If this is the first
DLC for Forza Horizon 3, what are they going to include in those that will undoubtedly come out after the end of the Season Pass? I can't wait to find out!
Aston Martin's answer to Ferrari and McLaren's enthusiasm takes its name from the last, great British strategic bomber. It seems fitting that the cockpit of the Vulcan is so reminiscent of that of a jet plane - and the performance is up there, too. Two million dollars - or, in the case of this virtual recreation, one and a half million credits - get you a 800 hp V12 engine, obscene amounts of downforce, and the smug satisfaction of being the fastest guy at the private track meeting...
In an Aston.
Am I the only one who finds it amusing that a car with such a humongous wing takes its name from a tailless plane, anyways?
Compared to the Vulcan, the Huayra BC is
almost understated. But make no mistake: this car is Horacio Pagani's vision of what a supercar should be - a vision first expressed by the Lamborghini Countach QV - condensed in one beautiful package. Carbon fiber wings and exotic titanium leagues live right next to stitched leather hood straps and a cabin design that evokes images of a Swiss watchmaker working on the delicate internals of a 40k dollars wristwatch. Price is, again, exhorbitant - but luckily we can get a taste of this very expensive medicine for the soul for a...
Still exhorbitant amount of virtual money.
Ahhh, the GTA Spano. It looks like it came straight out of a videogame populated by generic expy-supercars, and it's powered - like many other late-Noughties or early-Tenties supercars built in a shed by larger-than-life dreamers - by a relatively inexpensive American lump of iron, aided by twin turbochargers. And it's only available in a color that
Lamborghini would consider excessive!
And yet the Spano strikes a chord with me. Perhaps, if the Huayra is closer in spirit to the original supercars of the 80s, the Spano is much more similar in execution: it's a Vector for the world after the Third Industrial Revolution, passion and a dose of folly given form. Bring in the Zenvo, now.
Look at that front spoiler.
LOOK AT IT.
The year 2000 was a year of desperation for designers worldwide - many of the experimentations conduced during the 90s to produce an image for the new millenium had failed miserably; and yet they were so committed to the bulbous shapes and hard edges and weird form factors that they simply doubled down on their efforts. The 340R reminds me, in a way, of an Amstrad radio-CD player combo that I owned back them. Odd shapes and edges in dark gray and black.
The Lotus 2-Eleven - with its sensible styling and superbike-like liveries and overpowered Toyota engine - represents a much better execution of the "
Elise-on-steroids-for-the-trackday-pro" concept. But it doesn't have the charm of the 340R - it doesn't represent the odd final product of a decade of awkward experimentation like this car. And besides, life is too short to
not drive a car with a 180hp Rover K-series engine!
The M2 Coupé has to fill in some pretty big shoes - it is not only the direct heir of the much-acclaimed 1M, but also of a long tradition of rear-wheel-drive high performance BMW sedans that stretches all the way back to the 2002 Turbo. But for the sake of fairness, and brevity, I will only compare it with its immediate predecessor.
So, is it as good as the 1M? Well, it depends. What are you looking for? A car with endless amounts of grip that will never make you furrow your brow in concentration, no matter how much you're asking of the generous twin-turbo engine? Then, this is the car for you. But if you, like me, would rather have a Bimmer that's more focused on the joy of driving with a knife in your teeth than easily-accessible raw performance, you may want to turn your eye to the used car market - the M2's electronic power steering isn't as responsive as the 1M's hydraulic alternative, and there's something to be said about the beneficial effect sliding around in a bright orange BMW sedan has on the soul. You can't do that on BMW M's newest darling, and it's not just because of the much more limited range of color options.
Horizon 3 has managed, in such a short amount of time, to change my perception of offroading.
You have to admit, the community of mainstream offroad lovers can be offputting, with all the talks about
mud-sliding and
rock-climbing and
challenges and
extremes and
lifted and
blah blah blah. Why would I want to spend a significant amount of money and technical effort, only to assault at a snail's pace areas blissfully untouched by the work of man? I can have much more fun - and make my wallet scream less - by driving irresponsibly fast around a race track.
But Horizon 3 is showing me that there is a kinder, gentler side to offroading. That it doesn't have to be about
aggression - that offroading can be a form of
communion with nature that doesn't entail getting bug bites in embarassing places like camping does, or the risk of falling asleep face-first into a pond, like fishing. In a way an offroader is to a normal car what a helicopter is to an airplane: allowing you to get away from the beaten path, from the absurdities and the prescriptions of this world, and find peace while you set fire to a lot of dead dinosaurs.
This Jeep is the perfect addition to my stable of
reality evaders - its rumbling V8, its open-space, denim-clad cockpit and its garish, early-80s color scheme all fill voids that a Bronco, a Defender and a Land Cruiser leave.
It's a bit sad that the Renegade nameplate was attached to a repackaged and warmed-over FIAT blandmobile that won't provide anybody with the kind of freedom that a CJ5 can afford you.
The Crown Victoria has finally come to the world of Forza - and despite it being the car from this pack that I've driven the most so far, I'm at a loss of words. The Crown Vic is a car so
regular that it apparently fails to elicit any emotional response with me. So, I think I'll stop my ramblings here, and leave you to those of Mr. Regular (with a due warning for inappropriate language); which seem really fitting when all the community has jumped on the "police car" bandwagon in a matter of
minutes.