Why not use GT to help you find the RL car you like? That's not silly. It's a way to test drive a huge number of cars which would be difficult, inconvenient, or impossible in RL.
While it is a game, a considerable amount of effort has gone into making each car match its RL counterpart. It's not perfect, of course, but it does provide a pretty good taste of how cars really stack up against eachother in RL. They often have managed to catch the 'feel' of the handling in these cars. And there relative performance strengths and weaknesses.
Obviously, you should not buy a car sight unseen just based on its representation in the game. But you certainly can use GT to find out about cars you like that you might never have tried otherwise. And you can use it to help narrow the field down to a reasonable number of cars to test drive in RL.
In my case, when I test drove my vette in RL, I immediately recognized its handling and character from the game. I'd never even sat in one before in RL, but the way it drove was immediately familiar to me.
It also has adjusted my level of respect for various cars. Increasing some, decreasing others. One thing the game is very good at is showing where a car can look very good on paper, but in practice, it's got issues. Like some of the modern sports cars that have all sorts of horsepower, but are way heavy... like the Vanquish. It's a way cool car, and it looks very performant on paper. But in reality, it's just too heavy. And it's not the only car like that. Most of the sporty luxury cars are like that. They have horsepower numbers that sound like they'll challenge dedicated sports cars on the track... but in practice, they just can't do it.
The reverse situation is also true. You find that a lot of the cars that don't look all that fast on paper are rockets on the actual track. The Lotus cars are often like that... their actual performance is much greater than one would be led to believe by the stats. And that's because Lotus is so dedicated to track performance and couldn't care less about making any particular stat impressive. Most particularly, they aren't after impressive sounding horsepower figures.
So yeah... I could certainly say I've become a big Lotus fan in RL. And having gone to the track with a Lotus club, the opinion of Lotus I formed from the game was verified. The representation was quite accurate. So now Corvette is still my favorite, but Lotus is a close second.
GT also opened my eyes to Subaru. And those cars really do haul @ss on the track. Well, that and I've become a Petter Solberg fan from watching the WRC on speed channel...
You know... if I was ever gonna be a getaway car driver (hypothetically!), I'd chose the Subaru over the Corvette or the Lotus. The latter two cars are faster on a smooth track, but the Subaru is a rally car. My vette is very low to the ground, and I'll muss up the bottom of it if I drive over train tracks at any speed. Just getting out of driveways without scraping is difficult. That'd be no good for trying to make a get away on bumpy uneven messed up public roads!
*Engine blaring* "Ha ha! You can't catch me coppers!!!" *BANG* *CLUNK* *SCRAPE* *skid to a halt* "Curses! Foiled again!!!!"
- Skant
Test drive some real cars and buy the one you like. Just make sure it's got the force feedback wheel or you'll be lost. 
Luv that car.
