The Cars That Were Made Famous by GT

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GT_Prologue5

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How to keep this staement real. I want to know all the cars made famous by GT. (all GT's) I have a couple for us:

1999-2002 Nissan Skyline GT-R (R34) (VSpecII/Nur)- this wasn't even known anywhere outside of Japan. The super 4WD Twin-Turbo machine that was the father of R35 Godzilla. GT overstocked this car, I believe it was calculated that 8.8% of the cars in GT4 were Skylines. (including non-R34's) But it was the R34 that was the baddest car ever.

1998 Suzuki Escudo- I doubt anyone knew of this car before GT2. The Twin-Engined, 981hp monster was the most amazing car. Driveable as a rally killer and an LM monster in GT4, it was known as overkill. If you used this, you made it look like you just wanted to beat GT and leave. But it's still pretty popular.

1886 Mercedes-Benz Daimler Patent Motorwagen- the slowest car EVER. 1886's Car of the Year :lol: No one knows how long it would take to lap the Nurburgring Nordschleife. Some say it would be eternity. Top speed was a awful 11m/h. Still, itwas technically the first GT car that had a "cockpit" view, although the motions of the driver were pretty cool.

1992-2004 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution- really only known by WRC guys, but it really pushed this car on a world stage. Also brought the whole "Subaru vs. Mitsubishi" controversy.

1994-2004 Subaru Impreza WRX STi- see the Mitsubishi. Really the same thing, except it's my personal favorite.

1999-2006 Dodge Viper- The craziest of all of GT. Since GT1, the V10-powered super-couper hasd torn up the puny machines. GT's probably greatest car of all time.

1999-2002 TVR's- Who else but British people knew of the TVR's? Speed Six, Speed 12, Chimaera, Tamora, T350C,, V8S, all those and none of them were that famous (well, the Speed 12 is infamous, especially for it's 900+hp Supercharged V12 spins. AAAAHHHHH!!!!)

Anyone got any other ideas?
 
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One word: Skyline. Endless (perhaps too many?) amounts of Nissan Skylines from various generations have been seen from GT1 on. Any GT player should know about Skylines. They seem to be more common than GT2 players who over use the Escudo (I had to think of a comparison).

Oh, and the Dodge Viper. It's always been there, and everyone should know the Viper. Probably many have relied on the Viper for winning races, like the Viper GTS (a blue one is good) in GT1's Normal Car Cup, the Team Oreca in GT2-on that is just awesome and very fast. But the Viper is quite a handful though.
 
Suzuki's Escudo Pikes Peak version though I just had a second thought that it was famous before Gt...
 
GT_Prologue, you seriously didn't know about the Benz Patent Motorwagen before GT? How about any of Benz's early efforts? Wow. They're like in almost every historical automotive book I've ever looked at. Then again, I understand kids today don't at books as much as we did :rolleyes: before the internet.

I'd like to add the biggest underdog from Gran Turismo 1: the Mazda Demio. Yes, it's a slug, but at this point if it were missing in any GT game, I'd surely notice!

I also never heard of Skylines or Silvias before GT, being an American and all. Although some Silvias from the '90s equate to our 240SXes.

Mazda Cosmo...

Any TVRs (I grew up reading Road & Track and other mags, but somewhere in my 20s lost interest...was out of touch with what was happening in the world of cars until I started playing GT 7 years ago, so I never heard of this small company).
 
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Don't some Ford Fiestas have a lot in common with some Demios? (Er, actually Festiva, apparently).

TVR apparently benefited a lot from [size=+1]GT[/size] but still couldn't avoid financial troubles. Or perhaps handling the extra inquiries (not necessarily sales) even contributed to their later problems?

Hmm. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TVR doesn't really hint at whether there were troubles which caused the change of ownership in 2004. Perhaps the 60year old owner just decided he should retire. He died a little over a year ago at age only 65, and likely knew of his cancer at the time of the sale? It seems perhaps the current owner did overpay for the company? So perhaps its renown did lead to its current problems? Even though the rumoured purchase price really was only in the order-of-magnitude of the annual salary for a Michael Schumacher.
 
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GT_Prologue5
1998 Suzuki Escudo- I doubt anyone knew of this car before GT2.
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That individual variant, no, unless you were a Race to the Stars fan.

The Escudo is just the Japanese market name for the Suzuki Vitara, driven by every "soccer mom" in Britain at the time. See the TG "cheap police car" special? Hammond's car is a Vitara.

