5 (or so) Cars I Want to See in Gran Turismo 5

Posted by Nate Patrin at 5:22 PM Apr 18, 2008

Even though Forza Motorsport 2 has locked down a stranglehold on the part of my gamer-brain that desires to drive fast, flashy automobiles in a way that more or less reflects real life physics, I’m still pretty geeked for Gran Turismo 5. Part of that hinges on the fact that GT covers some of the bullet points that Forza misses: even if it doesn’t have the paint job customization, robust damage system, clever AI and the Lamborghini and Porsche licensing of the 360’s flagship racing sim, Gran Turismo 5 does have a cockpit view, staggeringly beautiful graphics and - best of all - the probability that they'll sneak in some really weird surprises in its car roster. Sure, Forza has almost every single modern high-performance supercar you'd ever want, but Gran Turismo has wonderful car-geek obscurities like the Ginetta G4 and the Dome Zero. And think back to '98: had you even heard of a Nissan Skyline GT-R or a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution before the first Gran Turismo hit the PS1?

That said, they've still been kind of lax in a few areas; for every unprecedented apperance by an enthusiast's car like the Honda 1300 Coupe 9 or the Alpine A310, there's a whole ton of candidates that Polyphony Digital opted to leave out so they could fit in a few more variations on the same boring Daihatsu microvan. So here's my list of the cars I'm keeping my fingers crossed for when Gran Turismo 5 graduates Prologue status and finally hits shelves. Well, at least the fingers on one hand -- the other one's got its fingers crossed that GT5 sees release before 2009; otherwise I'm probably going to be preoccupied with Forza 3. Keep in mind that I'm leaving out gimmes like the newest incarnations of beloved models (yes, we all want to see the new Camaro, though I refuse to call it "Bumblebee") and confirmed omissions like the aforementioned Porsche and Lamborghini. In fact, this list skews kind of old-school -- but for a franchise that claims to be a historically-minded automotive encyclopedia, why not look backwards a couple decades?

1) The De Tomaso Pantera GT5S
As a pop-culture icon, the Pantera is relatively obscure, maybe because its most famous moments were morbid ones: both hockey star/donut shop magnate Tim Horton and Hanoi Rocks drummer Razzle died in Pantera crashes (the latter courtesy of Mötley Crüe's Vince Neil). More amusingly, Elvis owned one and shot it when it wouldn't start. But this wide-shouldered muscle/sports mongrel with international origins -- a Ford 351 engine encased in an Italian-designed frame and named for an Argentian race car driver turned supercar manufacturer -- is pure evil in a more traditional sense: it's fast as stink. Unveiled in 1984, the GT5S is maybe the best of the line; not only is it the highest-performance incarnation of the Italo-American supercar -- 0-60 took 5.3 seconds, with 100 MPH arriving in 12.6, completely insane numbers for the mid '80s -- but it had the extra bonus of rocking a streamlined widebody look with flared wheel arches and a big delta-wing spoiler. It also featured a sport-tuned suspension and super-fat tires that held it onto the road surprisingly well for a mid-engined car. Panteras have shown up before in a couple lesser-loved racing games -- most notably Tokyo Xtreme Racer 3 and R: Racing Evolution, but neither of those could really capture its spirit like GT can.

2) The Citroën SM
When French automotive institution Citroën made it their mission to follow up the legendary and innovative DS -- which did for cars what that other DS did for portable video games -- they pulled out all the stops. It's not entirely clear what the "SM" stands for: repair-plagued owners might tell you it's "sadism/masochism," but systeme Maserati is another good theory, since the Italian sports car manufacturer provided the V6 engine that could push this space-age tourer to 135 MPH and beyond. The real hot stuff in the engineering department, though, was all Citroën: that V6 was put into service for a front-wheel drivetrain -- a front-wheel drive model introduced in the early '70s, at that -- which pushed the car along on one of the most revolutionary suspension systems of the time. The steering was augmented by the world's first variable-assist power steering system, which gave large amounts of assist at slow city-travelling speeds and eased up when the car hit cruising speed on the motorway, while hitting potholes didn't shake the alignment in the least. And since it carried over the DS' self-leveling hydropneumatic suspension -- which accounted for shifts in weight distribution (say, stowing a whole ton of luggage in the trunk) and rough road surfaces by automatically adjusting to keep the car on an even keel -- its handling was ridiculously smooth, and would be fun to see simulated on GT's digital racetracks. Shame to see Burt Reynolds drive one into the drink in The Longest Yard.

3) The Nissan MID-4 Prototype
The best thing about a game like Gran Turismo is that it can accurately simulate what it would be like to drive a car you will never, ever even see, much less own. That particularly applies to prototypes, and Nissan's MID-4 -- introduced in 1985 and scrapped a few years later -- is maybe my favorite "what if" car of the last 25 years. In the mid '80s, when the Z was turning into a bloated and sleepy pseudo-sport model and the Skyline's future as the ultimate Japanese muscle car was still a few years on the horizon, Nissan decided it'd be a fun idea to see what it would be like to manufacture a mid-engined supercar -- and give it four-wheel drive. Crazy? Well, it worked for the Lamborghini Murciélago almost 20 years later. Thing is, the Murciélago costs a ton, and the MID4 wasn't exactly projected to be all that cheap, either. It sure looked like a high-end supercar with its Lotus-meets-Ferrari styling, even if its engine put out a modest 190 bhp. While the second-generation MID-4 upped the power ante (325 bhp with a twin turbo installed), its looks weren't quite up to par, which makes its eventual cancellation a mixed blessing. Most of its suspension components eventually found their way into the Skyline GT-R and Z32-chassis, at least -- with their boring ol' frontward engines.

4) Any Barris Kustom creation
GT's included a few outlandish custom and fantasy cars in its time, from Jay Leno's "tank car" to a Nike-designed car of the future to a beautifully-customized '62 Buick, so maybe they'll have some space in their garage for the Frank Lloyd Wright of hot rods. If you've watched TV, odds are you've seen one of George Barris' cars: he designed the Batmobile, the Monkee Mobile, the General Lee, the Munster Koach and pretty much everything else on TV short of that pink hoopty with the crumpled fender that Homer Simpson drives. But it's the cars he designed for an off-screen clientele that rock the hardest: the man had a thing for bubble tops, tandem-mounted engines, the fattest of fat tires, pipes sprawling everywhere, metalflake paint in colors you've never even thought of, and every other design cue that made the space age dreams of the '50s and '60s so cool. Just the Cosma Ray, OK? That's all I ask.

5) The entire 1969-1970 American Motors muscle car lineup
This is cheating, obviously, since it pushes the list well past five -- but come on. Gran Turismo's power to expose gamers to previously-obscure cars could do wonders for rehabbing the image of Kenosha's once-great Big Three fighter, which is probably most well-known these days for what-the-christ models like the Gremlin and the Pacer. The Vette-rival AMX 390 was the crown jewel of AMC's performance lineup, and probably the most well-known, while its cousin the Javelin was set up to take the Mustang, Camaro and Barracuda head-on -- and did it with notable success on the track, winning three Trans-Am Series championships in a row from 1971-1973. And the lesser-known models, such as the SC/Rambler and the Rebel Machine, followed the classic muscle car tradition of taking nothing-special sedans and turning them into fire-breathing red-white-and-blue monstrosities with more raw power than Iggy and the Stooges.

If none of these make it into Gran Turismo 5, I'll be a little disappointed -- though maybe Polyphony can at least compensate for it by leaving out the PT Cruiser this time around. Seriously, nobody wants to drive that thing.