there’s never been and presumably never will be a racing game with a fifth generation Ford Laser in it so sadly I don’t think I’ll ever have that particular experience lmao
technically it was a badge engineered Mazda 323/Protege, and that car appears in GT2, but that doesn’t quite feel the same
I feel you. I had a '96 Ford Contour when I played GT2. In other parts of the world it’s known as the Mondeo. There is a later model Mondeo you can drive, so that’s the closest I got to driving my own car!
Damn! I tracked down a picture of it!
I do some more racing tonight. Gran Turismo 2 has its hold on me! Desmond has more to prove! Let’s go!
We’ll head to the Station Wagon Cup’s Super Speedway race. A 394hp limit and a vaguely oval track awaits. This turns out to be some very easy money. I’ll keep this race in mind for later when I need some quick credits. Once Desmond gets ahead of the pack, it’s all over. We get first.
Our prize car is a Honda. It’s a Mugen Accord Wagon. I LOVE wagons! And I LOVE this car! This is Lucy!
Next we’ll finish out the Station Wagon Cup at the final race at Special Stage R5. Desmond wins this easily. I’m just here to get an exciting prize car.
Hell yes! I’ts a Nissan Stagea 260RS. This is essentially a Skyline wagon. I think this might be my dream wagon! Say hello to Lance!
Desmond’s overconfidence is beginning to show. We go to the Historic Car Trophy race at Grindelwald with a 394hp limit. No problem! Nope! The Shelby Cobras Coupes here are ruthless and fast. They corner better and they are faster than Desmond.
We lose the first race. We win the second race because there are no Shelby Cobra Coupes. There is a Ford GT40 though. And it makes the race very very tense. Good stuff!
For our troubles we win a prize car. It’s a Toyota Celica Concept Car. Cool I guess? The 2ZZ under the hood is definitely cool. This is Stacy.
Desmond has more business to handle tonight, but I am taking a break for now!
love a good Stagea, a friend in Japan drives a lovely blue one and it rules
hmmm, cannot remember seeing that Accord Wagon in RL, though its fastback-shape very much reminds me of the Audi 200 version that looks 1980ies-suspiciously similar,
in any case,
Snazzier Wagons for Sporty Dads
is yet another band-name for a midlife crisis 2021 prog rock band i never gonna kickstart, but keep thinking of!
(that Celica was an American design? That explains why it looked so radical back then!)
I kinda miss my jellybean. It wasn’t one of the SHO models, but I still miss it from time to time.
Continuing from last night’s action, we head to the Grand Touring Car Trophy’s Red Rock Valley race. Another easy win for Desmond the rally monster. Desmond’s short gearing means the other cars start catching up on the straight sections, but cornering ability and acceleration win the day.
Our next prize car is our first proper race car! It’s a Daishin Silvia. I have to name the Silvia Sylvia. There is no other choice. Sylvia has no info screen. Or I forgot to capture it! But good god the numbers speak for themselves.
Time to put Lance to work! A Skyline wagon seems perfect for the 4WD Challenge at the Seattle Short track. Lance handles so well! Best handling not a Skyline but a Skyline I’ve driven in as long as I can remember. This wagon is fun to toss around and get sideways. We win. And I forget to capture the results screen.
We get a Subaru Legacy Touring Wagon GT-B prize car! Another super cool wagon! It’s not as showy as the WRX STi, but it’s just as capable. This is Dave.
There’s another race and prize car to cover, but it’s storming very badly outside so I’ll finish this post now before I lose power.
nice typo, Polyphony, that’s Bilstein dampers, although Bild means picture in german, so it’s almost a real word, though not quite.
That silvia looks like a JGTC entry, let me goo-
why did I even begin to think that there surely isnt’t a fan-wiki for that series🙇♂️
Alright this daily thunderstorm finally calmed down so back to it!
Desmond is going back to Laguna Seca! This is for the Pure Sports Car Cup. We get another easy win. An Elise poses somewhat of a threat. There’s something about those lightweight Lotuses. At one point the demonic face in my rearview distracts me and I go off track for a second. Then I lose it again at the corkscrew. This would be catastrophic in any other racing game.
