On a cold December 23rd, 1997, the automotive world changed. It’s not an understatement to say that the original Gran Turismo for Playstation was the most impactful car racing game of all time. Not only was the gameplay more realistic than any other mainstream game that preceded it, GT introduced kids outside Japan to cars they’d never even imagined existed.
I was 14 when this game debuted and I’d glimpsed other cars through the “World Rally Championship” on SPEEDVISION and through the German car magazines my relatives would bring back from the Frankfurt airport. I thought I was cool. I was not cool. I knew nothing!
I got Gran Turismo for Christmas in 1997 and, honestly, I don’t remember much of 1998. Did I kiss a girl that entire year? Possibly not. Did I get an International-A License so I could race a Mazda Demio at Grand Valley Raceway? Hell yeah I did.
In honor of the game’s 25th anniversary let’s take a trip down memory lane, all to the sound of Manic Street Preachers remixed by The Chemical Brothers. If you’re old enough to remember, please tell me what your favorite car was (here’s the car list if you need a refresher).
For me, the Mitsubishi FTO was the definition of forbidden fruit. I love a quick FWD car, but the only real options in the United States were the Probe/MX-6 or the Honda Prelude. There’s nothing wrong with those cars, but I think still think the FTO is the most attractive of the bunch.
The best version of this car was the prize-only FTO LM, a special all-wheel drive racing version with more than 500 hp that never existed in the real world. Look at it!
Ok, your turn!
Photo: Gran Turismo
Gran Turismo definitely was what sent me as an 8yr old on the path to car enthusiasm.
We played a lot of split-screen arcade mode. The ’67 Corvette Sting Ray was tricky to master, but once you could get it to drift reliably around the sweeping bends of High Speed Ring it was incredible and looked great on the replay!
Nissan R390 GT1. Hands down.
I loved the Nissan Pulsar GTI-R, it was a little track monster and once it was tuned up to 400ish HP it could take on almost anything!
Now all they need to do is offer it on PC
Late adopter here. I bought a used PS1 just for GT2. Jag XJ220, Suzuki Alto, NA Miata’s, FD RX-7s, Subaru wagons, and the Plymouth GTX for just stupid fun. I played it so much, I can still hear garbage playing in my head.
I know I have a copy of Gran Turismo, but I’ve logged way more time with GT2 (starting way back with just the Playstation magazine demo disc my cousin had – I distinctly remember the Fiat Coupe). I didn’t actually get a PS1 until picking up a used one in ’05 (I was one of the weird kids who didn’t have video games until I was effectively an adult). I started off with the Mazda Familia GT-X (happy coincidence that it was related to the Escort I bought around the same time, albeit with twice the power and drive wheels), and did quite well with mods, so I mostly just kept using that.
I’m sure that this is the exact opposite of what people look to drive in Gran Turismo games, but I loved the fact that the PS2 and PS3 era GT games had the Dodge SRT-4. the only two other games I can name off the top of my head that had it was MC3 and Juiced 2, which were both goofy arcade games. I spent hours on GT5 driving a 600 HP SRT-4, learning throttle control and how to properly drive a powerful FWD car.
RUF CTR2 Sport. Best all round performance in GT2.
Ohhh GT1 sure is a nostalgia trip ! If I had to pick one “favorite car” it would be the race modified Aston Martin DB7 coupe. I always loved how every car had a race modification in GT1 !
I have always loved six cylinder engines. I think my favourite car to just doof around in on the original GT was a Toyota Soarer with a sport exhaust. It sounded a lot like a six, which in the original GT was not common.
I also had a few Aston Martins that I loved driving, and the MR2 was another fave.
I was always a VW guy growing up and my favorite car of all time is the Corrado. I was always so very sad that there was no Corrado in GT, and became an XBox/Forza fan the moment I saw that there was one in Forza. GT was still fun as hell, but I was far more into European cars than Japanese stuff, so the JDM-centric GT didn’t resonate QUITE as hard with me. That said, I had a CRX Si in GT2 that was I think, my favorite car in the game. It wasn’t fast, but it was good to drive and was far more relatable than saying ‘Look, I have an R32 GTR!’ when I was 17-20 years old.
A modified Corrado was my jam in Forza 3. Non stop time trial laps on Maple Valley Raceway.
I hate to be the Debbie Downer, but I just could NOT get into Gran Turismo.
