Video Game / Gran Turismo

The Real Driving Simulator

"I want to drive my car on my television."

— Kazunori Yamauchi, game design pitch

A long-running driving game franchise by Polyphony Digital on Sony consoles, starting on the PlayStation in 1997.

The games are known for their high production value and visual fidelity. Each game has a large selection of cars for the player to purchase, from second-hand classics to cutting-edge modern cars and sometimes beyond, into concept car territory.

The player must earn the right to compete in harder races by passing license tests that teach proper racing techniques, such as using racing lines and late braking.

While not a full-on simulation (as it lacked car damage in earlier titles among other things), the handling model of the game is definitely at the realism end of the spectrum, the game's subtitle being 'The Real Driving Simulator'.

The game has been challenged by Microsoft's Forza series of games, which use the same basic formula but adds in custom paint jobs (until Sport came along), car damage and (in the Horizon series) open worlds, at the (initial) expense of a huge car list and dirt racing (omitted in the Motorsport series).

A movie, directed by Neill Blomkamp and starring Archie Madekwe and David Harbour, was released on August 25, 2023. Interestingly, like Tetris (2023), the movie isn't a direct adaptation of the games, but is Based on a True Story, specifically that of professional racer Jann Mardenborough, whose string of victories on a series of competitions for the games inspired him to become a real racer.

The main series games are as follows:

• Gran Turismo (1997), PSX
• Gran Turismo 2 (1999), PSX
• Gran Turismo 3 A-spec (2001), PS2
• Gran Turismo Concept 2001 Tokyo/2002 Tokyo-Seoul/2002 Tokyo-Geneva (2002), PS2
• Gran Turismo 4 "Prologue" (2003), PS2
• Gran Turismo 4 (2004), PS2
• Tourist Trophy (2006), PS2
• Gran Turismo HD Concept (2006), PS3 (free demo)
• Gran Turismo 5 Prologue (2008), PS3
• Gran Turismo (2009), PSP
• Gran Turismo 5 (2010), PS3
• Gran Turismo 6 (2013), PS3
• Gran Turismo Sport (2017), PS4
• Gran Turismo 7 (2022), PS4/PS5

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Provides examples of:

• Acceptable Breaks from Reality: 7 introduces a new dynamic weather and lighting system where the forecast or time of day can change during a race. Like other racing games that include this feature, to make sure players can actually experience these in races that are only several minutes long, these elements can happen at an accelerated rate, meaning a player could potentially deal with daylight, dusk, and nightfall in a span of a few laps.
• Adam Smith Hates Your Guts:
  • The economy of 5 can feel like this. You will win a lot of useless and/or undervalued prize cars (which are mostly unsellable and can only be won once), the prize money gained even in Endurance races is... underwhelming to say the least, the fact that the cost of cars is far increased, and the thoroughly ridiculous Premium/Standard car system (which, in summary, has over 700 of the cars in game—mostly ones imported from 4—only available to be brought from the Used Car Dealership at random in-game days) leads to head-banging frustration.
  • However, the introduction of Seasonal Events and the Online Collector's Dealership reduces the frustration level somewhat.
  • Most seasonal races (each of which is ten minutes or so) give you a prize of at least 350,000 credits. The 1000 km of Suzuka endurance event, which is six hours, in A-Spec mode gives you 345,000 credits. Spectacular, Polyphony.
  • In fairness, Polyphony made the Seasonal Events worth so much money to help the player with ''5'''s poor economic system.
  • Normal business has resumed with 6, where credits are more lacking than ever before and the cars are more expensive than ever before, even if they are all readily available as opposed to 5 (where 80% of the cars were stuck behind the Used Car Dealership RNG).
  • This trope rears its head again in 7, in what seems to be an attempt to get players to buy credits through microtransactions; even with the most high-paying races, scraping up for the best cars can still take a long time. The Version 1.0.8 update somehow managed to make this trope go From Bad to Worse by nerfing a lot of the credit rewards for winning races; coupled with a server outage to fix corrupted issues with said patch, the backlash was so severe that players were granted a million free credits and a promise from Kazunori Yamauchi to make payouts more generous as well as more ways to make money.
• The Alleged Car: A few cars throughout the series that should be great, or have real-life pedigree, have major flaws that make them borderline undriveable and using them a Self-Imposed Challenge; the Honda NSX-R special model in the first game with lowrider-like suspension that starts jumping and nearly flips over when you approach a corner, the TVR Speed 12 in the second that just spins all the time if you're not careful, and the Suzuki Escudo in 3. Alternatively, cars can be this for just being plain uncompetitive. The Daihatsu Midget in the second game takes quite a beating; even the in-game spiel openly mocks it.
  • You can bring the first two internal combustion engine cars ever invented, the 1886 Benz Patent Motorwagen and the Daimler Motor Carriage, to the test track in GT4.
• Anachronism Stew: It's possible to have cars from vastly different eras competing against each other. Some leagues invoke this deliberately by having older cars race on modern circuits (which already happens to a certain extent), or vice versa.
• Autosave: 4 has this on by default, and it can be restricted to car changes depending on the setting.
  • In Sport despite in a live-service game (as the game automatically saves by the server), autosaving can't be restricted, but there's a manual save function.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • It´s worth noting that one of the biggest reasons why Gran Turismo became a famous franchise to the point of attracting people who normally aren't interested in racing games is because of the prevalence of this trope that allowed the games to be accessible to new players or even people who never played racing games without necessarily compromising the realistic physics of the game nor dumbing down the controls at all, going all the way to the first game in the franchise. It helps that the true purpose of the franchise is to let players experience different cars that are fully licensed, coming from various famous brands around the world while also offering different car classes, ranging from everyday common cars all the way to professional race cars and prototypes, while also letting players upgrade and tune their cars to their liking starting from the very first game in the franchise (There were even cases where car brands actually had models debut first in Gran Turismo before being launched to the market in real life, further supporting this). Note that some games don't allow players to upgrade their cars but players can still tune their cars to their liking to improve performance.
  • The famous License Tests that, starting from the first game, were prominently featured in the franchise, will allow players to get their licenses and unlock the next license by just passing all of the tests of any given license (example: Completing all the B license tests) with a minimum of bronze, a very easy to beat target time, allowing new and inexperienced players to progress to the next license without necessarily having to invest too much time and practice to progress. Even the famously Nintendo Hard gold trophies in the license tests are a completely optional challenge (although they do help polish your skills even further because of how genuinely skilled you need to be to complete any license test with a gold trophy as well as rewarding players with new cars for each license that has all the tests passed with a gold trophy, for example, a new car being awarded for passing all of the B license tests with a gold trophy, another new car for doing the same on the A license, etc). The same applies for similiar modes in other games, such as the Driving Challenges in PSP where you can unlock the mp3 player by clearing Block B with a minimum of bronze trophy and unlock the ending movie and a secret second page with new challenges including a special two part block dedicated to learning the corners of the Nürburgring Nordschleife where you learn half of the track in part 1 then the rest of the track in part 2 after clearing all the blocks in the main route with a minimum of bronze trophy in the first page and the Driving School in Sport where you can unlock the Pace Car version of the GT-R R35 by clearing all of the tests with a gold trophy.
  • The entire roster of cars in simulation mode in each game in the franchise, starting from the very first game, are fully accessible from the very start, only requiring that the player either grinds enough credits to pay for them in the dealership, or in other cases for special versions (including the pace car variant) and unique colored versions of cars available in the dealership and cars that aren't listed in the dealership, winning a specific race or championship to get them, getting gold in every single test in any license (example: Clearing all the tests with a gold trophy in the B license to get a new car, getting another new car for doing the same in A license and so on).
  • Starting from 3 and onwards, the implementation of assists to the likes of TCS and ASM to every single car in the game which are fully adjustable (they are available in 2 as well but players had to purchase them separately for each car in the tuning shop).
  • Starting from 3 and onwards, the game features a brake indicator that tells the player when to brake and what gear the player can take corners.
  • The best cars in the game are either reserved for being purchasable straight from the dealership as it was the case for the first two games in the franchise or as rewards for winning a particular race or championship instead of being unlockables for completing much harder tasks in the games.
  • The Coffee Breaks in 4 are completely optional, meaning that players can skip them without any problem, they don't offer rewards for completing them in gold.
• Artistic License – Cars: Starting from 2, the localization swapped Japanese market names with American and European market ones (Roadster with MX-5 Miata, for example). Some international models, however, retain Japanese trims and specifications with the trims were not sold outside Japan nor having the transatlantic counterparts.
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • The TVR Speed 12 in 2. 807 BHP, a weight of 900 kg (nearly on par with a Le Mans Prototype), rear-wheel drive, and no traction control. The handling on it is quite sloppy, lacking an effective downforce upgrade to put its V12 to good use and improperly-sized rear tires adding to the equation.
  • Any car whose engine can produce more power than its chassis can handle.
  • The Toyota 7 mostly averts this. It's very light and powerful, especially for a car made in 1970. In 6, it has a high enough PP rating to make it a contender in any race that allows it. However, it is almost unusable in 24 hour endurance races in 5 and 6 for one glaring reason: no headlights.
    • Similarly, the Chaparral 2J, one of the most famous cars in the franchise. It has amazing downforce and cornering speed owing to its extreme ground effects technology (while not sacrificing straight-line performance). Those two factors ensure it as a competitive car almost regardless of opposition, so long as it's in broad daylight.
  • The Auto Union Type C Streamline is the Stupid Jetpack Hitler example of this. If properly tuned, it can comfortably reach speeds of over 290 mph (quite impressive for a modern car, even more so for one made in 1936). However, its design philosophy of extreme streamlining has a crippling flaw in a total lack of downforce (and fairly skinny tires), which makes it impossible to control in any way that isn't going straight. Its steering lock also sucks, making sharp turns even more hellish.
  • In 6, the Red Bull X cars, the Formula Gran Turismo, Ayrton Senna's Lotus 97T and the SRT Tomahawk X Vision Gran Turismo. They are all insanely fast (exaggerated in the case of the Red Bulls and Tomahawk X, which are nigh-impossible to use to their full potential), but the game's improved balance makes these former Game-Breaker vehicles collection models at best: their performance ratings are so high (from high 800s to low 900s for the X cars and 962 for the stock Tomahawk X) that there are literally no events in which you can use them outside of Arcade Mode. You can slingshot yourself around corners at 300 km/h and break every lap record on every circuit there is, but that doesn't help towards paying the seven-figure price tags.
    • Somewhat averted for the Formula GT: you can detune it to below 750PP and use it in the few races that allow cars of that level to enter. It pretty much only maintains its cornering ability, and will struggle at circuits with long straightaways due to the lower power and extra weight.
    • The Chevrolet-Chaparral 2X Vision Gran Turismo in 6 and Sport is a laser-propelled monster that only weighs 450kg and can reach 250 mph easily. However, to inexperienced drivers, it's a nightmare to handle, owing to tires that are narrower than usual combined with a lack of traction control.
