Gran Turismo series founder Kazunori Yamauchi turned 58 years old last week, and over the weekend has been revealing some of what he did to celebrate the occasion — including a unique road trip with some members of the Porsche family.
Porsche has, of course, had an interesting history with Gran Turismo and Yamauchi. It wasn’t until the release of GT Sport in 2017 that the series — by then almost 20 years old — had its first official Porsche model, though Yamauchi’s own 996 GT3 appeared in Gran Turismo 3 albeit inaccessible without external methods.
That was due to an exclusivity agreement held by EA which resulted in the use, and popularization, of the loophole Ruf brand. When this expired, the floodgates opened; the first Porsche revealed for Gran Turismo was the 991 911 GT3 RS, in April 2017, and the game now sports some 29 vehicles from the brand including the exclusive Vision GT and Mission X cars.
On the occasion of his birthday, Yamauchi visited Porsche’s home country. Not that one, but the original birthplace of Ferdinand Porsche who founded the company, the family seat, and the roads on which the first Porsche — the 356 — was first tested out (as well as where it was built): Austria.
Current Porsche AG chairman Wolfgang Porsche, grandson of Ferdinand and youngest son of Ferdinand “Ferry” Porsche, hosted Yamauchi in the family’s home town of Zell am See, 35 miles south-southwest of Salzburg. The Porsche family famously owns an estate, Schuttgut, just to the west of the lake that gives the town its name and it seems that there Yamauchi had the experience of firing a rifle for the first time.
Along with Wolfgang’s son Ferdinand “Ferdi” Porsche — an architect and founder of FAT International and the FAT Ice Race at Zell am See — Yamauchi then drove up the famous Grossglockner Pass, where the 356 was first tested, in a Porsche Carrera GT to the FAT Mankei lodge designer by Ferdi. You can partially replicate this in GT7 too, as the car is in the game and locations on Grossglockner feature as Scapes.
From there it was back down the pass, with Yamauchi this time driving a 991 911R down the road’s tricky hairpins; it’s lucky his birthday is in August, as the road is closed for much of the winter thanks to snow that can reach depths of 65 feet…
While in Austria, Yamauchi also visited a place with a little-known connection to Gran Turismo and indeed the PlayStation console itself.
Salzburg was the home of famed, if controversial, conductor Herbert von Karajan and he is interred in the town of Anif — just south of the city itself. Near to a bust of von Karajan is a similar bust of Norio Ohga, once president and chairman of Sony.
Ohga, a keen musician, joined Sony (then known as Totsuko) after penning a complaint regarding its tape recorders — although Sony wasn’t alone, as Yamaha also reportedly bore his anger for its keyboards. He became instrumental in developing the Compact Disc as a viable medium.
After an encounter with von Karajan, the two became friends and Sony ended up creating a facility in Anif — DADC Austria — to produce CDs in July 1987, explaining the bust.
Yamauchi also notes the influence Ohga had on the PlayStation and himself, effectively signing off on Ken Kutaragi’s fledgling console and, in a previously unknown piece of GT lore, visiting the Polys International team shortly before completion of the first title.
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