GT_Prologue5
1999-2002 TVRs-
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And earlier (particularly as you cite the '91 V8S). TVR wasn't sold outside Europe before GT1. As a result of GT1 - before it was even launched - they started sales in Japan, even making a Japanese-market specific Griffith - the Blackpool B340.

SportWagon
Don't some Ford Fiestas have a lot in common with some Demios? (Er, actually Festiva, apparently).
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Actually, you've got a couple of things muddled up there. When you see how stupidly complex it really is, it'll be easy to see why.

The US-market-only Ford Festiva was based on a Mazda 121, which in turn was based on a Kia Pride.
The European Mk4 Ford Fiesta was used as a base for completely different Mazda 121, both based on the European Mk3/3.5 Ford Fiesta.
The Mazda Demio Mk1 (DW chassis) replaced the 121 and was used as a base for the US-market-only Ford Festiva Mini Wagon.
The European Mk5 Fiesta (or Mk6 in the UK) was used as a base for the Mazda 2, also called the Demio (DY chassis) in Japan.
The European Mk6 Fiesta (or Mk7 in the UK) is used as the base for the Mazda 2, also called the Demio (DE chassis) in Japan.

So although the Fiesta and Festiva share no common parts, both have been used for or based on different generations of the Mazda 121 and Mazda 2/Demio.
 
Yeah, Famine, I knew of the 1991 V8S, just didn't feel like typing it. I'm lazy. Well another car could be Chevrolet Corvette, although it's not too popular for the series, even with all its variants. I mean it might have been there for a while but it's just not THAT popular. From what I believe.
 
You never heard of the Corvette before GT? Where are you from, GT prologue? From what I understand, Corvettes aren't only in America. I'm not saying they're everywhere, I'm just curious how this game introduced you to something that seems so commonplace in the world of sports cars.

Another car I'd never heard of before Gran Turismo (and I'm trying to keep my answers limited to GT1) was the Lancer Evolution series. Granted, we had Evos in the States by the time I started playing GT years ago, but I wasn't really paying attention to what was going on in the world of cars back in those days. Once I got GT, all a sudden I started noticing them (along with regular Lancers, Imprezas, Impreza WRX, and STis).
 
I'm not saying I didn't know them (thatnks for writing my name in green...) I'm just saying for people who didn't know, maybe people who weren't that big into cars. I know all these cars, I'm just saying what became more prominent in the lives of car guys because of GT.
 
Famine
And earlier (particularly as you cite the '91 V8S). TVR wasn't sold outside Europe before GT1. As a result of GT1 - before it was even launched - they started sales in Japan, even making a Japanese-market specific Griffith - the Blackpool B340.
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What was the deal with that, anyways? Neither GT1 nor GT2 were particularly clear about what exactly made that unique compared to the Griffith 500.
 
As an interesting point we here in Aus were well aware of the Nissan Skyline GT_R as early as 1989.
It was Australia who popularised the term "Godzilla" to describe the GT-R's racing in the Australian Group A Touring Car series, winning everything in sight during 1990. Their most famous victory was the 1991 Bathurst Race at Mount Panorama ( I remember the Race clearly ).
Godzilla was so successful it indirectly led to the formation of the V8 Supercar Racing we enjoy to this day.

For those interested here is a link to some Godzilla skyline history as pertains to Oz.

http://www.thegodzilla.com/race-history-of-the-godzilla.php
 
For sure, GT introduced to me some cars I'd never heard of before...but how do we really know for sure that made it famous? How can we actually tell if Gran Turismo made a car more popular? Someone's going to chime in and say he'd heard of the Lancer Evolution and the Impreza WRX before they'd ever heard of the game Gran Turismo, which sort of renders this moot.

Seriously, the Viper? How do you put 1999 as a start point, when it was featured in the original GT game in 1997?
 
I agree with the whole TVR thing. What about most of the tuner companies? 'cause I sure as hell didn't know about them. I do think that more people have switched from the 'ricer' crap to knowing that there are cars faster than a '98 Civic.
 
I think the correct thing to say is GT made these cars noticed more. There was definily already a community of people that new about most if not all of these cars. i still have magazines that were test driving and raving about pretty much all those cars. I do agree though do to Gran Torurimo much younger veiwers were informed more about certain cars wich influenced them as they got older.
 
What about the Toyota Supra, basically all models of it? When I was a younger, I had never heard of or seen a Supra until playing Gran Turismo. I've only come across three or four in real life, and those were at car shows/drift events. I'm on the east coast US too, so they're pretty rare here.
 
There used to be a MK 3 Supra on my street about 10 years ago, which was around the same time that I came across it in GT1. I tend to see MK 4 Supras occasionally around town.
 