  • A few cars in Sport's Group X class count as this. This class is a dumping ground for cars that don't belong in the N-Classes or Groups 1 through 4 and Group B, mostly inhabited by concept cars, Vision GT cars, track toys, historics, formula cars and other vehicles that don't comply with the other classes' regulations. In Arcade Mode, these cars are restricted to One-Make races. This is alleviated in the GT League by some Group X cars having their own dedicated events (such as Vision GT Trophy for Vision GT cars and the Super Formula Championships for the eponymous cars) or being eligible for certain N-Class races at the cost of a lesser payout (such as the Toyota FT-1 and the Crown Athlete Safety Car being eligible for J-Sport Meeting), while other cars (such as the McLaren P1 GTR, Pagani Zonda R, Renault R.S.01, Porsche Taycan, Formula Drift BRZ, Isle of Man WRX STI and the Shifter Kart) are ineligible for any event at all, rendering them truly impractical outside of online races.
  • The Bugatti Vision GT is a 1600 hp monster that can easily exceed 400 kph on longer straights, albeit one that is very heavy (at 1400 kg or 3100 lb) and doesn't take corners well.
• And Your Reward Is Clothes:
  • In 5, race suits and helmets for your B-spec avatars are given as prizes for winning races in the online-only seasonal events.
  • 1 and 3 often rewarded the player with cars normally purchasable, but in a special colour. In the first game, said cars also came with aftermarket rims (which became redundant soon after, as 2 added a wheel shop), although they were still stock performance-wise. 3 even offers an otherwise stock Mazda Roadster with a factory hardtop as a prize vehicle. The most famous example (even memetic, in the GT community) is the pink Toyota Vitz in 3, which, thanks to the random prize draw in championship events, can be won 4 times if you're unlucky.
  • Taken literally in Tourist Trophy with Riding Gear. Also, winning race 3 of the Special Machine Festival at Valencia nets you an otherwise-regular Suzuki Hayabusa in a special dark grey colour.
• Artificial Stupidity:
  • B-spec mode in 4 allows you to direct an AI car rather than drive it yourself. While it is pretty adept at sticking to the track, it has a really bad habit of riding behind other cars without trying to pass, even if you order it to overtake and you have a vastly superior vehicle.
  • The AI opponents in 5 can have some trouble as well. See how they almost repeatedly bungle the NGK chicane in the Nürburgring GP circuit here. Doubles as a Funny Moment when it happens en masse.
  • Sometimes, during races at La Sarthe in 6, the AI will simply forget to brake coming out of the Mulsanne Straight. It can become a Funny Moment when you see a high-end LMP crash into a wall at over 320 km/h, casually reverse, and continue on its way.
  • Mission Challenge 6-8 in Sport, a 30-lap endurance race, may seem daunting until you realize that opponents in front tend to pit near the end of the race.
• Ascended Fanboy: The later games are so realistic that a few fans have become professional racers, or have been invited to try out real cars.
  • Along with GT5, GT Academy was launched; it's a series of competitions that give the most skilled gamers the opportunity to become real racing drivers.
    • The 2010 GT Academy winner Lucas Ordonez has gone on to win the ILMC and finish 2nd in class in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in his first season.
  • Swedish rock band the Cardigans wrote a song called "My Favourite Game" dedicated to the first game while on tour. The song was then turned into the intro track for the US and European releases of Gran Turismo 2, and subsequently became the unofficial theme song to the entire franchise amongst the fandom.
• Ascended Glitch: More like an "ascended hack", but players in 5 discovered that they could remove rear wings from their car if they hacked the savegame. 6 added the option to remove rear wings from selected cars.
  • However, 4 lets you remove equipped rear wings.
• Ascended Extra: 3 has at least two examples.
  • The Porsche 911 GT3 (996) was the first Porsche to appear in the series when it appeared in 3 A-spec... albeit only with cheat devices. Although Porsche was officially added as a manufacturer in Sport, with the then-latest iteration of the 911 GT3, the 991-series GT3 RS, as part of its lineup on day one, the 996 GT3 was not officially added until Sport's September 2018 update, where it was also joined by its 997-series successor.
  • The McLaren MP4/4 was one of six F1 cars featured, albeit as the F688/S. The licensed version would be introduced to the series for real in 7, in Update 1.20.
• Badass Biker: Tourist Trophy wants to make you a Kamen Rider. Some of the outfits in Riding Gear/Closet feature closely resemble The Stigs.
• Badass Driver: What many players aspire to be.
  • In 5, the player character (as seen in the cinematics) wears a white racing suit and helmet. That's right, you're The Stig.
  • In 6, two of the cheapest racing suits and helmets you can buy for your avatar with in game credits? The exact same ones as the White Stig(s), and the original Black Stig.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: one of the few downsides of many Gran Turismo games was the fact that for many years, it was impossible to damage the cars no matter how many crashes they got in. You could literally smash your car into a telephone pole at 100 miles an hour, and while the car would bounce and flip, it would still look show room pristine. This was due to the fact that in order to get the licenses for so many cars, the car manufacturers treated the games as a form of advertising, so they would put no damage clauses in their contracts. This was so prevalent, that a competing racing title called “Jarrett & LaBonte Stock Car Racing” made the fact that the cars could actually be damaged in game a huge selling point in their commercials.
• Beat Them at Their Own Game: A literal example. The final time trial in the third game, at Complex String, requires you to beat the best time of "K. Yamauchi"... the guy behind Gran Turismo.
• Bonus Feature Failure: Gran Turismo 3 supported LAN play via i.LINK (Sony's name for FireWire). However, the i.LINK port was removed on later revisions of the PlayStation 2, effectively disabling this feature if you were unlucky enough to own a later PS2 model.
• Bowdlerise: Race cars that have tobacco sponsorship in real life will have that be absent in their in game counterparts. Notable examples are the 1999 Toyota GT-One, and Tommi Mäkinen's Lancer Evolution Rally Car, both of which having their liveries edited to make the red and white Marlboro chevron less visible.
• Bragging Rights Reward: A-spec Points in GT4, of which more are Experience Points awarded for winning races with weaker cars, and the points are not cumulative if you win the same race multiple times.
  • Additionally, they are completely useless. They can't be exchanged for anything and the player earns no reward for accumulating them. They exist for no reason other than for the player to brag to others.
  • The prize car for Formula GT championship race in non-Japanese versions of 4 is oddly a Mercedes C9 Group C racer instead of a black Formula GT car in the Japanese version. Both fall under this trope when players can get a Formula GT car normally after completing Nurburgring 24h race.
  • In Tourist Trophy, winning races 1, 2, 4, and 5 of the Special Machine Festival earn you four racing-modified versions of street bikes, which cannot be won in Challenge Mode.
  • 3 and 4 both give you a formula car in a special black color for 100% Completion.
• Bribing Your Way to Victory:
  • The tedium involved in starting out and getting money in 5 can be easily avoided by buying the DLC Touring Cars, using the power limiter to get the right PP level, and racing in the Supercar Festival seasonal event, which doesn't even require a license. Because, as we all know, you can easily enter a Le Mans-spec Nissan GT-R in a road car event.
  • In 6, the ability to purchase credits using real cash (from one's PSN wallet) was added. Naturally, like with other games with microtransactions in them, fans cried foul about this. Part of the reason why this feature was introduced is because of how it was tremendously easy to earn in-game credits in the Online Seasonal Events in 5, and the Seasonal Events in 6 featured one-win-only Time Trials to discourage players from earning so much credits. From 2015, though, the Seasonal Events included three replayable Racing Challenges by order of difficulty (Beginner, Intermediate, and Expert); these challenges were permanent fixtures in the Seasonal Events if one wanted to earn quick cash as long as the player didn't go over the PP limit.
  • Despite initial promises to the contrary, Sport later added the ability to purchase cars from the PlayStation Store, except for super-expensive vehicles (that are priced over 10 million).
  • 7 allows players to purchase in-game credits for real cash like in Grand Theft Auto Online
• Brutal Bonus Level: Sport has the Lewis Hamilton Time Trial Challenge, a downloadable series of time trials where you can try and beat lap times set by Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton. Beating all of them earns you a special version of the Mercedes-Benz AMG VGT and one hundred million credits (when the normal cap is only 20 million), but it is, of course, extremely difficult. To boot, much like with Vettel's challenges in 5, only a couple hundred players worldwide have managed to beat at least one of Hamilton's times, and you can count those who have beaten all of them on two hands.
  • Worth noting, one of the challenges involved driving the Sauber C9 in the Nürburgring Nordschleife, effectively making said challenge a repeat of the S-16 license test in the Japanese version of 4.
• The Bus Came Back: Some cars and tracks have been dropped midway through the series, before being reinstated to the series much later. A few notable examples include:
  • The first-gen 1992 Mitsubishi GTO Twin Turbo disappeared from the series after GT2 and didn't return until GT Sport in the August 2019 content update (albeit as a 1991 model instead).
  • The 1984 Nissan Skyline R30 Super Silhouette race car marks the longest period of absence between entries in the series, having only initially appeared in GT2 and was largely absent ever since until the July 2022 content update for GT7, a whopping 23 years since its first and last appearance.
  • High-Speed Ring and Apricot Hill were absent from 3 and 5, but returned in 4 and 6 respectively. Many have pointed out that In-Universe, these could be seen as renovations.
    • Trial Mountain failed to make an appearance in GT Sport, along with every classic course from GT6 (except for Special Stage Route X). The track was later confirmed to make a reappearance in GT7, but with significant changes made to its layout to have smoother corners and elevation changes as well as suit grids of up to 24 cars. High Speed Ring is also confirmed to return in 7.
    • 1.29 update of 7 brings back Grand Valley with overhauled design now based in Big Sur Coast Highway in California.
  • The Nissan SKYLINE GT-R NISMO (R32) '90 appeared only in 2 and didn't appear until in the 1.34 update of 7.
• Character Customization: Starting from Tourist Trophy, you can customize your rider or driver using different outfits and helmets. With the right customization, you can be The Stig, or even better, a stock civilian version of your favorite tokusatsu hero.
• Character Select Forcing:
  • In 6, the game forces you to buy the Honda Fit RS as your first car even though other options are available with the credits you start with.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: The more recent titles, including Sport, are known for rubberbanding AI. This is especially frustrating during endurance races, as the player may be on top for the first parts of the race before throwing their controller when everyone else effortlessly passes them by.
  • Penalties for car-to-car contact in rallies in 4 would always be held against the player, no matter whose fault the collision was.
  • Championship races in 3 had the AI cheating in between races. In GT3, the player's car would require an oil change every 198 miles. Often in longer championships, the player would need to change the oil mid-championship, and it would have an adverse effect on the car's performance. Meanwhile, the AI would receive new cars prior to the beginning of every race.
    • This didn't matter in 3 A-spec, as a car with a broken-in engine and in need of an oil change had more power than a brand-new one.
    • In 2, the AI could possibly enter the 305 hp Ford GT40 in the Historic Car Cup race at Rome, which has a 295 hp limit. It will get a huge lead, with the other AI cars mostly having under 200. This has earned the GT40 a memetic status, and as Gran Turismo shitposters can attest to, seeing it absent from the grid is worth losing your shit over.
    • The German Touring Car Championship in GT4 is known for having the CLK-GTR (the prize car of the championship, but a GT1 race car that's naturally not on the list of allowed cars) chime in on the entry list randomly. Needless to say, it will outperform the DTM cars that are actually allowed and would threaten even an upgraded-to-the-max DTM car. Luckily, you can just quit and rejoin until the CLK-GTR is not on the list.
