Gran Turismo IRL: The Sport Location Made Real.

384
Ireland
Armagh
Shelby 427 1965
Hi everyone! Welcome to my little story to share.

For those that don't know me (probably a lot if not all of you) my name is Tomo, and I'm from Ireland, and last year I made my Gran Turismo dream come true by building the car I always wanted as a kid - the Impreza WRX STI GF8 Wagon in Cashmere Yellow.

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This year, on our first proper road trip in her, me and my girlfriend decided that we would try the west coast of Ireland, as we'd not done it before. Galway was the place that sprang to mind. A three hour drive and 142 miles, in a car that hadn't reeeally had the chance to prove itself to me yet. After an early start and a long trip, we made it to the beautiful coastal town of Galway.


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However... There was something about the idea of "Galway" that was in the back of my mind that I remembered that first night we stayed there... Lettermullan.

To some of you, that might not mean anything. To the GT Sport photographers here, it may mean something - but to me, it meant a lot. For you see, "Lettermullan" is one of the Scapes locations in GT Sport that meant a lot to me when I first saw it some four years ago on launch day - because frankly, Ireland never gets included in nice things, so when I saw we had some scapes locations, I got a nice fuzzy feeling.

With a big thanks to the Gran Turismo group on Facebook, I asked if anyone had any pics off-hand of the scape location that I could use to try and find it.

Thankfully, someone delivered with exactly what I needed.

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The key thing here for me was that shot with the gate - that's the one I most wanted to recreate. But first, I had to find it.
After spending about an hour tracing the roads on the island on Google Maps in our Air B&B (which was lovely, by the way), I eventually found it. I was looking for the tower that you can see in the background, as commonly in Ireland around the coastlines of islands we have these lookout towers, many of them leftovers from previous battles and wars, which told me it must be (most likely) going to have a view of the main island itself near it.

Eventually... bingo. There it was.

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"Trá Mhór", Lettermullan, County Galway, Ireland. Let's go.

It turned out, Lettermullan wasn't just an island, but part of a series of islands on the coast, all joined to the mainland via lots of small walled bridges. Both amazing and terrifying at the same time, especially on a blustery cold November morning.

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What also didn't help was that being in the Gaeltacht area of Ireland, all of the signs were exclusively in Irish.

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Thank god for Sat Nav, eh?

However, after driving around this tiny little island and feeling both lost and like I was definitely trespassing, in the distance after turning a corner, there it was.
The tower.
We were on the right track.

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And lo and behold... We had found it!!
Now, first I had to scan the scene and see where these shots were taken. It seemed to be that all of them were taken on this rock, which overlooked both the gate scape shot, and the road shot. No limits in the pursuit of the perfect shot.

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I climbed up, and there it was... The view.
I must say, it was a very surreal feeling. But I couldn't believe that I was seeing it in person. This spot, that the team at Polyphony all the way over in Japan saw and thought "hey, let's put that in our game", was right in front of me.

First of all, here's the in game shots...

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And now I present to you... the real deal!

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Side by side:

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20211118130449.jpgIMG_8059.jpg

As you can see, there's a couple little differences in the 4+ years since they came here to see it.
There's now a warning sign at the gate about trespassing, and there's a small pillar with a walking symbol on it on the other side.

As for the road shot, there's just been some tidying up of rocks but generally it's the same.

I really enjoyed our adventure to find this place, and I hope you enjoyed seeing the pics :)

Thank you, and a huge thank you to the Gran Turismo group on Facebook, and special thank you to Chikara Kitabatake, Official Gran Turismo Landscape Photographer, who spotted the post on there and said some very kind words to me for discovering the place that "they found by chance".

Cheers everyone, til next time!
Tomo


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This is the coolest thing! Congrats on both the car and the trip!

So, where to next? :P

I feel like this could be a real thing. Take a car featured in a GT game and put it on a track, in a scape, etc. I'd subscribe to that.



Jerome
 
Very neat.

Forever will laugh at someone thinking 142 miles and 3 hours is far though!
LOL
I think that's a European thing.
My relatives over in Slovenia were shocked when we told them we drove up from Dubrovnik in Croatia back to their place just on the North side of the Croatian border in Slovenia.
I recall them saying that should take a few days.
I remember it being hours...

They seem to have a very different concept to what far and long is compared to people from larger countries like USA, Australia, Russia etc.


More importantly. Is that a JDM import to Ireland???
If not I did not know they sold STI wagons outside of Japan.
 
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Hi everyone! Welcome to my little story to share.

For those that don't know me (probably a lot if not all of you) my name is Tomo, and I'm from Ireland, and last year I made my Gran Turismo dream come true by building the car I always wanted as a kid - the Impreza WRX STI GF8 Wagon in Cashmere Yellow.

View attachment 1094681

This year, on our first proper road trip in her, me and my girlfriend decided that we would try the west coast of Ireland, as we'd not done it before. Galway was the place that sprang to mind. A three hour drive and 142 miles, in a car that hadn't reeeally had the chance to prove itself to me yet. After an early start and a long trip, we made it to the beautiful coastal town of Galway.


View attachment 1094690

View attachment 1094691

However... There was something about the idea of "Galway" that was in the back of my mind that I remembered that first night we stayed there... Lettermullan.

