GT7 Journey’s - Tell us your GT story!

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Mick Tee

Mick Tee

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Story Time!
How did you end up on GT7? New or returning player?
What was your journey through the franchise? Years? Decades?
What are your most memorable builds?

Share with us and let’s inspire the younger generation racer!

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Mick Tee
So my Gran Turismo journey has been a long and exciting one. Starting out on the very first series of the collection and progressing from track to drag and drift before becoming involved with the street racing circuit during the height of the tuner craze.

I was fortunate enough to have had many engines donated to my garage collection over the decades that were installed in some unconventional recipients, my consoles have seen some wild and crazy action. I have returned to the track scene in 2023 to embark on the next instalment via GT7.

I am partial to Honda’s, I have always held a torch for the Mugen parts and Spoon engines but will always look further into my builds. An AE86 with a 2JZE engine, first of the Skylines with an RB20 swap but my personal favourite was a bright yellow Fox Body Mustang from the 90s dropped and sporting a 429 Cobra Jet engine that dominated most of the GT tracks in its heyday.
I moved on to drag racing and established my own team M8T1 Racing in Australia. Before moving to the UK I participated in many Drift Trials and events mainly using Sylvia’s such as the S15 with a Skyline engine.

My passion for racing has returned to the track after a long and successful haul on the street racing scene where my brother and I became a very dominant dual driving team that spanned the entirety of the NFS era.

With Heat being my last hurrah I decided to retire the Ol’ Yella the sleeper that had won many a race, most times by rattling the nuts and bolts off the competition tuners on the start line before even spooling and launching like a stallion rearing up.

I am looking forward to taking a slow and steady approach and exploring all that GT7 has to offer by spending as much time as I can with my ‘Micks Picks’ of cars that I remember from the very first series. (While also learning from the Maestro and Bread, the master builders in hopes of finding something to match Ol’ Yellas thrill and fear inducing hell rides!)

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Here is my story. It is based on real people and events, though may not be very inspiring.

Chapter 1:
I am a returning player for GT7. I’ve played all GT games except GT Sport. I don’t care at all for racing randoms online who can’t actually race and just want to ruin it for others.

Chapter 2:
Decades. I started playing shortly after the first GT was released in the US. I still have PS memory cards full of cars and Credits after deciding to own at least 2 of every car in both games.

Chapter 3:
I can’t really say I have any. I tune cars for certain races/events to win, but can’t say any of them are ‘memorable’ or special for any reason.
 
In 1997 I had finished up the only truly compelling PS1 games I had. I had just purchased the new PS1 Dual Shock edition and kinda laughed at the new, smaller controllers, then set it aside.
The following year I grabbed up the sampler discs I had and started playing the demos. That's where I discovered Gran Turismo.
Fast forward to 2022. With FF7 Remake out, I was curious, so I bought a PS5. Gran Turismo had been half decent up to GT40 so I took the plunge on a 25th Anniversary Edition. I played for close to a year, got bored, got a PSVR2, and rediscovered GT7.
The game that truly got me interested in car racing games was Daytona USA. I spent hours on that thing, finally learning to finish first over all the AI cars no matter what.
 
Returning player. I'm going to list the cars that had a lasting impact on me as well as the builds, since I didn't really tune all that much until the last few years.

There's much more than I'm stating, but I don't want to procrastinate too much.
-----------------------
(< 2011) I started with GT3, racing against other kids at a community center to see who could hog the controller for the longest. Sucked at fighting games.

  • Chevrolet Corvette C5-R
  • Peugeot 206 Rally Car

(~ 2008) Father came home with a GT4 Toyota Demo disk one day from his job, then eventually got the full version of GT4 (I sucked at it). First car was a Evo II in Monaco Red, and bought it because my cousin loved Evos and he was cool. He would go on to flip a car. Bronzed all license tests.

  • 500+ horsepower BMW M5

(~ 2011) Did not own a PS3 when GT5 came out. Only got to play it because my uncle owned it. First experience with an FFB wheel. Got bronze on a few license tests. Played around with the track editor.

(~ 2014-2015) GT6 was the first game I bought with my own money. The only reason I was able buy it was because the program I went to gave out stipends for academic performance. Its special to me just for that alone. Spent most of my time in Free Run lobbies with some users here. Got kicked from a Snail Racing event I tried to sneak into due to not having the right car (Supra GT500 @ Deep Forest Raceway). They were nice.