  • The Supercar Festival in 4 is only open to production cars, disqualifying the player from using the Cadillac Cien and Volkswagen W12 Nardo. Just don't be surprised to find it on the AI's entry list.
    • Again, with 4, the American GT Championship can include the Chaparral 2J in the line-up, which will stomp virtually any opponent including you. Even an upgraded Cien can only just put up a fight against it. Thankfully you can bring a 2J of your own, which, depending on your tactics, will turn this into a Mirror Match instead.
  • The GT2 A-Spec Game Mod invokes this in the GT Nationals for greater challenge and opponent variety. For instance, the last two UK Nationals races (582 horsepower and 690 horsepower limits), feature the 800 horsepower TVR Speed 12 as an opponent, the US Nationals feature the 700+ horsepower Ford GT90. and first race of the French Nationals has a limit of 345 hp but an 400+ horsepower Venturi Atlantique 400 GT appears. Additionally, the opponent cars in the Super Touring Trophy are lighter than is possible to achieve even with racing modification.
• Console Cameo: In GT5, if you go into cockpit view in the High End Performance G37, you will notice a PS3 in the back. That's probably because it was included at SEMA.
• Cool Bike: Obviously, this trope pertains only to Tourist Trophy.
  • There are plenty of superbikes in the middleweight, liter, and open classes, such as the Honda CBR600RR (the bike on the cover), the MV Agusta F4-1000S, and the storied Suzuki Hayabusa.
  • While they aren't the fastest or most powerful bikes, the Yamaha MT-01 and its racing counterpart have the largest engine displacement in the game, at 1670 cc.
  • In terms of cruisers, while there aren't any choppers in the game,^note just like there aren't any chopped-up hot rods in Gran Turismo games, you certainly can't go wrong with the Yamaha VMAX.
  • Moriwaki is to Honda bikes as Spoon is to Honda cars, while the Yoshimura-tuned Hayabusa X-1 is the most powerful street bike in the game.
• Cool Car: The list gets bigger with each entry.
  • Jay Leno has his own brand in 4, as his unique hot rod with a Sherman tank engine is a bonus vehicle.
    • The same car can now be purchased from the Used Car Dealership in GT5. It can also be won as a prize car in the A-Spec American Championship.
    • The Oldsmobile Toronado, a 1000 hp beast owned by Jay Leno, also appears in GT6.
  • 6 added the Vision GT project, where concept cars designed by automakers specifically for Gran Turismo are being added over time to the game. There will be a total of over 20 VGT cars, by manufacturers ranging from Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Volkswagen, Mitsubishi, Toyota, Renault-Alpine and even Lamborghini. Some of the more noteworthy VGTs include:
    • The aforementioned Chaparral 2X, which uses thrust-vectored laser pulses to push itself down the track and is driven in the prone position.
    • The Mazda LM55, an all wheel drive rotary-powered Le Mans Prototype that serves as an homage to the 787B.
    • The SRT Tomahawk X, for obvious reasons.
    • The Bugatti VGT, the race-spec precursor to the Chiron that cranks out 1627 HP from its massive 8-litre W16. The real-life show car isn't to be laughed at either - it makes 1479 HP. Even the Chiron itself would show up in 7, but still.
    • And then there's the Daihatsu Copen RJ, which doesn't have an unveiling trailer or even an in-game description.
    • The Ferrari VGT is like your ultimate track monster, given to everyone for free if you answer all the questions of the quiz correctly.
    • Who knows a watchmaker BVLGARI makes a timeless VGT of their own?
• Covers Always Lie:
  • The American cover of 2 features the McLaren F1's dashboard. Not only is the F1 not actually in the game, it would only arrive ten years later with 5 (although BMW Motorsport's longtail racer would appear in 4 "Prologue" first).
  • A big selling point in 6 was the collaboration of Polyphony and the Ayrton Senna Institute of Brazil. Speculations flew wildly as fans wondered if they would be able to drive the legendary three-time world champion's red-and-white McLaren-Honda, or get tracks from his time period. Come the game's release, there is literally nothing but the opening cutscene. A series of challenges involving Senna, complete with a 20 minute unlockable documentary, two '80s layout tracks (Brands Hatch and Monza) and three of his cars (a go-kart, a British F3 car and his '85 Lotus 97T) would only arrive later via free DLC.
• Creator Provincialism:
  • The vehicle rosters are heavily dominated by Japanese cars and usually favor Japan-market names. It wasn't until the fourth game that Detroit actually got a decent car lineup, and it was still missing models like the 1970 Dodge Challenger (which showed up in the second game, go figure), 1965 Aston Martin DB5 and the '80s Pontiac Firebird. It also took until the fifth game in the series for Ferraris to finally appear.
  • They also have a strong emphasis on Japanese motorsports. Play 2 again and count how many of the race cars are from the 1999 JGTC (now Super GT). There probably would have been more, had licensing not gotten in the way (see Dummied Out in the Trivia subpage). Not only that, the cars in question are massively overpowered ^note some running in excess of 700 HP, whilst the actual race cars only had 500, although power levels were fixed in 3 and are generally easier to drive than some of the non-Japanese race cars.
  • In an interview around the time 2 was being released, the developers stated they didn't find muscle cars to be an important part of automotive culture, but decided to add some into the game for broader appeal. Somewhat understandable, as muscle cars with their big engines are pretty much Quirky Works only a thing in the US and Australia.
  • The game's creator and producer is a big fan (and owner) of the mid-2000s Ford GT, which probably explains why it both ended up on the cover of 4 and had a special racing model featured in later titles.
  • Since 5, Nissan has had a rather large presence in the dealership menus. It helps that Nissan is one of the biggest sponsors for GT Academy, and that Kazunori Yamauchi himself has raced in the Nürburgring 24-hour race in a GT-R at least twice now. By Sport, however, Toyota appears to have taken over the role, sponsoring the Gran Turismo World Tours.
• Cultural Translation: Sony always has the rather bad habit of axing the BGMs for licensed Western tracks, dividing all monetary values by 100 to resemble US dollars instead of yen, changing the default unit of power (PS to HP or BHP), and (in the first game at least) changing which cars are initially available in Quick Arcade mode.
• Difficult, but Awesome:
  • Exaggerated, enforced, and deconstructed with the Red Bull X2010 and its Super Prototype X2011 derivative. It's the ultimate car in 5, and for a good reason: it has utterly phenomenal performance in every category for a racing machine, going all the way to Game-Breaker territory. The thing is, this also makes it the most difficult car to actually drive in A-Spec mode. While your B-Spec driver has absolutely no problem driving this absolute beast of a racing machine like it was nothing, thereby defying and downplaying this trope, you're definitely going to have a hard time on your hands to try controlling it in A-Spec mode, since its ludicrously phenomenal performance can actually make it very easy to go off course and crash. Indeed, it is almost impossible to drive with a wheel because it vibrates so much. This is lampshaded during the special Red Bull level 30 event in the 3 races you're going to have to complete (and getting the gold in all 3 of those races can be quite an accomplishment). But once you've mastered the control and feel of this car, you're an unstoppable freak that can put even Speed Racer to shame.
  • Exaggerated with the Tomahawk X (for "Experimental"), the top tier of SRT's Vision Gran Turismo entry. As if its specs aren't enough, just watch this sub-3 minute lap of the Nürburgring Nordschleife.
  • Drifting. Unlike in arcade racing games, the simulated physics implemented in the series (as well as contemporaries like Forza Motorsport) means that you must tune your car to the right settings in order for you to slide around turns like Keiichi Tsuchiya. Depending on the car and which of its wheels are driven, it can be a painstaking process to tune and/or drift it, especially if it's not designed for drifting. One must also have extensive knowledge of (and a good feel for) a course before drifting on it. If done correctly, you might as well feel like you're the next Drift King/Queen.
• Difficulty by Region:
  • Quite often, licence times in the PAL version will be much faster than those on the NTSC versions. An example is the final licence in 3, a lap of Monaco in the Toyota GT-One—the Gold standard on the NTSC version is 1:31.000, while PAL brings it down to 1:27.800 (over three seconds faster). Inverted with the sixth rally license test on 3, where the PAL gold time is 3 tenths slower (And much easier to gold).
  • Ironically, it is reversed in the hardest licence of them all—the final one on 4. In the NTSC-U (American) and PAL (European) versions, the test consists of a DTM touring car on a lap of the full Nordschleife (the one that Sir Jackie Stewart christened the "Green Hell"). In the Japanese version, you drive not the DTM touring car but the Sauber Mercedes C9, the winner of the 1989 24 Hours of Le Mans. Obviously, it's more difficult. The Japanese version of the challenge would appear again worldwide as part of the Lewis Hamilton Time Trial Challenge for Sport, described above.
• Disc-One Nuke:
  • All you need is an IA license - and, in 4, the Driving Missions will give you some incredible cars. While it's balanced by the sheer difficulty of some of the missions (23 and 34), any driver competent enough can walk out with three endgame cars - the Pagani Zonda Race Car, the Toyota 7 and the Nissan R89C - without having even entered an actual race.
  • Generally speaking, if you get all golds on the B license in various games, you can get a car that performs really well in the low level races.
    • In 4 and 5, you don't even need to go for golds; every rank on each license in in those games (Bronze, silver, gold) gives you a free car and many of the given prizes for getting all silver are enough to give you a head start in the lower level events.
  • 2 gives you the Toyota GT-One Race Car if you get all gold on the S license. This is way harder than it sounds. The International licenses in 2 (I-C, I-B, I-A) also all give you a free race car for all golds. This was balanced in later games, via a relatively tame supercar reward. While nowhere near as fast, the Spoon S2000 and Dodge Copperhead from the B and A licenses can also provide a head start in the low level races.
  • 3 gives you the best of the Miatas for all golds in the B license. There's also a Miata-only endurance race. The reward for winning that can be an F1 car. Even if you prefer to play the game at a slower pace, the Miata can win multiple Beginner League races quite easily without having to spend a single credit, as money is tight early on in the game.
  • In 3, there is a set of ten time trials available in Arcade Mode right away, which can be done even before you touch simulation mode at all. Beating all of these rewards you with the Panoz Esperante GTR-1 race car, which has 588 horsepower and is more than capable on taking on most late-game races. If the car itself doesn't appeal to you however, it can also be sold for a cool 500 grand.
  • A unique case: If you beat Gran Turismo Concept, creating a save file of Gran Turismo 3 with a 100% completed GTC save will result in starting the game with 10 million credits. This, however, cannot be done with a NTSC-U version since ''Gran Turismo Concept'' was only released in Europe and Japan.
  • Outside of special prize cars, data transferring, and Seasonal Events, getting the IA License in 3 immediately opens up all ten endurance races. Of these, the Roadster Endurance centered on cheap Miatas where you can only change the tires. All you need is to either scrounge up enough money to buy one of the best Miatas (mid 20,000s) or get Gold on all B License tests to win a free one, get Super-Slick tires for 10,000 Credits, and with enough practice on Apricot Hill, you can easily win the 40 lap race in just over an hour. This will award you with 100,000 Credits and a chance to win an F1 car.
  • 4 has the mighty Cadillac Cien, which is obtained by completing the first rally event.
