Just 6 of them in Brand Central, but for some reason they come in pairs: Turbo/NA for each manufacturer. What should I stick with as beginner friendly car?
The Gr. 2 consists on GT500 cars, so only the japanese "Big 3" have models represented, Honda, Toyota/Lexus and Nissan.
They all have the 2008 versions of the cars, which where on a regulation with lower HP and higher weight, also requiring the engine should be mass production based. So every manufacturer used NA engines, Honda used a 3.5 V6 based on NA2 NSX unit, Toyota/Lexus a 4.5 V8 based on the road version of the same model and Nissan opted by switching the 3.8 V6 twin turbo for a 4.5 V8 also, sourced from sister Infiniti company, the same engine that originated the multiple LMP2 winner and also the V8 Supercars Altima engine.
The more recent cars, from 2016, are from a more recent version of regulations, are lighter and have new engines, propose built 4-inline 2.0 liter turbocharged engines.
On paper the new cars should be insanely faster than the older ones (+ HP, less weight), but the new ones have a lot more spec parts (including a third party spec chassis) and aero, not so good weight distribution (the older cars had a lot of ballast to get to minimum weight), the NA engines have a lot more driveability, so they are pretty even. As already said, some are better on older version, some are better on the new one, but my personal feel is that the old ones are more nimble, despite being heavier, the new ones just feel "taller" with a lot more moving around with weight transfer, but the new engines feel a lot more powerful as they should.
Added to that, there are the '97 McLaren F1 GT-R (the long tail version) and the Mercedes CLK LM from the 97-98 GT1 regulations, which are in this category also, they are different beasts. They are damn fast, the McLaren more agile (but very thirsty), the Merc more planted, so low height, but down't expect the same gas mileage or low tire wear as in the GT500 cars. They would appear on LCD on rotation and are really expensive, just shy of 10 million each (I wouldn't go on specifics, because they have, as (almost) every LCD car, variable price).