Otherwise raced road cars and did Dirty Nascar, driving as cleanly as possible for no reason whatsoever. Golded all license tests on pad. Platinum trophy.

  • Subaru BRZ
  • Light Car Company Rocket '07 (Formula Vee Build)
  • Dodge Viper SRT10 ACR (Like the Wind)
  • 700+ HP Mitsubishi Eclipse '06
  • 900+ HP Mitsubishi GTO '99
  • Mistusbishi FTO (Drift Build, don't ask.)
  • Peugeot 908 (24 Minutes of Spa, The first "endurance" race that I won)


(~2016-2021) Joined the closed beta for GT Sport. Bought my first wheel (T80) in ~2018-2019. Bought my first FFB wheel in 2020, after a family member had passed away. May have been coping.

Focused a lot on Daily Races. Joined KCR at the tail end of the game's lifespan for lobby racing.

  • Peugeot 908 (Sub 5-Minute Nords.)

(2022 - Now) Pulled away from Gran Turismo due to boredom and needing to focus on life more.

Made some progress on the setup calculator. Is more of a pet project than a product. Helped me get my internship. (Shortened.)

  • Corvette C3 Convertible (700PP)
  • Toyota Crown (700PP)
  • Porsche 356A Speedsteer (SCCA? Replica)
  • Plymouth Superbird (Oval Build)
  • Pagani Huayra (800 PP, "Group SC3")
  • KTM X-BOW (Single/Two Gear Kart)
  • Ford Focus RS (Supercar Lite)
  • BMW i3 (THE CUBE)
  • Toyota AE86 (GT Auto's Ultimate Beginner Racer)
  • Mitsubishi 3000GT (TXR3 Career Replica)
  • Peugeot 908 (Sub 5-Minute Nords...Unfinished Business)
 
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Throwback 98!

These 3 cars were the go to for any die-hard GT racer, consistent and fast but required a certain mastery that could only be achieved with hours and hours of back-to-back race events.

Enjoy! 👾💨

Remember these Beasts?
 
Gran Turismo 1 & 2.
My father bought himself a Playstation, along with Gran Turismo and Abe's Odyssey, when I was still knee-deep in Nintendo 64 platformers (I was 12). He was an amateur racing enthusiast in the 80s, and the realistic graphics convinced him to buy the new console even though gaming was an unvisited frontier for him. I'm sure deep down he knew that I would get more use out of it than he ever would. I used to play it for hours whenever I went to stay with him, so naturally the sequel was going to follow.

Gran Turismo 4
Fast forward several years and my infatuation with filling a virtual garage with fast cars and racing them around continues. Many a week wasted at university, getting stoned and trying to beat the game's various challenges. At this point, my racing technique (and know-how) were severely limited, and I just used to enjoy the ride. I wasn't particularly interested in a huge challenge, I just liked the game's variety. Upon returning home, I would have months of time trial sessions with my friends, back when local multiplayer gaming was in it's prime years.

Gran Turismo 5 (or 6, I'm not sure)
A few years away from GT, and gaming generally, and an old friend reappears in my life. During a couple of visits to his place for beers, he brings out the PS3 and the now-years-old Gran Turismo 5. It was during these gaming evenings I decided to develop my technique, and with the help of the racing line assist, I was quickly driving Manual transmission (i loved how the assist would give you braking guides, this allowing me to focus on correct gear changes), and there was no looking back. Now my gear-head side had been reignited, and for the first time I was determined to get faster and embrace a challenge. I later discovered there was good in-game money to be made racing online, but it was still too early to open that chapter....

Gran Turismo Sport & 7
My excitement was immeasurable to hear about a next-gen GT edition. Not only that, but I had been primed to venture into the online racing environment for a couple of years by now. It was perfect. My expectation that online racing would be a good credit-spinner were somewhat outdated, but what I didn't realise was that it would take my driving ability, and consequently my appetite for a challenge much, much further. After a good amount of time sitting at Driver Rating B, i really began to refine my skills before GT7 came out. Now that we have the current game, I've got the best opportunity to blend my old school desire to fill my garage and experience a virtual representation of stock car racing with fierce online competition, the urge to improve and seek the greatest challenges.
 
Cheers to everyone who has shared their journey so far, I know there are more stories out there from diehard new and returning fans of GT!
 
It's funny how long I have been playing Gran Turismo games and how I tend to associate moments of my life to it.