    • When you reach 25% completion, take your Cien to the newly-unlocked Endurance Hall and enter it in both the El Capitan 200 Miles and the Nürburgring 24 Hours. You will win both easily, and get two cars—the Toyota 88C-V and the Formula GT—that will take you through the remaining 75% of the game.
  • The second rally event (the Capri Rally) gives you the Toyota RSC Rally Raid Car. It is a powerful car in and of itself, and you can sell it for 265,000 credits. If you tune it fully, you can easily get 2-minute laptimes at the Capri. This allows you to grind 1.8 million credits per hour.
  • Anyone who bought the Collector's/Signature edition of GT5 received five "stealth cars", either racing versions of supercars or de-restricted race cars. These cars come with front and rear downforce, are drivable straight away, and cost next to nothing to repair and maintain.
  • The online seasonal events in GT5 qualify as veritable Disc-One Nukes if you can tune your car to the right PP level. The easiest of these events would be the Stars & Stripes, Supercar Festival, and Mini Challenge races. Since all of them can net you a LOT of money if you can secure first place, you'll be able to even get the elusive Formula Gran Turismo car in the online dealership at a "mere" 5,000,000 in just less than an hour. And all this by winning those events time and time again.
    • Hell, let your B-Spec driver race for you.
  • Step 1: Make friends with a gamer who has a Red Bull X2010 to borrow. Step 2: Enter it in all the events possible. Step 3: ??? Step 4: Profit.
  • If you bought the Academy Edition, you also get a download code that adds all the DLC up to that point, including the lethally broken X2011, which adds the car straight into your garage, not just the game, as early as you want. This also goes for those that bought the XL edition, which came with the X2011 upon redeeming it, allowing you to gain it without having to grind to Level 40 just to purchase it from the New Car Dealership.
  • Really, though, all Seasonal Events of Gran Turismo 5 and 6 are this. Well, they were.
  • Pre-ordering GT6 gives you access to 25 GT 15th Anniversary cars. You don't need to pre-order the game; buying the game and receiving a free code for it also counts. This is the game in the series where credits are crucial.
  • From 2015, the Seasonal Events in GT6 had the replayable Beginner, Intermediate, and Expert Racing Challenges for players to earn quick cash as a consolation from the previous game's Seasonal Events and tedious grinding of the offline events. The Quick Match races also paid a lot.
  • Getting gold in all of the Driving School tests in Sport (which is noticeably easier than in previous games) will net you six random cars from the N200, N400, N500, N600, Group 3, and Group 1 categories, allowing you to complete roughly half of the GT League races without spending a single credit.
• Driving Test: The game's license tests. Who would have thought that getting all of the gold prizes would be that hard?!
• Dynamic Difficulty: The games can be easy for professional drivers who know all the ins and outs of race driving, but frustratingly difficult for players who don't know the first thing about cars.
  • Players can also choose how difficult career races (with some exceptions such as one-make events) are by entering cars of different performances.
• Eagleland:
  • Over at the American manufacturers' section is a selection of muscle cars that, while more of a Quirky Work compared to their European and Asian counterparts, are just as fast and significantly cheaper. This is especially true for the vintage car races.
  • In Tourist Trophy, the only three American bikes in the game are all powered by big V-twins (the motorcycle equivalent of big-block muscle V8s).
• Early-Bird Cameo: Before the final hairpin at the Infineon track in 4 and PSP, among the billboards is one for Dodge that features the #9 and 19 Dodge-sponsored NASCAR race cars in the NEXTEL Cup Series at the time. NASCAR would finally appear in 5, albeit cars from the 2010 season, much later than the 2003 ones seen in 4 and PSP. The billboard was a replica of what was seen at the track at the time, so this was likely coincidental.
  • NASCAR cars make a sneak appearance in the PSP post-credits preview video for 5.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Before the series started, the development team worked on another PlayStation racer called Motor Toon Grand Prix and its sequel, which can be best described as a Mario Kart clone with realistic driving physics (as contradictory as that may sound). It was this physics system that they ported over to Gran Turismo's more realistic concept.
• Easter Egg:
  • But wait! There's more!
  • In 6, if you participate in the NASCAR events, you'll occasionally see drivers with names that belong and allude to real drivers in NASCAR, complete with the car and number that they're associated with.
  • In Gran Turismo 7 you will eventually get to race against a DMC DeLorean, driven by a certain E. Brown.
  • Also, in Gran Turismo 7 in Special Stage Route X there is the Antonov An225 Mriya which was one of the largest aircraft in the history which was destroyed by the Russian occupants in the Russian-Ukraine war.
• Effortless Achievement: The "Living Your Car Life" trophy from 7 requires you to open the first GT Café menu book which the menu books itself became part of the main career. And you get this before even you start a race!
• First-Person Snapshooter: Starting from the fourth game, the series lets you take a picture and save it to a USB drive (or share it online).
• Foreign Re-Score: The first game had the music for the menu screens changed when brought to Europe and the U.S.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: At the end of the opening movie for 6, a race driver with a yellow-and-green helmet climbs into an old Formula One car and drives off. If you look at the car's airbox just before it becomes too blurry to read, you can see that the name on it is Ayrton Senna's.
• Game-Breaking Bug:
  • The Japanese and the early American copies of 2 have some bugs in them, but the most notorious one was that, if you filled the Maximum Speed Attack leaderboards (the maximum being 8) and finished a ninth maximum speed trial, it would destroy some garage information. US players could contact SCEA for a replacement copy, while the PAL version fixed it from the start.
  • Players of 6 quickly discovered one within days of the game's release. The bug involved the new stockyard, where unused cars from one's garage could be stored. If you were unlucky, cars placed there could disappear from the game save. This bug may have been silently fixed, as some players reported that their stockyards were then working fine.
  • Another game breaking bug in 6 involved timed races (5-Minute Races in National B, 10-Minute Races in International B, 15-Minute Races in International A, as well as most of the Super class races) where the positions would jumble up as the timer reads zero, possibly denying the player a win even if they were physically leading the race. A hotfix released after update 1.03 slightly fixed this.
• Game Mod: A surprising number; every mainline title up to 6 has at least one.
  • 2 has the Plus mod, a fairly extensive mod with numerous bug and texture fixes and restoration of Dummied Out content such as the Mercedes-Benz CLK Race Car.
    • A Plus mod is also available for the first game, with similar bug fixes, as well as making the previously arcade exclusive Mazda Roadster RS and 1967 Corvette available in simulation mode.
  • Also in 2 has Epic Turismo 2 in which is a meme-themed Gran Turismo game which features new cars and new events:
    • Speed Blaster and a wooden car that the creator made in real life purchasable in Hot Wheels dealership
    • The Top Gear (UK) Hammerhead-i Eagle Thrust.
    • The drivable licenses alongside with the smiley face purchasable in GT Licenses dealership. It also features the Nerd face which is essentially the Smiley Face with glasses and bigger mouth.
    • Four new Wish vehicles such as the Dodge Viper GTS-R,^note Actually a Dodge Neon modified to look like a Viper GTS-R Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR,^note Actually a Mercedes-Benz A160 Avantgarde McLaren F1 GTR,^note Actually a box of images of the said car with 192hp and FF traction and the Subaru Outback Limo.
    • An Among Us style car can be obtainable as a prize car in the first race of Sample Text Trophy.
    • Whatsapp Drip Ka, an nearly 1000hp Ford Ka which can be obtainable as a prize car in the second race of Sample Text Trophy. It also can be sold for $500,000 making it even easier.
    • Patty Wagon from The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie obtainable as a prize car in the third race of Sample Text Trophy.
    • The School Bus from Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit and Breaking Bad's Krystal Ship RV added in 1.1 update can be obtainable as prize cars in the first race of Goofy ahh cup.
    • Toyota Pod added in the 1.1 update can be obtainable as a prize car in the second race of Goofy ahh cup. However it is extremely difficult as your opponents are driving Drip Kas even if the event restricts to only 345hp making it impossible unless if "any car can be enter in any event" gameshark code is entered. Thankfully the 1.3 update allows you to enter any car along with all events rather than limiting the events to only less than 345hp 4WD cars meaning that you can either use the Drip Ka or the Suzuki Escudo.
    • The HKS Seicento Drag, a 1000hp Fiat Seicento dragster car which was undrivable as this car makes wheelies non-stop which is fixed in the 1.3 update and the Elon Musk's Cybertruck LM which is basically the Nissan Skyline Super Silhouette R30 but as a Tesla Cybetruck added in the 1.1 update can be obtained as a prize cars in the third race of Goofy ahh cup.
    • The Rome Circuit 2 Hours is replaced to Motorsports Land 2 Hours.
    • Update 1.2 featured a Nissan Tsuru, an Mexican ordinary car which in stock has 147hp but it can be tuned into an 9326hp monster which can easily reach 350 mph. This can can be purchasable in the Mexico section of the Nissan dealership.
    • An Dutch ambulance can be obtained by completing the Van and Truck challenge which is new in the 1.2 update.
    • The Dryer Kart 5hp can be obtained by completing the Wish.cup. However this event is Unintentionally Unwinnable as every car even vehicles from the Wish.com section cannot be enterable unless if "Any car can enter in any event" gameshark code is activated. As for 1.3 update. this event can now be finally accessible without requiring to use the aforementioned cheat.
    • Update 1.3 added the Epic Tuning shop which specializes tuning in cars from the Epic City section (both purchasables and awarded from Epic Events) which allows to apply racing tyres from those cars which normally cannot be applied.
    • The same update features the Polish FSO Polonez which can be purchased in the FSO dealership in Epic City.
    • The second race of Sample Text Trophy in this update now also award you with Tokyo Mater from Cars Toons rather than only the Drip Ka which can be sold for a decent 35,000 credits as opposed to the Drip Ka that can be sold for a whopping 500k credits.
    • The third race of Sample Text Trophy in this update now also award you with the Boeing 767 rather that only the Patty Wagon. Actually is an Mazda 767 with wings that resembles a passenger plane in the sides. It is extremely uncontrollable. That car makes appearance in the Project A-Spec mod.
    • The update also featured the Pod Race in which is a one-make race featuring Toyota Pods in Clubman Stage Route 5 basically recreating the bonus event appeared in GT Concept. Winning this event awards you with the Toyota Pod LM Edition in which can also be used in the aforementioned event for quick cash.
  • Also available for 2 is Project A-Spec, an unofficial expansion pack of sorts which features dozens of all-new vehicles, such as:
    • New additions to the JGTC roster (Including extra variants and reworks of existing vehicles as well as completely new additions such as GT300 variants of the Porsche 911 and Renault Sport Spider, as well as GT500 variants of the Lamborghini Diablo and McLaren F1). Additionally, the JGTC cars have all been nerfed to their real world power outputs.
    • GT1s and prototypes such as the Sintura S99, McLaren F1 GTR, BMW V12 LMR and Peugeot 905.
    • Classic race cars including the Chaparral 2D, Alpine A442B and Alfa Romeo Tipo 33.
    • Concept vehicles such as the Alfa Romeo Scighera, Peugeot Oxia and Ford Indigo.
    • Several new road vehicles, including the Renault Sport Spider (Which previously existed in the demos only as a text string) and BMW M3 E30.
