What’s Your All-Time Favorite Car in Gran Turismo?
So many legendary choices, it can be hard to pick.
Gran Turismo is perhaps the single most influential game for car enthusiasts of a certain age (say, mid-twenties like me) who had a PlayStation growing up (say, like me). I lost count of the number of hours I sunk into specifically Gran Turismo 4, which came into my life in an era where the only cars I was exposed to were American muscle cars at rural local car meets. All of a sudden, I was introduced to an entire universe of cars with their own legendary performance that I'd never seen before, and I've been hooked on classic JDM cars since then.
With the series back in the news for the release of its latest installment, now seems like as good a time as any to revisit the classics and ask: what car was your favorite? The car I remember most fondly, endlessly grinding away at the special events for (specifically, the Capri Rally, to earn the Toyota Rally Raid RSC Concept as a prize car to sell) was the limited-release "Used Car Shop"-only Mazda 787B.
I had trawled strategy guides trying to find the "best purchase" for the LMP-classed races that open up later in the game, and by paying close attention to the date system, it was possible to find a series of all-black classic Le Mans prototype cars in the used shops for a fraction of their normal purchase price. The best of these, every guide told me, was Mazda's legendary four-rotor 1992 winner, the 787B. The 787B never was campaigned in real life with a black paint job, but the game's mystique and influence was so strong that diecast manufacturer AutoArt released a line of the game-specific cars in their all-black liveries.
From here, my obsession with the 787B took off, as I dominated every race I could with my stealthy, well-bought LMP. My graduation gift to myself was a 1:18 scale model of the winning car; simply seeing it is a bucket-list goal for me. It all started with shopping for a deal in a video game that influenced my life more than I ever could have imagined, so now we want to know: What was your favorite car, from any of the Gran Turismo games?