Pupik
For sure, GT introduced to me some cars I'd never heard of before...but how do we really know for sure that made it famous? How can we actually tell if Gran Turismo made a car more popular? Someone's going to chime in and say he'd heard of the Lancer Evolution and the Impreza WRX before they'd ever heard of the game Gran Turismo, which sort of renders this moot.
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TVR for sure. I'd bet my paycheck (the entire week of it!) GT made TVRs not necessarily more popular, otherwise TVR might not have gone out of business, but certainly more known. In the case of Skylines and Evos, it's been stated in print many times they've become more popular (and desired) outside of Japan to a large part because of Gran Turismo and other video games.
 
Before GT

If you lived in the UK, you had to import an FTO if you wanted one. That's assuming you'd heard of it in the first place

After GT

You could walk into a Mitsubishi dealer and buy one.

And like Viperin's psot above, I was well aware of the Skyline as it raced here in the BTCC in 89/90.
 
See, here in America we still can't get FTOs. :mad: We just started getting Skylines (although it's the GT-R here) just this year or last year.

First time I saw the name "Skyline" in Gran Turismo, I was like..."hmm, what a pleasant-sounding name for a car...must be some sort of luxury-mobile". --FAIL--

I knew nothing about their reputation before GT. I'd say the same for any of my friends, too, the ones that grew up here in the States, anyway.
 
Ha, well now Skylines are just Japanese market Infinitis (or the other way around).

So they kind of did take a luxury turn.
 
How about the Honda/Acura NSX? I never knew that there was a 'Japanese supercar', until GT2 came out.
 
I knew about the NSX, although I had never seen one in person. Now I get to see one everyday because this lady who lives in my neighborhood has a white one. :) She's an older Asian lady, and she drives it everyday.
 
From my experience, though I can't speak for the general boost in popularity these cars received from their inclusion in the GT series, there are a whole ton of cars I know about now that I'd never heard of before, namely:

Skylines, as everyone's mentioned, being as I'm from America
Silvias (though I'd heard of a 240SX)
NSX - maybe I should've known them but I didn't
the RX-7 more intimately, FC vs FD etc
many other Japanese only models (Dai****su et. al.)
lots of European models, too numerous to mention, didn't even know the names of some like Lancia, TVR, Vauxhall, RUF
tuners like HKS, Mugen, Mine's, Spoon, etc
American muscle and historic cars
specialty shops like Lister, Tommy kaira, Vector, Venturi

so, yeah, maybe I was pretty ignorant in general, but I don't think that was too uncommon for the average GT player, and there have been a lot of GT players. so I'm guessing this series opened up a lot of people's eyes to a lot of cars they never knew existed, and it goes way beyond that for the fraction of players that went beyond the game and started to do research on their own (thanks wikidepia!)
 
I remember back in 2004 just after I got into GT1, walking down the street. I lived in Portland, Oregon back in those days. Anyways I'm walking down the street and was like "whoa, that looks like a Silvia". It was red, and had a different look than our American 240SX. But I'm thinking it couldn't be an actual Silvia because we don't have those in America.

But it was a Silvia! The mystery was solved when I looked at the license plate. The car was from Guam which is nearer to Asia. I'm thinking the car was owned by somebody in the military, since America has a military base there if I'm not mistaken.
 
For me, almost every car really. None of the cars in GT1 is common in Indonesia at all. I remember when I first moved to Australia I was WOW-ing every 5 seconds just because I came across a Skyline, Evo, WRX or Silvia :lol:

I also remember when I first watched Initial D, and the one of the character mentioned an 86. Huh? What's that? Then the car shows up. Oh, it's that crappy Class D Toyota in GT1 :lol:

On a world stage though, it's probably the halo cars of each manufacturer (WRX,Supra,GT-R,NSX,RX7,GTO). I get the feeling that GT made JDM more popular compared to exotics/muscles because they generally perform better than what you expect from first glance. Everyone thinks they're going to whoop ass with a Corvette or Viper, but unless you're skilled, these cars are pretty dire to drive. On the other hand, a GT-R looks sedate, and power and weight figures are unimpressive, but to a beginner it's a god-send.

Parnelli Bone
I knew about the NSX, although I had never seen one in person. Now I get to see one everyday because this lady who lives in my neighborhood has a white one. :) She's an older Asian lady, and she drives it everyday.
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Holy hell you're one lucky man. I've only seen an NSX twice in my life ever. A yellow one (riced out unfortunately) and a red one (pristine condition :D). Plan to own one someday but it's still bloody expensive (even the early 90's models). The maintenance is sure to break my bank as well.
 

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