    • Reworked versions of existing variants, such as the NASCAR themed Ford Taurus racing modification (Which has been turned into its own car more closely resembling an actual Cup Car) and the Mercedes CLK DTM (Reworked from the cut CLK Race Car to more closely match the 1999 CLK DTM concept).
    • Two all-new fictional "LM Edition" racing variants of the Chevrolet Camaro and BMW 840Ci.
  • 3 has a mod in development known as Gran Turismo 3 Concept, which will include bug fixes and an expanded car roster, with all of the cars GT Concept side titles ported over, along with the restoration of previously hidden cars.
  • 4 has Randomizer in which randomizes the prize cars from events. This means:
    • You can win Group C prototype cars like Minolta, GT-ONE, 787B or even the Formula Gran Turismo early.
    • Have winning an incredibly long event like 24-hour Nürburgring or La Sarthe and all you get is a 1HP Benz carriage.
    • Winning any farmable money event like Capri Rally Easy or the DTM one to win cars that awards you easy money when selling that car. There are chances you will end up winning a car with far low money pricing to sell or worst of all, an concept car, Benz carriages or the Ford Model T which those cars can be discarded without any money.
    • The Randomizer is itself a demo for a more extensive mod called Spec II, which besides the randomizer functionality will feature overhauls to the career mode such as revamped and new events, a quick access menu, car descriptions, and the addition of vehicles that were formerly region exclusive (Such as the extra Hyundais and the Lexus touring car from the Korean version).
  • Also in development for 4 is Re-Tuned, which will feature tweaked physics and opponent behavior, six car rallies, new upgrades (Including nine-speed transmissions), tweaks to the in game economy and more.
  • 3 and 4 both have HD texture packs (And 4 has an HD UI) for usage on emulators.
  • 5 has the Master Mod, which enables numerous development and debug tools, ports over numerous PS2-era tracks, restores a number of cut A-Spec events, allows for all cars to be purchased from the dealership (rather than all Standard cars being relegated to the used car lottery) and restores several cars that were Dummied Out across game versions. The mod also includes all the DLC for the game available from the debug, as well as the pre-order bonus Stealth Model and Chrome Line cars.
  • 6 has the Spec II mod from the same creator as the Master Mod for 5, which features restored and added content such as the formerly defunct Seasonal Events, as well as recreations of the Driving Missions from 4. Additionally in development is the Strato Mod, which builds on the Spec II mod with new events (including proper endurance races) and tweaks to many of the existing events to make the game more difficult.
• Gory Discretion Shot: Should you flip your kart or lunar rover upside down, your driver will respawn as soon as their helmet touches the ground, avoiding your driver's neck being broken on-screen.
• Gotta Catch 'Em All: A Self-Imposed Challenge for die-hard car collectors. Made into a real challenge in GT5, where the Used Car and Online dealerships only show some of the collectible cars at a time (the Used Car list changes a bit after playing certain games, and the Online list changes over time), thus demanding patience and luck from the players. 7 actively encourages this even more than earlier installments, with the garage having a checklist of every obtainable car in the game and the various scenarios in GT Cafe section having you collect sets of cars.
• Green Aesop:
  • GT5's 1,031-car lineup even includes hybrids and electric cars, such as the Tesla Roadster.
  • The latest release of GT5 Prologue had a fictional concept version of the GT by Citroën, which was powered by fuel cells (whereas the real car had a V8 internal combustion engine).
  • The last DLC car pack for 5 has the Nissan Leaf in it.
  • 6 adds the Fisker Karma and Tesla Model S, as well as the Tajima E-Runner Pikes Peak racer (yes, it's electric) and later the Toyota TS030 Hybrid. Furthermore, some of the Vision GT cars, such as those from Mitsubishi, Subaru, Nissan, and Toyota, have hybrid powertrains.^note The Tomahawks do too, but those are pneumatic hybrid systems.
  • Sport includes the electric BMW i3 and the fictional Hyundai N 2025 Vision GT race car (which uses hydrogen fuel cells). It also introduces the Audi Vision GT in both hybrid and full electric variants, as well as the 2016 Audi R18, Toyota TS050 and Porsche 919, which are all hybrid Le Mans Prototypes.
  • A new Sport update in November 2019 added the fully-electric Jaguar Vision Gran Turismo Coupe, as well as the Porsche Taycan a month earlier.
  • 7 receives several new hybrid/electric Vision Gran Turismo cars, including the hybrid Lamborghini Lambo V12 Vision Gran Turismo, the fully electric Jaguar Vision Gran Turismo SV (A racing verison of the Jaguar VGT with nearly 1900 horsepower), an open cockpit speedster version of the original Jaguar VGT, and the fully electric Porsche VGT with 1000 horsepower.
• Historical Badass Upgrade: The memetic Minolta Toyota 88C-V, one of the strongest prototypes in 4, was so bad in real life that it didn't win a single race (partly due to its poor reliability). It was humiliated by the Jaguar XJR-9 at Le Mans, finishing over forty laps down.
  • The classic Jaguar XJ13 race car introduced in 5 gets a major upgrade from the real life car by actually getting to race, which the real car never got the chance to do.
• Insane Troll Logic: Gran Turismo 4's car classification system sometimes falls victim to this. For example, despite being divisions of Japanese companies and all the showcased vehicles being assembled in Japan, Infiniti, Scion and Lexus are classified as American brands because they (at the time) were only sold in the United States. So you can enter them in American events but you can't enter them in Japanese events. The Euro Hot Hatch Championship takes this trope even further. You can't enter either model of Ford Focus into this event because they are classified as American cars, nevermind that they are European-spec models that were never sold in the United States. However, you will occasionally find a Ford Focus RS as an opponent. You can also find the BMW M Coupe as an opponent since it's technically a hatchback since it has a rear hatch but the game won't allow you to enter it into the championship yourself.
• Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence: Even the orange plastic mesh fences in rally courses are apparently made of adamantium.
• Interface Screw: Bumping your vehicle head-on while using bumper camera may cause the screen to bounce off for a short time. Played straight in 4 which causes the screen to filled with motion blur until the camera shake has completely stopped.
• Irony: The entry level racing series on each game is the Sunday Cup, which is geared towards low performance cars. Except in 3. 4, 5, and Sport, this low-performance racing series includes a race on the High Speed Ring.
• Itasha: In Sport, players can make their own anime liveries, thanks to the addition of custom decals which can be uploaded via PC (although you have to make them into SVG files first and be wary of the 15 kb limit per decal). To get around the file size limit, sufficiently detailed decals are split up into parts.
• Jack of All Stats:
  • Clearing the A license in 4 nets you a Pontiac Sunfire, which is still average, but also a well-balanced starter car. 1, meanwhile, is way easier if you start with the AE86.
  • Most Japanese cars (barring most Daihatsus) are usually moderately powerful and easier to handle, and they're slightly cheaper than Western ones (just like real life). Such as the Mitsubishi Lancer.
• Japan Takes Over the World: Since Gran Turismo is made by Polyphony Digital, who are based in Japan, you would expect the games to have lots of Japanese cars. In fact, that bias towards Japanese cars really does show, especially if you see crap tons of trim levels of the Nissan Skyline and Mazda Miata and so on. This was especially prevalent in the first two games where the Japanese brands were the only ones that sold used cars.
• Joke Character:
  • The scooters in Tourist Trophy, bar perhaps the Suzuki Skywave 650 and racing-modified Yamaha TMAX.
  • GT4 allows you to unlock Karl Benz's 1886 Motorwagen—the first internal combustion car in history, which is more like a carriage with an engine, and a power output of one HP. The Ford Model T is also unlockable. Not to mention the Daihatsu Midget I...
  • Other useless joke cars include the Fiat 500s, the Honda Life Step Van, the Subaru 360, the 1948 VW Beetle, and many other classic cars. Some of these can't even be driven in races. GT2 had a few of these as well.
    • It is possible, in the fifth installment at least, to make a Honda Life Step Van do a wheelie. And that's about all the reasons you have for buying it over a Skyline.
  • Subverted with the Citroen 2CV, which actually can be used in a one-make event.
    • Not entirely; the recommended method is to get a Chaparral 2J, which practically pays for itself. It's inconvenient, but gives you an excuse to buy the best value-for-money car in the game.
  • The TVR Speed 12 in 2, as mentioned earlier. Probably the most uncontrollable car in the entire series, it can't even look at a corner without spinning. If you buy all the equipment, like traction & stability control, a limited-slip differential, super-soft tyres (or run a mixed compound set-up to impart some understeer) and racing mods for downforce, then seriously jack all the car's settings, you might just get a Lethal Joke Character out of it. Or you can buy something else that goes faster and isn't a complete and utter chore to drive. Better to sell it as GT2's quickest way of farming money.
    • Self-Imposed Challenge: Try doing Laguna Seca 200 Miles with it. 90 times through the Corkscrew? It's bloody terrifying!
  • GT2 featured two dragster cars (and one racing modification that transforms the Dodge Intrepid to a dragster). At least you could have fun trying to control all 1000 of their HP.
  • GT5 throws in the Volkswagen Kübelwagen and Schwimmwagen (two Nazi army vehicles) and the Volkswagen SambaBus (basically a van), though they're used in the Top Gear Test Track challenges. It still gives you the Subaru 360 and the like as (unsellable) prize cars, however.
  • Sport is comparatively lacking in joke cars—which is justified due to the game's largely competitive nature—but still includes the Volkswagen Samba Bus (which comes standard with just 32 horsepower), and the '68 Fiat 500 with only 15 horsepower and a ridiculously high center of gravity.
  • GT7 will feature a Jeep, but not the kind you'd expect: the original Willys Jeep, a military vehicle from The '40s that today's Jeeps we all know and love are based on.
• Joke Level:
  • Your prize for the All-American Championship in 4, which requires you to spend a few hundred thousand credits on a race car or upgrades, is a useless 1954 Corvette. And the prize credits are a paltry sum as well, making it a net loss.
  • 6 features three challenges involving driving a moon buggy around the Apollo 15 landing site. The low-gravity environment does mean it can actually be a lethal one (and not in the sense of the trope below).
• Lethal Joke Character:
  • The 1954 C1 Corvette is not as useless in 6; you can tune it to over 400 hp and even beat some modern sports cars with it in certain races. Getting first place with this car (or any pre-1960 car) unlocks the "Old Dog, New Tricks" trophy.
  • The Renault Espace F1 in 2—a racing minivan (featuring the same V10 engine in the back as the one that powered Alain Prost to the 1993 Formula One World Championship) which is actually a Super Prototype, except this thing is no joke: It actually exists and will kick the ass of any other minivan ever created (except for maybe this one. Justified on the Super Prototype part; it has only been driven once. In the game, it is competitive with the highest tier of racing cars.
  • The DeLorean DMC12. Although it was a crappy car in real life, it kicks ass in-game.
  • The 1967 Chevrolet El Camino SS in Gran Turismo 6. You can roll like Lyndon Johnson, wasting priceless vintage European sports cars in the process for a small fraction of their price.