I remember playing GT1 at some friend's. And boy, how strange those cars were! As a teen did I know of Ferraris? Yes! Porsches? Yes! Lamborghinis? Sure.... But what the heck were those japanese cars? Subaru, Nissan, Mitsubishi, even Toyota were a first to me. I remember we used to take turns and see who gets the fastest lap at any given track using the same car. The replay feature let me mesmerized! Can I watch a replay of my driving "performance"? How cool is that?!

Then years later I got myself a PS1. And a GT2 game. I do remember clearly me as a young adult getting my first paycheck and going straight forward to the store to buy the console and the game. And what a nice time it was! Playing GT2 after work (daytime) and before college (night). I was more familiar with the japanese cars now and my love and apreciation for them grew more and more.

College, work, and other things in life took most of my time for some years and because of that I didn't play GT3.

Then one day I was at my wife's (my girlfriend back then) and her brother were playing God of War 1 at PS2. I got crazy about it and decided it was time to get a PS2. Of course I bought GoW 1. And a GT4 copy. And when I think about GT4 what comes to my mind right away is how big that game was! There were lots of things to do! Lots of cars to drive! And what about the endurances? 9hrs at Tsukuba? 24hrs at the Ring.... Jesus.... That thing of a game were massive! The GT4 was the gateway for me get acquainted with race cars. Toyota GT one, Toyota Minolta, Mercedes CLK LM 98, Mazda 787b, Nissan R92C, Sauber Mercedes, Nissan Calsonic, Penszoil.... And!!!! Of course the soundtrack! It's impossible for me to listen to Panama by Van Hallen and not be transported back to those days!

Fast foward some years, I got married. While I was buying home appliances I laid eyes down on a PS3. I wasn't what I would consider a serious gamer. The PS3 were at this moment 3 or 4 years old in its cycle and I just "didn't care". Anyway, I bought the thing. And also a GT5. I have memories of playing it, but also I have my first memories of frustation while playing a game. The Sebastian Vettel challenges were brutal. Even the rally ones were hard enough for me. Even tough GT4 had some difficult events and missions I never felt frustrated. Maybe it was the trophy hunter fever. I started completing 100% on whatever game I could get hands on, but the GT5 was impossble to achieve such feat. Maybe that was it. That's also the moment I became a gamer. Up untill now I had played very few games in my life. Gran Turismo, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, God of War... The usual suspects. From the PS3 on I got to know and play a larger library of games. But anyway, I digress.....

2014 (I guess) I started playing GT6. It was the first GT game I followed the news before its release and built some antecipation. It was the very first GT game that I bought on release day too. The feeling that I had about it was somehow the complete opposite of GT4. The game always felt too short for me. Even the endurances were super short. 24 minutes of LeMans? What?!? However I do have some good memories about it. The Senna challenges were as hard as it could get. At least that what I felt back then, but I managed to beat them. The lap attack at Brands Hatch consumed me a lot of hours! Only when I switched to manual gears and lowered the TCS I managed to beat. Since then I never got back to manual.

GTS was also a game I followed the news and bought it on day one. It was a let down at first, but things got better along the way. I never went too deep into the Sport mode. Offline game always were my thing. During the GTS days I shared my gaming time within GTS, Driveclub (oh boy! How I miss that game!) and F1 games. Gotta confess that maybe I have more hours invested in Driveclub than GTS. GTS is a game that never built any connection with me. I played it, raced online, enjoyed the offline campaign added later, always thought the game were nice to the eyes but it never had that GT feeling.

GT7 I didn't buy right on release. I waited until I could get a discount. So far I'm enjoying it very much. I like the way it looks and the way it drives. The so called campaign is years behind what a true GT single player can be, even GTS ended its life cycle with a better structured campaign. But somehow it's something I can live with. Since I don't have much time to spend on gaming (those golden PS3 days are long gone) GT7 is one of the few games I play nowadays. I believe if one can come up with meta objectives in GT7 the game can be very fun. GT7 feels like a sandbox to me, we as players have to come up with ideas how to make the game more interesting and challenging, you do that and the clunky structure can be forgotten and forgiven. Choosing the right cars for the right mission or event makes a huge difference!

I think I'll be playing GT7 until the end of its lifetime, and I hope I'll keep having a good time with it.
 