I was SO excited for it when I first saw the TV commercial. It all looked so REAL! Then I saw the list of available cars and couldn’t wait to try them all. But when I finally got the game, I was incredibly disappointed to find that almost all of those cars had to be unlocked. I was not excited about the one available car that I could use right out of the box, and I could NOT get the hang of the gameplay. I love racing games from the cartoonish (Mario Kart, Crash Team Racing) to the realistic and everything in between, but I couldn’t even get the knack of the controls well enough to even complete a single lap. I was a “tank slapping” mess and quickly got frustrated.
So the disc sat and never really got played again. Instead, I went back to the Need for Speed series. My favorite was NFS2 with a bunch of my favorite cars, but Hot Pursuit was also a ton of fun. While the cover model Ferrari F50 was cool and the McLaren F1 is legendary, I think my favorite car in the game was the Jaguar XJ220, which I would sometimes select in bright pink just for the fun of it.
I still have a PS2 connected to my entertainment center, so I should probably pop in Gran Turismo and give it another chance. I did always feel a little bad about how I never “clicked” with a game that’s so universally adored.
It was the fact that you had to keep developing, completing goals to unlock cars that kept me going back, staying until ridiculous hours just to complete a 3hour endurance race to unlock something mundane like a Nissan 300ZX
I never really got into racing games at all. I enjoyed Pole Position at the arcade way back when, but that’s only because it had a steering wheel and pedals and I couldn’t drive a real car yet. By the time GT and NFS and all the rest came along, I was deep into racing RC cars, and the physical connection to them, even from 50 feet away, appealed to me more than staring at a TV screen. Plus, most of those “forbidden fruit” cars were available from Tamiya or HPI anyway, so I already knew about them.
I drove a Honda CRX Si in real life when the original Gran Turismo came out, so the CRX automatically became my go-to car. I especially loved being able to tune it high enough to challenge cars that were—frankly—way out of its league.
Even all these years later, I STILL remember being able to make enough speed on corners to edge out an NSX at the finish line. As much as racing games have moved on, that thrill is very much based in memory.
I was going to say Suzuki Escudo Pikes Peak, but that must’ve been GT2.
I adored the first three games, bought PlayStations 1 and 2 solely for them and would spend hours and hours playing, upgrading cars that didn’t deserve it, Demios etc.
I never allowed myself GT4 onwards for fear of the addiction taking hold again when I was now an adult with real world commitments.
Oreca Viper & Mitsubishi GTO.
Daytona Superbird. Used to race it against the mini-cooper/100 hp cars. Sure they would beat me in the corners but I could catch up.
Plus a watching that beast push it’s was forward was humorous.
I always loved turbocharging the living shit out of a Supra or a Skyline and winning races with sheer, brute force. The later games took steps to make sure you couldn’t get away with that.
Favorite game in the series is still GT2. Remember the menus where they’d give you these long histories about makes and models? I actually learned a LOT about cars that way. Tuning and racing, too. I’m not sure I’d have the career I have today if it weren’t for Gran Turismo.
I loved the fact that the AI wouldn’t automatically get faster if you got better or upgraded your car. That quality tapered off in GT2 and vanished entirely later, but it made GT feel sooooo much less like a video game.
I mostly drove the 3000GT (sorry, GTO) as it’s crap chassis and tons of power benefitted the hamfistedness of the PlayStation controller (never could afford anything better). The NSX was way tooo nervous to function with the standard controller.
TVR speed 12 for me. A shame I never could control it enough to win a race…
The Speed 12 was undrivable, much like real life where it got canned prior to launch because it was so dangerously unruly. Given TVRs MO was to be dangerously unruly, the Speed 12 must’ve been a terrifying monster.
My favorite for GT is the same as it is for every racing game: Honda NSX Type R
I loved the DB7. I can’t really even say why except that it seemed classy to me. I don’t think it was a good car in the game, so I ended up running Imprezas and Supras a lot, but I enjoyed the DB7 most.
I never had a console growing up, and the first racing game I played in earnest was Need for Speed III Hot Pursuit – I checked out the GT car list just now, and the DB7 seems to be the one car the two games share, so it gets my pick too!
The NFS series was always more my thing. I like a little bit more arcade than sim, and the Underground games were kind of a fun caricature of street racing.
Mitsubishi Galant VR4. Got it up to near 800hp with the mods I put on, and then rode it to victory bouncing off the walls!