We win a Tom’s Angel T01. What a wicked little car I completely forgot about! We’ll name this Angel Pixie.
Sunday afternoon race time! We’re still chipping away at those special events with Desmond. We go to the Pure Sports Car Cup’s Deep Forest race limited to 443hp. Desmond has the perfect gearing for this track reaching top speed just before the braking zone in the first turn on the long straight. It’s enough for a win! Grandpa Europa is here again to bomb the photo.
Prize car time! It’s a Tommy Kaira ZZ-III. It has MR layout and a power-to-weight ratio that makes me do a double-take. This is Don.
There are more unfinished cups like the Lightweight “K” Cup. The final race there is on Tahiti Road, and the power limit is 98hp. Marco has exactly 98hp, so let’s give it a shot! Marco wins, but the competition keeps the pressure on. Marco looks huge among the real kei cars.
The prize car for completing the “K” Cup is a proper CR-X! It’s a Mugen CR-X Pro.2. My sister drove a CR-X for a lot of the 90s. It survived floating around in a flooded street, constant flogging, and extreme deferred maintenance. We called it “The Roach” because you could not kill it. We will respect this CR-X and call it Sarah.
There are two out of three unwon races in the FF challenge. These call for high horsepower FF cars. That’s a tricky proposition as throwing tons of power at the FF platform can easily make a car undriveable. I decide to see if Julien’s got the stuff. Julien does not have the stuff for the second FF race at Midfield Raceway with a 345hp limit. We get second.
I have things to consider now. There are several options when trying to tackle a particular challenge in GT. You can try to upgrade and tune your car to victory, or you can simply find a platform with more power and more potential. In this case, I decide it’s time to purchase a new car.
In trying to think of brands that make potent FF sports cars, Alfa Romeo immediately comes to mind. That’s it! We’re going to buy a GTV 3.0. We are going to regrettably name it Luigi. We are going to pick a beautiful reddish purple color.
Julien’s got the revs, but Luigi’s got the displacement. That means low-end torque. Something most Hondas lack. I’m hoping this will prove useful. Back to the same race as last time, Luigi takes a shot at the second FF Challenge race. We get the victory! I take too many shots because Italian cars are almost always beautiful.
We win the race and the beauty contest! We also win a prize car. It’s a Tom’s T111. Meet Deborah!
The next FF Challenge race at Trial Mountain bumps the power limit up to 394hp. I am nervous. I am rightfully nervous as Luigi can’t hang with these highly tuned FF cars. Even with my controversial YEET! maneuver on the final turn, I can’t keep up.
Someone needs a tune. I may try to turn one of my many Honda prize cars into a monster, or just put Luigi on a diet and get better tires. I’m thinking the latter. Overpowered Civics are played out.
Feeling hopeful, we take Luigi to get battle-ready. I resist the urge to touch the motor and transmission components. Let’s start with the basics! A good old weight reduction and better tires should do it!
All of Luigi’s shortcomings melt away with a few hundred pounds shed and some grippy rubber. I can brake later. The limits of grip are higher. This is the good stuff! Luigi is still underpowered compared to the competition at the final FF Challenge race, so we have to go 11/10ths! We take first by a full second!
There will be a ton of prize cars tonight. The first one is a Mugen Prelude Type S. This one is called Jason.
For the rest of the evening, I decide to start taking care of the one make races with these prize cars I’ve been accumulating. First up is Brian at the GT-R Meeting at Super Speedway. Once Brian pulls ahead it’s all over.
For driving around an oval track twice, we are awarded another Skyline. It’s a '91 GT-R. There is no info box, but it has a nice special color. We call it Mia.
Next up, Richard heads to the Impreza Challenge race. The random course is Special Stage Route 5. We take the victory in a pretty even field.
My younger self preferred the Impreza sedan over the wagon. My current self prefers the wagon by a long shot. For winning the Impreza Meeting, we are awarded with another Impreza. This is a '96 WRX STi sedan. We’re naming it Dick.
Time to find out if Stacy can race in the Celica one make race even though Stacy is a prototype. Stacy is welcome! We beat a few different generations of Celica here. I was never a big fan of the last Celicas, but I have to admit that the 2ZZ revs freely and feels really nice here!