To some of you, that might not mean anything. To the GT Sport photographers here, it may mean something - but to me, it meant a lot. For you see, "Lettermullan" is one of the Scapes locations in GT Sport that meant a lot to me when I first saw it some four years ago on launch day - because frankly, Ireland never gets included in nice things, so when I saw we had some scapes locations, I got a nice fuzzy feeling.

With a big thanks to the Gran Turismo group on Facebook, I asked if anyone had any pics off-hand of the scape location that I could use to try and find it.

Thankfully, someone delivered with exactly what I needed.

View attachment 1094692

View attachment 1094693

The key thing here for me was that shot with the gate - that's the one I most wanted to recreate. But first, I had to find it.
After spending about an hour tracing the roads on the island on Google Maps in our Air B&B (which was lovely, by the way), I eventually found it. I was looking for the tower that you can see in the background, as commonly in Ireland around the coastlines of islands we have these lookout towers, many of them leftovers from previous battles and wars, which told me it must be (most likely) going to have a view of the main island itself near it.

Eventually... bingo. There it was.

View attachment 1094694

"Trá Mhór", Lettermullan, County Galway, Ireland. Let's go.

It turned out, Lettermullan wasn't just an island, but part of a series of islands on the coast, all joined to the mainland via lots of small walled bridges. Both amazing and terrifying at the same time, especially on a blustery cold November morning.

View attachment 1094695

What also didn't help was that being in the Gaeltacht area of Ireland, all of the signs were exclusively in Irish.

View attachment 1094696

Thank god for Sat Nav, eh?

However, after driving around this tiny little island and feeling both lost and like I was definitely trespassing, in the distance after turning a corner, there it was.
The tower.
We were on the right track.

View attachment 1094697

View attachment 1094698

And lo and behold... We had found it!!
Now, first I had to scan the scene and see where these shots were taken. It seemed to be that all of them were taken on this rock, which overlooked both the gate scape shot, and the road shot. No limits in the pursuit of the perfect shot.

View attachment 1094699

I climbed up, and there it was... The view.
I must say, it was a very surreal feeling. But I couldn't believe that I was seeing it in person. This spot, that the team at Polyphony all the way over in Japan saw and thought "hey, let's put that in our game", was right in front of me.

First of all, here's the in game shots...

View attachment 1094701

View attachment 1094702

And now I present to you... the real deal!

View attachment 1094704

View attachment 1094706

Side by side:

View attachment 1094701View attachment 1094704


View attachment 1094702View attachment 1094706

As you can see, there's a couple little differences in the 4+ years since they came here to see it.
There's now a warning sign at the gate about trespassing, and there's a small pillar with a walking symbol on it on the other side.

As for the road shot, there's just been some tidying up of rocks but generally it's the same.

I really enjoyed our adventure to find this place, and I hope you enjoyed seeing the pics :)

Thank you, and a huge thank you to the Gran Turismo group on Facebook, and special thank you to Chikara Kitabatake, Official Gran Turismo Landscape Photographer, who spotted the post on there and said some very kind words to me for discovering the place that "they found by chance".

Cheers everyone, til next time!
Tomo


View attachment 1094707
A little while back, I started a project to do something... similar. Thanks to Mazda UK and Ford UK, I did manage to make a start on it, but thanks to COVID I wasn't able to make any further progress. I might have a look at doing it again when GT7 comes out and I know if we have more UK Scapes and where they are, but as a little preview:

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(I had to park the real Mustang on the pavement rather than in the real spot; it was already pretty sketchy even being there, and the streets were heaving with a new intake of students as it was mid-September)
 
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LOL
I think that's a European thing.
My relatives over in Slovenia were shocked when we told them we drove up from Dubrovnik in Croatia back to their place just on the North side of the Croatian border in Slovenia.
I recall them saying that should take a few days.
I remember it being hours...

They seem to have a very different concept to what far and long is compared to people from larger countries like USA, Australia, Russia etc.


More importantly. Is that a JDM import to Ireland???
If not I did not know they sold STI wagons outside of Japan.
Well, Slovenia and Croatia used to be part of Yugoslavia. What did people think of travel times back then?
 
That’s awesome.
Back before my first son was born, I bought a car for a friend located near me and drove the car from there(Larvik) to Bergen where he lived.
I too decided to do a little comparison shot. Not that the car I drove was 100% the same, but it was a blast driving it over(and deep into) the mountains. I did the trip overnight, and if I was a few hours faster I would’ve captured the same ‘darkness’.

I didn’t have the photo on this phone, had to find it from a tweet I did.

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That’s awesome.
Back before my first son was born, I bought a car for a friend located near me and drove the car from there(Larvik) to Bergen where he lived.
I too decided to do a little comparison shot. Not that the car I drove was 100% the same, but it was a blast driving it over(and deep into) the mountains. I did the trip overnight, and if I was a few hours faster I would’ve captured the same ‘darkness’.
Great pic!
 
Brilliant stuff @tomo 427 S/C. I'm a Dublin boy but the west coast of our little country can be a beautiful part of the world. Galway is a super place too that I need to visit again.

Congratulations on getting your dream car. Enjoy pal!
 
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