  • In 2, we have a Rover Mini Cooper rally car on the special dealership. What's special about it? It doesn't have just 74 hp, oh nooo, it has 200. And since it's a Mini, it also handles incredibly well while trashing opponents with their Japanese sports cars, muscle cars and even the legendary GT40—which is not supposed to be there anyway, due to the horsepower limits!^note (In fact, all rally cars, as well as the GT500 and GT300s in 2 have higher horsepower compared to their real-life counterparts when in action. For instance, the other purchasable rally cars in-game, such as the Lancer Evo V WRC, Impreza WRC '99, and Corolla WRC, have their horsepower double once purchased, probably without the required restrictor installed. The horsepower for WRC, GT500, and GT300 cars were nerfed to their real values in 3.)
  • The Toyota TS030 Hybrid in 6. It being a hybrid makes it a joke in some drivers' eyes, and its awful stats (such as a measly 530 hp engine while most of the cars in its class have well over 700) seemingly cement it as a terrible car. To boot, it costs two million credits in a game infamous for having a merciless economy. However, it's surprisingly stable (any half-competent driver will have no problems running the Nordschleife in full wet conditions on slick tires), it conserves its tires very well, to the point of not actually needing to change them (if they're hard compounds) at all in the endurance events, and its hybrid system uses braking force to charge a second electric engine, giving it bursts of 830 hp coming out of corners, which makes most other super race cars look like econoboxes as you overtake them. And as if that wasn't enough, you can take it to events featuring cars a whole tier lower than it due to its performance rating being so low. Assuming you have a 200% credit booster, it pays itself off in roughly 2 hours.
    • While no less lethal in Sport, its joke status is largely averted there due to the more level playing field, with it and all other prototypes costing only one million, and the TS030 no longer being the only hybrid prototype on the roster.
  • Also in 6, the Fisker Karma and the Tesla Roadster and Model S. Yes, they're electric cars, but their single greatest advantage compared to combustion engine powered cars is their single-gear transmission, which doesn't tax the engine and the car's speed. In straightaways, they lose their effectiveness because they can only go so fast as their motor allows them to (and electric motors do not have a customizable transmission); however, in the corners, because of their single-gear transmission, they can actually outrun even sports cars (provided that they are not of supercar level), and these electric wheelers make surprising contenders for first place because of that advantage. In Real Life, they're Lightning Bruisers in their own right.
  • Sport has the Volkswagen Beetle Group 3, a racing Beetle with nearly 600 horsepower, balance of performance notwithstanding, tuned to compete with real life Group GT3s, and a Group 4-class Bugatti Veyron. Yes, an almost-1,000 horsepower hypercar capable of over 400 kilometers an hour, has been detuned significantly to take on GT4 class race cars.
  • Tourist Trophy has a racing version of the Yamaha TMAX scooter.
  • The Alfa Romeo Touring Berlinetta in GT7. Even though it's incredibly old and overpriced, it kicks ass in lower categories if you tune it up well enough.
  • 7 also features engine swaps, which can potentially turn any compatible car into this; even a dinky Beetle or Mini Cooper can throw down with Gr.4 and Gr.3 cars with these modifications. Prior to the 1.34 update, engine swaps were locked behind prize tickets until the said update allows you to purchase engine swaps normally in the customization shop.
  • In the update 1.37 of 7 introduces the Toyota HiMedic, yes an ambulance that can be modified to 500hp van to the point that can beat some of high end sports cars, and it's obtainable for free from the dealership.
  • Similarly, update 1.31 of 7 introduced the Toyota Alphard, a big, massive brick of a family van...that can be tuned to go around the Nurburgring faster than an Audi R8.
  • In Epic Turismo 2 Game Mod has several cars that can be this.
    • The Nissan Tsuru is just a typical ordinary city car that can turn from a dull 147 hp into a 9000hp monster.
    • In horsepower restricted events, obviously as long as you don't apply NA tuning upgrades which drastically increases the horsepower, setting the final gear ratio to 2,000 (the shortest value) and make some gearing, the car easily dominates any race including the GT40 in Historic Car Cup both Rome and Grindelwald especially considering that it is an FF car. For events restricted to 246hp or lower you must apply only semi racing muffler, 295 to 542 hp or lower events, apply both semi racing muffler and racing chip while events close to 591 hp or lower, apply racing muffler and racing chip.
    • The WhatsApp Drip Ka. is just a heavily tuned Ford Ka with 981 hp with exceptional handling similar to the Escudo and can be obtained very early after completing the second race of Sample Text Trophy which is jokingly easy to complete.
    • Though this may be averted as thanks to its comically high power output, it's barred from most races with horsepower limits.
    • The bus from Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit shares the performance similar to the Toyota GT-ONE.
    • As well as the Mercedes-Benz Sprinter based in the ambulances from Dutch shares the performance of the Espace F1.
• Level Grinding: Actually played straight in 5, though in all incarnations, you're going to have to work hard raking in the dough if you're going to spice up your car with the best parts and/or get the car(s) of your wildest dreams. Often overlaps with Money Grinding.
• Level in Reverse: Most of the fictional circuits in each game (as well as most street circuits set in actual locations) have reverse direction variants.
• Marathon Level: Endurance races in general. From the original up until 4, the number of long races only gets bigger, though 5 onwards it gets toned down somewhat.
  • The original features the All-Night races around Special Stage Route 11, which take around an hour each, and the Grand Valley 300, which takes 90 minutes to two hours depending on what car you use. Outside of endurance races, the Normal Car and Hard-Tuned Car series can take just under an hour each to complete.
  • 2 features the Grand Valley 300 km, the Laguna Seca 200 Miles and the Rome 2 Hour timed event, which all take around a couple hours each.
  • In 3, the longest individual race is the Tokyo R246 endurance, a 100-lap street race that can take as long as 3 hours to complete. Additionally, the Grand Valley 300, Laguna Seca 200 and Rome 2 Hour also return, along with a 2 hour race around Trial Mountain.
  • 4 scales up the epics to even higher levels; aside from the Super Speedway endurance (Which can be finished in less than an hour), two hours or so is generally the minimum for endurance race length, with the game also featuring a couple 4 hour events, two 1000 km races (which can take around 5-6 hours each to complete), 8 and 9 hour timed races, and three 24 hour events (Nurburgring, Le Mans with the chicanes, and Le Mans without the chicanes). Outside of the Endurance events, theres the 1000 Miles! series (An endurance series for classic cars; each race can take around 3-4 hours to complete).
    • The Formula Gran Turismo World Championship in 4. It requires the S License to be accessed, and is comprised of fifteen races. As if that wasn't the longest championship in the game by number of events alone, each race is the length of a real life Formula One Grand Prix,^note minimum distance 305 km with the exception of Monaco, maximum time 2 hours with the real circuits matching their GP length lap by lap. Thankfully, 4 lets you save the game in between rounds of a championship.
    • It was dialed down in 5, now being comprised of six 20-lap races. It still takes a while to complete.
  • Formula GT in 3 is also incredibly long, if not to the extent as its 4 counterpart. It's ten races long, most of the courses are long and/or difficult, and each race has a minimum of 25 laps. The final race reaches the level that would be reached in the next game, as it is 78 laps around Côte d'Azur, which is identical to the length of the Monaco Grand Prix.
  • In 3, the Endurance League manages to be shorter than Professional League and even Beginner League. The Beginner League is very long due to the game lacking the short version of a lot of the tracks, thus having to race 100-200 horsepower machines on track like Grand Valley Speedway or Test Course, of all the tracks, and Professional League has no excuse other than that it's massively long. Several series, 5 to 10 laps, tire wear, numerous 7-10 race Championships and to top it all off, 20 laps of the Test Course on Like the Wind and Formula GT. The Endurance races feel shorter on this game compared to the Beginner races, don't they?
  • The real life Nürburgring Nordschleife (20 km) and it's combined circuit (25 km) make an appearance, but are notably not the longest tracks. 6's Circuito de la Sierra (27 km), a high-speed technical mountain circuit based in Spain's Andalusia region, and the Test Course's successor Special Stage Route X (30 km), two 10 km straightaways with 5 km turns separating them, take the cake.
  • Toned down in Sport, with the aforementioned 30-lap Mission Challenge taking around an hour to complete, and GT League endurance events being one hour timed races at the longest.
  • Tourist Trophy is relatively tame, with the longest races being 10 laps. This is probably due to a lack of pit stops, despite tire wear existing in this game.
• Mission-Pack Sequel: The Concept titles (2001 Tokyo, 2002 Tokyo-Geneva, 2002 Tokyo-Seoul), which are all based on the engine of 3 and feature only a handful of events, mainly serving as showcases of new production and concept vehicles shown off at those specific auto shows. Most of the cars in Concept would reappear in 4.
  • The Prologue titles are mission pack prequels, released as teasers while the main titles were delayed.
• Money for Nothing: The Seasonal Events in 5. The Power Limiter means that even race cars can enter the higher PP-level events, and the payouts are astronomical. This is likely to make up for the absolutely pathetic payouts in the regular game.
• Multi-Slot Character: The biggest offender of this trope. There exists more than ten variations per generation of Mazda MX-5/Miata/Roadster, Honda/Acura NSX, and Nissan GT-R among all Japanese cars. Non-Japanese cars downplay this trope (notably Shelby Cobra and AC 427 S/C, the later being a donor car to the former).
• Mutually Exclusive Power-Ups: Cars that are even capable of this are rare, but if you can find one, the game will not let you equip NA Tune and Turbine Kits on a car at the same time; trying to will unequip the one you already had. Later games add superchargers to the equation. Examples include the Toyota Sprinter Trueno in the first game and the Mercedes CLK-GTR in 4. The Lancia Delta S4 Rally Car, which has been present since 2, actually did have simultaneous super and turbo charging; it's called twincharging. The Nissan March Super Turbo from 2 is also twincharged, but can only accept turbo upgrades as 2 lacks superchargers.
• Mushroom Samba: The "Dive Replay" mode in 3 and 4,^note also present in Tourist Trophy in which the replay is synced to the background music. It's hard to deny that it can get really trippy.
• My Rules Are Not Your Rules: Try entering your Cadillac Cien or Volkswagen W12 Nardo in the 4 Supercar Festival. Encounter the blinking red "Production Cars Only" (meaning concept cars like the aforementioned examples are banned). Find that the AI can enter the Cien or the Nardo. Rage Quit. (No wonder concept cars are treated the same as production cars in 5 onwards.)
  • This video covers all the instances of this trope in 2, from rule-breakers (AI cars that exceed the event's power limit because either their car's been tuned to do so, or it's a car that exceeds it stock)^note The latter can also be a result of the messed up global car list mentioned under Unintentionally Unwinnable to The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard hybrid cheats (AI cars that exceed fully-upgraded power limits).
  • The AI can enter the Ford GT40 in the Historic Car Cup race at Rome in 2 due to this trope, because it is technically within the race's power regulations according to the showroom stats (the limit is 295 BHP, and the GT's showroom stats show 290 BHP). The player gets no such luxury because when they buy the car, its power output is listed at 305 BHP.
  • There's another layer to this idiocy; you can't actually obtain the Nardo yourself until you win the "Like the Wind" event in the Extreme Hall. To unlock the Extreme Hall, you need to win all events in the Professional Hall... including the Supercar Festival.
  • Another example is the Japanese 80's event in 4, where a 1991-model Toyota Celica would appear as an opponent.