I’m a late-adopter, so talking about GT3 here. The 2 cars I remember most vividly were the Porsche RUF Yellowbird and a C2 Stingray. The Stingray I threw all the mods at and ended up with a hilariously uncontrollable beast. Having learned from that, I was more cautious with the RUF and it ended up being at least driveable. Being American, I bought a lot of the JDM unobtanium cars. Those memory cards are long gone, but I think my main credit-earners were some sort of Silvia on pavement and a Lancia for dirt/gravel.
I now have another PS2 & copy of GT3 pretty much solely so I can wreck a Bugeye wrx without messing up my actual daily. And the physics are quite good for the time: I like to practice the Scandinavian flick on-screen before I go out and try it irl.
Quirky child that I was, I was fascinated by the “regular” cars we couldn’t get in the U.S., and getting to “drive” those we could. IIRC the Accord wagon and sedan were the same price to buy and I remember choosing the wagon because, obviously.
Overall though I think I leaned more Subaru even though I didn’t care for them as much in real life then, but I also think this was probably about the time I discovered the Subaru SVX and its also-ran status among the Japanese sport coupes made it all the better to me.
I still remember hearing how many hundreds of cars GT2 would have and eagerly looking out for that car list, with more international variety. Renaults?? Ford Ka?!
I owned an SVX for 7 years and put 100k on one. “Also ran” is sort of a misnomer; MOST 3000GTs and 300zxs were not turbocharged, and the SVX was arguably better than the NA version of either. I was a ski instructor at the time, and my SVX would get me to the slopes even plowing through 12″ of snow; I never saw a 300zx, 3000GT, Supra, or NSX in the parking lot, so depending on your use-case, those other cars were worse than also ran, they were never ran.
Yeah, perhaps not the best choice of words, though even though most of those all left the market here at about the same time, the SVX seemed to be forgotten about years prior. I’m not even positive how I first learned of it, just a small side mention in one of the car mags, followed by whatever attempts at gaining knowledge of it I could manage between dial-up internet and a dwindling auto section at the library.
Years later one of the admins at my high school had an SVX I’d see in the parking lot all the time, and I think that’s the closest I ever got to one in person.
I adored trying to “fast car slow” with the Viper SRT with every upgrade maxed out.
It was hilarious to put the shortest gearing on it and take it to the twistiest short courses, then plow through the corners hopping on and off the gas full throttle while barely beating some unmodified FWD civic whose AI driver wasn’t seemingly having a seizure.
The Mitsubishi GTO Twin Turbo ’91.
I’d rack up wins on the easy races, sell the cars they’d give me, and save up my scratch until I could buy this puppy. Then I’d use that thing to slaughter the competition in early-mid tier races, blowing prize money on upgrades and tuning until she was maxed out. You could stand with the big boys/girls with this. Although I did try, it was so fast and handled decently enough you could be sloppy on your technique and the sheer power with AWD would let you just “point and shoot” your way to victory. This thing was a cheat code.
As someone that grew up with Gran Turismo, it sure bums me out how much it hasn’t evolved or changed. I hate to say it but Forza has walked far past anything GT has put out recently, the gameplay is better, the customization is better, the music is better, the AI is better, and the online economy and marketplace of flipping customized cars is awesome. I don’t even get excited when new ones come out anymore, it’s the same game with better graphics, the gameplay hasn’t changed, the AI will still plow right into you, and the menu music sounds like a dentist’s office.
Conversely I can’t *stand* Forza, it’s constantly trying to hype itself up is nauseating.
It’s like if “The Price is Right” was a racing game.
I’m with you. Maybe time is just more valuable to me these days, but Forza Horizon is just more fun. My GT7 is just collecting dust. I can get credits fast enough to not need to devote my whole weekend to getting a new car or enough for tuning. I can load someone else’s tune so I don’t need to spend time making my own.
I can just spend my time driving around and acquiring cars, which is the fun for me. I know some people like tuning the cars, I used to, but don’t have time for the trial and error these days.
I was trying to remember what I used the most, and you got it right here. You could jack it up to a ridiculous amount of power (even though Skylines could too, for some reason the GTO got my attention more).
Then in GT2, the Ruf CTR 2 Sport came along and I used that for everything.
True, the Skyline was pretty close. It might’ve been a styling preference on my part. This is going to sounds ridiculous, but I think all tuned to the hilt, the GTO had something like 900-1200 gross HP. Wonderfully absurd.