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Long time ago , Lucie was student and i left the Alps to live with her in middle of France in town called Tours.
Until then all the money left was invest in skying and mountain Gear but in this flat land a bit useless so i decide to buy a ps1.
With it remember buying a copy of gran tourismo , funny i remember where was the shop and that this GT copy was place in a showcase under glass. We also bought a second contrôler both dual shock. Fun fact we still have that psone , Esther and Elie play sometimes on it and did discover gran tourismo on it.
I don't remember what other game we bought first , but i remember that the one we played most Lucie and I was gran turismo , doing lot split screen race .
Each having it's own saving card for our progress in licence getting gold , challenge who will be first of us two to complet it.
Often when Friend came we were racing or time lapping .
We played all gran turismo until gt5 that is the last i played , prologue and gt5 done so much online racing using G25 and chatting on same Time on teamspeak or other app , mixing ps5 sound with pc one. That's at this time i discovered gtplanet as i was often racing online vs gtp racer.
Funny i don't have specific memory of 2 3 4 .
And christmas this years bring a ps4 home and gtsport , in fact was for saint Nicolas.
I discover that gt7 was also on ps4 so this Time for christmas Santa bring me a copy of gt7.
And you know what even if we have a few game the most played one by all in the family is gran turismo.
Lucie do few racing and passed licence.
Esther do everything and also play on my account grinding credit at le Mans.
Elie like to try car and the look of them and only play on my account asking sometimes to buy a specific one .
And me i 'm slower but already trying to gold licence and track experience, doing a few online racing. Having hard time with the controler had much more smooth driving using the G25 few years back.
This game as so much to offer everyone in the house got something to do on it .
So 27 years living together , 20 years married , 2 kids aged 11 and 10 and gran turismo série almost been always with us and one of the only game we really share..
The only one we did not play was gt6.
 
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Although I guess I haven't played too much GT7 lately, here's my story.

I played GT1 a little bit back as a young teen when it first launched. Never owned it, but I didn't like it much because I had more fun with the NFS games and how crazy they were. Then I pretty much didn't play much of the genre, or any GT game since.

GT7 was announced and I got a job in the auto industry, and at this point I never learned to drive and was like, man I can't work in the industry and not be able to drive, that's way too embarrassing. So I bought GT7 and a Logitech wheel to learn to drive. Got hooked to the game, got my license, and started learning how to race.

Ended up getting a DD wheel and full rig to replace my entry level one, along with a PSVR2. Love the experience and don't want to race again without VR again. Kept playing GT7 until around the end of November last year, then I built an upgraded PC and got a nice PC VR headset. Since then, my main focus has been on iRacing and Automobilista 2.

Even though I don't play GT7 much anymore and not sure when I'll play it again in the future, this game's super special to me. Helped me not only get my license and learn to enjoy driving, but also found a new competitive hobby I really didn't expect to get into at all. I dropped probably 800 hours into this game lol. Great game, really can't say most other games ignited a passion like this in my life.
 
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I was a PC gamer, but there was no game on PC even similar to Gran Turismo. I bought a Playstation 2 Slim edition with GT4 and WRC4 - my first console since the Gameboy. I came home and found that I didn't have a memory card, because the seller didn't tell me that I had to buy it separately.... I played a bit of WRC4. The next day I bought the card and started playing GT4 and.... I was in despair! I spent so much money on the console, and I didn't like the game! The tires squealed, the driving model was strange and unpleasant.... I mainly played WRC4 (the most enjoyable rally game I've played!), this one saved my purchase. However, since I spent so much money, I had to play GT4, so I played. I started making licenses, getting to know the game and after two weeks I liked it. This coincided with the time when I started to learn to drive a Subaru Impreza on the track - not some extream stuff. Slaloms with cones, skid plates - such a decent, but basic driving improvement school. I noticed that what I learn in real life works in GT4. In GT4 I trained the reflex that when you enter a corner too fast, you have to brake, but then let go of the brake and you manage to turn. If you don't let go of the brake, you won't make it. An unnatural reflex that requires training. I trained in the game, and it saved me from meeting the guardrail in reality! I've played all parts since GT4, but I was most impressed by 6 (finally suspension!) and 7 (the most enjoyable driving game on gamepad - I spend too much on a real car and can't afford the steering wheel and seat - and Logitech DFP hasn't worked since the PS4....

GT7 was my birthday present (the release was in the same month). I prefer games on discs, but I knew I would never uninstall this game, so I specifically bought the digital version. I'm not a "professional gamer," but I always come back to the game. It also helps me... when I can't fall asleep, not because it's boring, but because it calms me down - time trial on the Nordschleife:)
 
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