’t see it, so here goes nothing:
Friend of mine started studying the same year as i did, and we all shared the commuting duties on our old and rusty cars (got 'em handed down from our parents)
Mine was the 205 Automatic, he brought the Storia to the table (other two joining us were a Fiat Panda and Audi A4).
The Storia was called Sirion over here, and had a drummy/tinny engine note, not sure how many horses were left in it… it was the FF version, had a darker violet shade, black interior, and I am not sure how long it lasted, but it lost a cylinder and that was the end of the road for it. Since we were playing the PS2 WRC rally games back then, he took it with stride and quoted one of the cheesy/snarky co-pilot comments, something along the lines of ‘we have a seized piston, keep going to the finish line’.
MR cars kinda scare me. I think the mid-engine, rear-drive layout can be the most unforgiving to an unsuspecting driver. But putting all that weight in the middle of the car makes so much sense from a vehicle dynamics standpoint. So what’s the problem? Maybe the engineering required to pull it off correctly is complicated. Maybe the cars inspire too much confidence up to the absolute limit before dramatically losing control.
So today we’re buying an MR sports car at Tommykaira.
We need a ZZ-S coupe for the ZZ challenge. We pick one up in red and glance over the maybe-not-so-horrifying power and weight numbers. Maybe this car will be manageable depending on how the power is delivered. We name the car Roger.
We take roger out to the Seattle Short course for the normal style ZZ Challenge race. This ends up being another great car and track pairing.
Power delivery is thankfully very smooth all the way up to redline. The last thing you want here is a turbo kicking in suddenly at high RPM or a cam profile or valve timing changeover giving you a surprise to deal with. This SR20 seems tuned to be very predictable yet powerful.
Handling is equally smooth. The car is well planted and easy to maneuver despite its MR layout and very light weight. I don’t have to hyper focus and micromanage every steering or throttle input. Mid-corner lift doesn’t cause the car to become suddenly unbalanced. At least on this course, this car ends up being one of the easiest cars to race at the limit.
Our first place finish isn’t exactly simple. The field is even, and the other cars have the same great attributes we do. But we are able to do it, and the drive is very satisfying. Maybe the MR layout can win me over!
I really don’t want to strip even more weight and possibly add even more power to Roger for the racing style ZZ Challenge race, but that’s what we’ll do next time. Hopefully this car’s wonderful dynamics will remain.
Even the engine internals might be in danger. At least it’s just for one race.
… 100%.