  • Additionally, due to brand localization in the American version of the same game, the opponent can, but the player cannot, use the Scion xB in the Japanese Compact race, because Scion is considered an American brand. The Toyota bB—the source car for the xB in other regions—can be entered perfectly fine in other versions of the game.
  • Intentionally invoked in 6, with the Expert-level Seasonal Event races. Let's say the limit for the race is 630 PP, and you wish to enter your BMW-McLaren F1 which has exactly that PP rating, thinking you'll be considered a threat regardless of opposition. You'll find that your supposedly top-end car is bottom-tier against 650-690 PP cars that not only are driven by ultra-aggressive, super-quick AI, but tend to start higher up the grid the more powerful they are.
• Nintendo Hard: To the point where actually driving a car through traffic is easier than beating some of the races.
  • Special mention has to go to the level 30 Red Bull event in 5, a time trial challenge that pits you in the X2010. The car itself is essentially a rocket on four wheels; unfortunately, the incredibly phenomenal performance of this machine makes it teeth-gnashingly hard to win even a bronze in that challenge, let alone gold. And to make things worse, you have to complete all three of them if you want to unlock the car. This makes the final driving mission from 4 look like it's a Sunday Cup event, and that race was difficult enough already.
    • Alternatively, either attain an A-Spec level of 40 or level up your B-Spec driver to 35. You'll unlock it quicker than the actual event and get your badass mofo of a car.
  • Unfortunately, another challenge like that exists in 6 as well. This time, however, you have to race it up the Goodwood hillclimb course. Although it is not as long as the courses in 5, the course in 6 is barely wide enough for one car to drive up it, making this challenge extremely difficult to say the least.
  • Getting the licenses can be no big deal. The real challenge is getting gold on every license. The worst of them all are IA-15 and S-16 from 4, where you have to race around the entire Nürburgring Nordschleife! It wouldn't sound like that much of a deal if the track wasn't 20 km (12 miles) long. And in license tests, driving off of the track or touching the wall (or passing the Pace Car in IA-15's case) results in instant failure, requiring you to retry from the beginning. Patience, knowledge of the track, knowledge of the car AND knowledge of racing tactics is needed. S-16 is even worse in the Japanese version, where the friendly DTM touring car is replaced by a diabolical Group C-spec Sauber C9.
• The '90s:
  • Pumping techno music and the use of pastel colors in menus is very clear when looking at the original today.
  • Nearly every car in every manufacturer's dealership in the second game was a car that was available to buy brand new at the time. Granted, it was very late in the 90's—the Christmas period of 1999—but the idea's still there.
• Nitro Boost:
  • The NOS booster was available as an optional upgrade in 4, but all it did was boost your acceleration while draining your fuel.
  • It returns in 6, but most Seasonal Events disallow its usage, and it's very expensive at 100,000 credits. At least it doesn't drain your fuel as much anymore.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed:
  • 3 introduces Shuichi Shigeno's AE86 which he would later base Takumi's car on in his comics.
  • In 4 introduces Jay Leno, a automotive fan in which featured the Jay Leno Tank Car.
  • In 6 introduces Ayrton Senna, an legendary F1 driver which is used to make a tribute to him.
  • In 7 introduces various real-life people such as McKeel Hagerty which is the owner of Legend Cars dealership and the FIA-certified Gran Turismo Championship drivers.
• Nostalgia Level:
  • In 3: A-Spec and 4 the licenses B-3 and B-4 both requires you to use an Honda CR-X Del Sol and Nissan Silvia Q's Aero S14 respectively in Deep Forest which appeared in the first game.
  • License B-2 from 3: A-Spec and B-7 from 4 both requires you to drive a Dodge Viper GTS which appeared in the second game.
  • The License S-7 in 3: A-Spec is a exact remake of the infamous license IA-7 from the original Gran Turismo. Both requires you to drive a TVR Griffith 500 in Special Stage Route 11.
  • The very first licenses in 4 and 7 require you to make a starting and stopping test in Mazda Demio and Mitsubishi GTO (or 3000GT outside Japan) respectively which appeared in the very first game in the series.
  • License IB-10 aka the corkscrew license test in Laguna Seca in the Dodge Viper GTS in 2 had remakes in 3 A-Spec and Sport in form of IA-5 and in Circuit Experience respectively.
  • The last track in Lewis Hamilton Time Trial Challenge requires you to drive a Sauber Mercedes C9 in Nürburgring Nordschleife which is a remake of the Japanese license S-16 in 4.
  • License IB-10 in 7 is a remake of License B-8 from 3: A-Spec as both require you to drive a Nissan Skyline GT-R R32 in Trial Mountain Circuit.
• Obvious Rule Patch: When the "Mandatory Tire Compound" rule, first seen at GT World Live events,^note Races where multiple tire compounds are available require all participants to use all three compounds, each for at least a certain number of laps. Failure to comply will result in a 20 second penalty to be applied on finishing the race. was added to FIA events, and later for Daily Race C with a few relaxations,^note Initially, if there were multiple compounds available for the race, only one of them (usually the hardest one), would be the mandatory one. Also, the minimum number of laps that must be run on that compound is reduced to 1. As of early 2020, races where this rule is in place usually require the use of all three compounds, though minimum usage is still one lap. players discovered that they could satisfy the regulations by only running the required compound of tire on one axle, and then putting a pair of softer compound tires on the other axle. This gave them an advantage over players that were running a full set of the required compound in terms of pace, as well as an advantage in races where the softest compound could survive the entire duration of the race and still be usable, since they wouldn't need to pit for tires (unless required for fuel). This loophole was closed in Patch 1.53, when the regulations were amended such that in races where this rule was active, players were not allowed to run mixed compound setups. In fact, they couldn't even exit the settings menu if the front and rear tire compounds did not match.
  • The rule had to be amended again prior to the start of the 2020 FIA season, though only for FIA events. On certain tracks with very long pit lanes (e.g. Le Mans, Laguna Seca, Interlagos), players were choosing to incur the 20 second penalty for not fulfilling the requirements, as pitting for tires on such tracks actually took longer than 20 seconds due to the length of the pit entrance at Le Mans, and the pit exit at the latter two tracks. The time penalty was then increased to 60 seconds to ensure that participants were going in for their tire changes.
• Oddly Named Sequel 2: Electric Boogaloo: Gran Turismo 3 A-spec is, so far, the only mainline (i.e. numbered) instalment to contain a subtitle.
• Old Save Bonus: There's a few, so take a seat.
  • From 1 to 2: Transferring save data from GT1 to GT2 would give you some extra credits, plus exemptions from the B and A licenses.
  • From 3 to 4: Pretty much the same, except the amount of credits transferred dwarfs the previous example.
  • From Portable or Prologue to 5: Any cars earned in either of those games are unlocked in the Arcade mode of GT5.
  • Played with in Gran Turismo Concept (a PAL- and Asia-only release)—after passing all the license tests, the game allows players to import over 10,000,000 credits and complete all unfinished licenses on GT3. Counts as a sort of Disc-One Nuke if you're just starting to play GT3; with that amount of cash and full licenses, you can buy, modify, and enter every car necessary for any event.
• Photo Mode: Gran Turismo 4 can be considered the Trope Codifier for it, with camera settings, a separate minimap, layers of filters, car settings up to wheel angles, and it has been included in every GT game since.
• Pimped-Out Car:
  • Many of the games' racing cars and tuners are based on regular street cars.
  • As a feature, 7 fully implemented this trope after past games' limited aesthetic customizations. Even in Sport, the customization was limited to livery editing instead of bodykits in previous games.
• Pressure-Sensitive Interface: The original was largely responsible for the take-up of Sony's then-brand new analog controllers. They allow you to go faster and modulate the throttle by modifying your pushing of the X button. The square, meanwhile, handles the intensity of the main brakes. The handbrake and reverse (circle and triangle, respectively) are not pressure-sensitive. Same story for all shoulder buttons.
• Retcon: As of GT7, many original tracks which were Parts Unknown (possibly in Polyphony's own universe as Tourist Trophy may imply) in previous games are given countries they're modeled on:
  • Trial Mountain is now based in the Sierra Nevada mountains in the US. Prior to this, it was implied that the track was based somewhere in the UK, based on it being the host of the UK Nationals in GT2 and featuring the Loch Ness Monster as an Easter Egg visible from Turn 13 in GT4 to GT6.
  • Similarly, the Grand Valley raceway and Special Stage Route X are also set in the USA, and Deep Forest Raceway is confirmed to be set in Switzerland. In regards on Route X, it was implied to be set in the Japanese city of Hakata, Fukuoka (where Polyphony's second branch was located) in prior installments, before being confirmed to be set in the USA, presumably in San Diego, California.
  • High-Speed Ring is now a Japanese track implied to be in Kitami, Hokkaido.
• Replay Value: Gran Turismo 2 continues to have a lot of this among the series' fans due to it containing a lot of vehicles that have never appeared in any other title.
• The Rival:
  • In the first game, if your competitors are driving race modified cars, one of them will always be driving a Subaru Impreza Rally Edition with a couple of exceptions; the US vs UK championship (where it's not allowed to enter) and the UK vs Japan championship (Mazda, Toyota and Honda always enter this one, while Subaru, Mitsubishi and Nissan always have the US vs Japan championship). And they're always the one who will give you the most trouble. After all, that car (based on the 1997 WRC spec Impreza) was driven by Colin McRae...
  • In 2, there will be the GT40 in the Historic Car Cup, 591HP Mid Engine Challenge and Apricot Hill 200KM, the Peugeot 306 Rally in the NA Tuned Cup, and the 180SX Drag Car in the Test Course race in the Turbo Tuned Cup.
• RPG Elements: GT is basically a driving RPG, where racing replaces battles. Think about it:
  • When you win you gain money (in place of experience).
  • You can then level up when you have enough to buy new kit, and upgrading parts replaces the upgrade cycle of buying new armor and weapons. Both raise your stats so you can take on tougher opponents, and you also get new cars instead of party members.
  • Quite often, you'll be Level Grinding races for more money and selling off the cars you win.
  • Oddly, Experience Points were added in GT4, GT5, and GT Sport, but not GT6.
  • In GT7, you are collecting cars. You can even pick your starting car.
• Reality Is Unrealistic:
  • Gran Turismo 5 semi-controversially removed brake upgrades. The primary reasons for upgrading the brakes in real-life racing are just about the only two things that Gran Turismo doesn't model: brake pad condition and braking system heat. Besides, raw stopping power owes far more to vehicle weight and tires. Brake upgrades did return for 6, though, before being dropped again in Sport. 7 would bring brake upgrades back again.
  • As mentioned in the Dummied Out section, several cars in GT2 had their racing modification options cut to make way for separate race car versions. The Shelby Daytona Coupe was planned to be in road-car form and have its racing livery as a modification, when in reality, a road-going version doesn't exist.
  • The NASCAR event in 6 requires you to equip "restrictor plates" (in reality requiring the players to adjust the power limiter) in not only the Daytona race, but also at Indianapolis and Twin Ring Motegi Super Speedway (which held an exhibition NASCAR race in 1998), which traditionally are not restrictor plate tracks. NASCAR actually used restrictor plates at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in September 2000 after deaths of Adam Petty and Kenny Irwin Jr in separate accidents there as a safety measure, although it was dropped after a wire-to-wire win by Jeff Burton that was poorly received by the fans, while NASCAR continued to find the actual solution to the problem that was only realized the following year.
