RFT

Latest output of the RFT paint shop:

650 on racing mediums, 666 on racing softs.

It's an 1983 Toyota Sprinter Trueno GT-APEX (AE86). Something of a Gran Turismo hero car going all the way back to the early days. In Japan in the 90's they were a very cheap way to get a rear-wheel-drive, 16 valve sporty hatchback. Never sold in the UK, though it's brother car, the Corolla Levin (basically identical but with regular headlights, not pop-ups) was. These days they're proper classics. The "86" in the name of the GT86/GR86 is in tribute to it. That one's been tuned with a widebody upgrade, full lightening, big tyres, and all the power I could get into it. only 280 hp which isn;t much for group 4, but it only weighs 800 kilos. and it's pretty low-drag so it's light on tyre wear and quite fuel-efficient for the class.

New patch is out, adding the Toyota Hypercar, a Suzuki Vision GT and an ugly modified camaro. Also, 3 new menu books, for K-Cars, Vision GTs, and Group 1 cars.

What is the essence of Gran Turismo? Tuning the nuts off a nearly-40-year-old toyota and using it to beat modern GTs! @John0 Worth saying also in terms of new starters, you can get a free loan of a Group 3 and Group 4 car by signing up to the manufacturers cup in sport mode. Saves some useful cash and you can use them offline on some fairly lucrative races.

The website Kurzheck and I made for that is still up, if you want to further wander down memory lane: https://targapositano.blogspot.com/ I have been pondering a return of the Historic Trophy in some form 500pp, Spa, Goodwood, Laguna, Suzuka, Alsace, Interlagos. Maybe a 500pp, Sport tyres, road cars, and a cut-off date around 1970... The problem is that half the cars I'd want to allow being Legends complicates things a bit. I would also love to do a Classic Le Mans 2-hour 1-off race, but the issue is just time, these days. And waiting for the 917 to come back toi the Legends Dealer.

Painted me 155 at lunchtime:

GT2 had quite a selection of BTCC cars: At the time, I was working in the Codemasters ToCA Studio on the 3rd PSX ToCA game and there was a definite feeling that Polyphony had taken notice of us.

I do like some of the mad stuff in 6. It's got a time trial on the moon for goodness sake! The Moon!

This is my view- and there was some oddness with the physics at the low end of the car roster, like slow cars had been delibarately made even slower for some reason. (I Tested this in-game with a car that had been in all of 1,2,and 3 with some 0-60 runs (probably using the AE86) and confirmed it. Was delighted to see the 155 DTM in the store. That was one of my absolute favourite cars in GT2 and I don't think I've seen it in anything i've played in the intervening 22 (Fucking hell) years. That V6 wails. It's interesting how insane that looked as a "touring car" in 1993 and how tame it looks now compared to the most recent DTM cars. Hopefully if the store is now looping round then the 917 will be back soon.

The rule of thumb is second game for each generation is better than the first. GT1 sets the tone. GT2 massively expands the car list beyond the few token western cars in the first game, and also loads of extra tracks. GT3 is probably my least favourite as it played like treacle in a slow car, and the platform shift neccesaitated a drop in the car and track rosters. GT4 is a masterpiece with Huge scale and scope. GT5 is totally skippable. in order to get the game onto the new hardware without the huge drop in content from GT2-3, they ported the bulk of them across from GT4 at low res and with no cockpits. GT6 is pretty good. Huge track list. The Previous-Gen cars are still there, but there's a far bigger selection of the high-quality cars.

I think I remember the Article - it was a Stuart Campbell piece for GamesTM IIRC.

Decided to go a little more ambitious with a livery than usual. (as an aside, I REALLY miss the option Forza has to group vinyls together)

This is likely to be exactly it. Volume brands: Skoda, Seat, VW Premium brands: Audi, Porsche Luxury brands: Bentley, Lamborghini First against the wall come the revolution brands: Bugatti Bikes? Really?: Ducati. And calling Merc "Daimler" is odd, but the Company is, and has always been* Daimler-Benz. Mercedes-Benz is their brand. *Apart from the 10 or so years of "DaimlerChrysler" but they don't like to talk about that.

917 tries to get air during the licence test

I think the closest is Keke Rosberg in 1982, who took the championship with a single win, beating Pironi, Prost, Lauda, Arnoux and Watson who all got two each (and another 4 drivers got single wins) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982_Formula_One_World_Championship

Expanding my collection of '90s Hondas...

"...And them maybe visit a back pain specialist"

Interesting that they don;t show it actually being *driven* afterwards.

Love the paint editor in this.

Worth checking out the used car dealer today as there’s a excellent (and cheap for its speed) Civic Type-R touring car which will be perfect for online spec races.

oh god it's qualifiying, isn't it? Bloody sprint weekends.

Interesting - I'd been trying to build a '71 GT-R for that race but that was still a couple of seconds off the pace. That build gives a nice excuse to buy the Alpine as I'll make a profit on it.

That's why the 30-minuter at Le Mans is so good - it seems almost impossible to lose the clean race bonus (I Clobbered someone art pit entry on my last run, and had a long gravel excursion when the weather got too bad for slicks and still kept the bonus) so a win is worth 825k. And, it's a race where the tyre wear and fuel strategy all seems to work fairly. The Tokyo one is insanely hard though - clip a wall in the wrong place and that's a 5-second penalty.