Our reward car for winning the Celica Meeting is another Celica. It’s a '95. I always preferred the generation right before this one, but we’ll take a free car any day! I call it Bruce. Bruce has no info screen. That seems to be the case for most if not all of these special color editions.
For the next race we take Sylvia to the Silvia & 180SX race. We select “racing style” because Sylvia is a proper race car! We win at Seattle Short. Sylvia’s damping rate is a bit on the high side for this course, but that’s what you get for bringing a literal race car to drive in the city!
I forget to grab a screenshot of the prize car here. I know we’re all shocked to learn it’s another Silvia. This is a Silvia Spec-R D-Rights. This car will be Danielle. Why not give Danielle a shot at the “normal style” Silvia meeting? We do, and Danielle wins easily at the Autumn Ring course.
The “normal style” Silvia & 180SX one make race victory gives us another prize car. And yes, it’s another Silvia. This is a Silvia Q’s. Quint seems like a good name for it.
I’m sure there are more one make races we can win with our stable, but this is all I can handle for one day. The challenges will be here tomorrow!
Tonight we will continue to complete races we can with cars we already own. This is getting more and more difficult as I realize it’ll be time to grab that International B Class license soon.
I remember Luigi is Italian. And the Italian Nationals event has one race Luigi isn’t too powerful for. It takes place at the Rome Circuit, naturally. We get first. And I realize I need to acquire an Italian car with 197hp or less to race in the other race. I sure like these Lancia Deltas! The blue Fiat Coupe is a tough bugger!
Next we take Carlo to the UK Nationals race at Trial Mountain. The power limit is 197hp. Carlo is well under that, but we know how fearsome a lightweight Lotus can be! This is my first time driving Carlo, and it’s terrifying. This is the twitchiest car yet. Breathe on any input wrong and it’s all over. We win by passing a gorgeous teal Mini in the final corner of the final lap.
The time has now come to get the International B Class license. I can’t put it off any longer. There are some rally tests here! And somehow I get more silvers than I’ve gotten in any other license test. I do end up failing a few and having to retry. The final test puts me in a Viper at Laguna Seca’s corkscrew. That’s just cruel!
Only one license remains. We’ll get that another day. We’ve now unlocked more races to compete in. I want something easy for a change, so I grab Sylvia and head to the final FR Challenge race at Midfield Raceway. Sylvia is a good bit under the power limit, but I have no concerns because racecar! We pull ahead of every car before the first turn then never see them again.
An RX-7 GT-C is the prize car. I will name this car Roxanne. The FD is probably my favorite Japanese sports car of all time! Tho I prefer them without big wings. Still, I’m sure it’s functional on Roxanne.
So, considering that you mentioned Italian cars up there, and how the lightweight Lotus and MR2 have caught your attention, I wondered what the intersection of both worlds would look like…
like, say, the middle ground of a Ferrari and Toyota, just for starters.
Oh… OH.
… for 19800€ this can be yours. Reconsidering life choices, hmmm.
typing on a phone is crap, but since my browser has eaten several posts without any prior warning (seems to be an auto-complete issue with multiple . in a row and/or involving backspace? just an empty posting box and the rage is off the charts 
), have to switch to this channel then…
regarding the Lotus Yurop, didn’t remember her being such a snappy oversteer drama queen! But tbh, haven’t driven one for quite a while… it somehow dropped off the usual lineup-rosters, since i haven’t seen one in Forzas for a while now? 
But the body, plus the packaging in the engine bay …
… just look at it.
They don’t make 'em like this anymore.
“Recreation Kit Car” What is it based on? I tend to really only love Ferraris of the V12 or (turbo) V8 kind.
Damn that Fiat Coupe engine bay is really something! I dig the wheels as well!
Gran Turismo taught me about Subarus but more importantly about the Lancia Delta HF Integrale and how fuckin sick the S4 is, especially in Martini livery
it’s a MR2.
Seriously!
I am also wondering why on earth would you do that, and how on earth this works…
re the fiat coupe engine bay:
someone replaced the cylinder head and in the process filmed most bits of it. Oooffff need to sit down…
An inline 5? This gets weirder and weirder. I want one!