• Regional Bonus: Throughout the first four main installments, several vehicles were exclusive to specific regional releases of the games.
  • In the original, the Japanese version featured the Honda NSX-R GT1 Turbo as a special model, while the overseas releases feature the less powerful LM GT2 instead, though the overseas releases also feature two extra cars exclusive to Arcade Mode, including the second generation Mazda MX-5 and the '67 Chevrolet Corvette. Additionally, the selection of Honda/Acura NSX and Integra models differs between the American and European/Japanese releases of the first two games, with the American release primarily featuring Acura variants (Though some Japanese-only variants are badged as Acuras in the American release, the Type R variant is nowhere to be seen in the American version).
  • In 2, besides the difference in NSX and Integra variants, the European version exclusively features Vauxhall (The British counterpart to Opel) if the game language is set to English.
  • The Japanese release of 3 includes a racing variant of the Lamborghini Diablo via a licensing loophole, though this car was left hidden in the international release. As with 2, the European release has Vauxhall in addition to Opel. The Viper GTS-R Team Oreca race car also differs between regions; the American release features the #91 Dodge branded model while other versions feature the #51 Chrysler branded model. The American and Japanese releases feature six unlicensed formula cars while the European release features just two that are slightly different from the versions seen in the US and Japanese versions.
  • The Asian releases of 4 feature the old style Mini Cooper 1.3i (albeit a late 90s version) while the overseas release would only feature the Mini range from BMW's 21st century reboot of the brand. However, the overseas release features several vehicles not in the original Asian release (notably the Chaparral cars and the Auto Union Streamline), and the Korean release features several extra vehicles (several Hyundais and a Lexus IS touring car) not available in other versions, in addition to the overseas exclusive cars.
  • The US release of Tourist Trophy includes seven bikes not in the original Japanese release of the game, and the European release includes three more in addition to this.
• Remixed Level: Trial Mountain and Deep Forest have received substantial makeovers to their layouts in 7, making them longer to accomodate the increasing speed of more modern cars as well as more similar to real-life FIA Grade 1 tracks.
• Scenery Porn: The entire series is about this. Professional racers have certified that Polyphony's Nürburgring is almost exactly like the real one.
  • Exaggerated with the upcoming GT7, which is set to use real-time ray tracing technology while running at a solid 60 fps at 4K resolution. Even based on the trailer alone, Trial Mountain has never looked better.
• Scunthorpe Problem: Thanks to PSN, GT5 and GT6 censor chat online. However, as these threads may attest, they censor a little too much.
  • For Sport, this issue also extends to user-generated content titles and descriptions.
• Serial Escalation:
  • As the series has gone on, the best cars have gotten progressively more insanely fast and maneuverable, while the worst cars have been setting new standards in rubbishness.
  • The most expensive car price has gotten higher and higher each series. In 1, the car price was topped at 500,000, while in 4 it reached 4,500,000. As for 6 (and Sport), it's 20,000,000.
• Shout-Out:
  • GT5 includes Dunsfold Park, the famous test track from Top Gear (UK). This may be in honor of the episode where Jeremy Clarkson played Laguna Seca in GT4 and then travelled to the real thing to try and beat his in-game time. He failed.
  • The 1964 Pontiac Tempest Le Mans GTO is the same car used by the Lagoon Company.
  • Also in GT5, a racer called "J. Bond" is scripted to appear with a silver Aston Martin.
  • A certain white helmet and racing suit are the first ones you're shown when shopping for racing gear in GT6.
  • Performing a racing modification on the Lotus Europa in 2 allows you to select a white body with red stripes, straight out of a 70's racing manga called Circuit no Ōkami (The Circuit Wolf).
  • Special Stage Route 11, one of the twistiest courses in the entire series, deserves a shout out to Initial D as well.
  • In ''3', the "Mistral 78 Laps" endurance race and the Côte d'Azur round of Formula GT are 78 laps long, the same length as the Monaco GP in Formula 1.
  • The Mitsubishi FTO Super Touring Car features Omega Boost, a PS1 game developed by the GT team, as a sponsor.
  • In Sport, the Group 3 Volkswagen Beetle has the racing number 53.
  • In 7, one race has a Delorean as an opponent's car. The driver's name? E. Brown.
  • The Plymouth Fury in the GT2 A-Spec mod comes in a red color scheme as a shoutout to Christine (The color scheme is even referred to as "Christine").
• Spin-Off: Tourist Trophy, which is GT4 with motorcycles!
• Stealth Pun: The car on the cover of the fourth game is the Ford GT. There are two racing versions of this car in the game, both wearing the number 4. Yes, GT #4.
• Super Prototype:
  • Both played straight and subverted. Late into the game you'll come across prototype and racing-class versions of stock cars you found in the stores. These are often far better than their unmodified stock models. But by the time you have access to them, you've probably customized your own cars so much that the prototypes pale in comparison (with the exception of the Pikes Peak Suzukis)—at least until you get to max those out.
  • GT5's Stealth Model "Gift Cars" include such vehicles, and you get to have them as early as starting the game for the first time. See Disc-One Nuke.
  • The X1/X2010 car, which was followed up by the buffed up X2011 and the power nerfed, aero-centric X2014, which also includes a milder fan-less model and a junior model that behaves like a modern F1 feeder series car.
  • Some of the Vision GT cars included in 6 are indeed this. The SRT Tomahawk X is the epitome of this trope, boasting 2500+ horsepower and requiring the drivers to wear a G-suit. The GTS-R and S models are also available that are nerfed for general racing and road, respectively. The X version, especially, is so batshit crazy fast, it can outrun the in-game racing line's rendering speed at top speed in 6. The Jaguar Vision GT SV, while not as wild as the Tomahawk, is still quite super in its own right, having nearly 1900 horsepower from four electric motors (the regular coupe and roadster have three motors and "only" 1000 horsepower) and a top speed of over 260 mph.
  • A milder example is the Honda NSX-R Prototype LM Road Car, a fictional widebody tuned concept that is much faster than any real production NSX of the day but can still compete fairly with other supercars. The Gr.3 and Gr.B Road Cars in Sport live up to the same spirit.
• Theme Naming: The six unlicensed Formula One cars in 3 are named in the following format: "FCYY/N", with C denoting the engine's cylinder count, YY denoting the year of the car, and N being the last-name initial of its driver. For example, the McLaren MP4/4 is called the F688/S in-game (6-cylinder engine, raced in the 1988 F1 season, driven by Ayrton Senna).
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Yes, the game allows you do so such utter nonsense as entering Le Mans cars in road car events. Or, in a truly hilarious moment, you can enter several-ton trucks into the Lightweight K-Cup in 5. There's a reason why Polyphony decided to avert this trope in 6 with the revamped PP limit system; so that you won't attempt to gain an unfair advantage and snag first place as easily.
  • Sport has the Vision Gran Turismo Trophy + (under the Professional League), which has no power cap. Enjoy lapping every other opponent multiple times over in your Tomahawk X.
• Those Wacky Nazis:
  • The Auto Union Type C Streamline, Volkswagen Kübelwagen, and Schwimmwagen were made in Nazi-era Germany.
  • The futuristic-looking-for-1935 Type C has insane acceleration and top speed, but is extremely hard to control when it comes to cornering. In 4, it's pretty much useless as it can only be used in Nürburgring and Speed Tests,^note (unless you use cheat devices like Action Replay) and doesn't appear in GT5. However, it's back in GT6, where it can be driven everywhere like Stupid Jetpack Hitler on the track.
  • No Swastikas: The Nazi backgrounds for these cars were not used nor stated in the games.
• Timed Mission:
  • PSP has an optional timer you can setup before starting the race or trial. When the time's up, the race is automatically quitted and sends you back to the race menu, however if you ran out of time while racing with CPU drivers, you won't receive rewards.
  • The "Sierra Time Rally" in 6 is a special event where the player must complete the lap while competing to earn points before the timer runs out.
• True Final Boss:
  • 100% in 3 requires gold trophies in every race, and 1st on each of the ten time trials. The hardest event in the game is not the Formula GT World Championship, but instead the final time trial at Complex String. But some players have inverted this; since the Formula GT requires Super License in order to unlock, while the Complex String time trial doesn't, you can finish the time trial first if you want. This makes the Formula GT this trope by default.
  • 4 has Driving Mission 34. The two-minute waiting time before you can even race, the fact that it takes place on the Nürburgring Nordschleife, and the car of choice being a 600+ HP, massively heavy Mercedes SLR on comfort tyres easily qualifies that mission for this status. It's not uncommon for players to abandon the game at 99.8% because of this mission.
  • 5 has the Sebastian Vettel X Challenge, simply because the X1 is just that overpowered and uncontrollable.
  • Averted in 6: the hidden event is in the International A section, rather than the S section.
• Undesirable Prize: Congratulations, 4 player! You have completed the S-Licence with all golds - the hardest Self-Imposed Challenge in the game. Your reward is... a Ford Model T that can't even be entered in a legitimate race.
• Unintentionally Unwinnable:
  • The All-American Championship in 4 was often this, due to the not-uncommon occurrence of the Chaparral 2J, Panoz Esperante, or both competing, and starting in first place. You have to either quit and re-enter until neither are there, or do the Capri Rally until you have enough for your own 2J.
  • Doing a Family Cup or Arcade Mode race in 4 with a slow car (such as a Honda Today G or Daihatsu Midget) may end up having you race against a Dodge Ram, which is vastly quicker.
  • Due to a bug featured in some races in the Online Seasonal Events in 5, the first-place AI car will get a massive head start to render them unwinnable. A particularly bad example is the Japanese 80's Festival event, especially the 5-lap Tsukuba race, where you're frustratingly limited to 420PP and you have to find the right Japanese '80s car to beat the cheating first-place AI. Thanks, Polyphony.
  • In 2, some races have an opponent with a car that's not allowed to enter the race. In v1.0 (ergo, first release) of the NTSC region version, one car^note The Shelby GT500 KR being moved in the global car list causes each of the endurance races to have one car from a different endurance race as a possible opponent. For example, you can end up entering the 30 Laps Trial Mountain Endurance with a 290hp car to race against a 700hp Vector M12 LM Race Car. You totally have this race in the bag. The car that the Vector displaced and should actually be in that event's car list is the Citroen Xantia (otherwise usable by the player), which instead ends up in the AI car list for the Route 5 All-Night race.
• Updated Re-release: The 2002 Tokyo-Seoul and Tokyo-Geneva releases of the Concept side game serve as this to the original 2001 Tokyo release, adding additional cars from the 2002 Seoul and Geneva motor shows on top of the 2001 Tokyo Motor Show cars from the first release.
  • 5 Prologue had two of these; the Spec II update added a number of new vehicles (nearly doubling the roster from 37 to 71) and features compared to the initial Japanese release (The initial release did not make it overseas), and a Spec III update additionally included three more vehicles.
• Urban Legends: Due to the McLaren F1's gauge cluster appearing on the cover art of Gran Turismo 2, a rumor circulated around the internet that it could be unlocked by either buying every car in the game in the color black or filling your garage with 100 black cars. Hackers who delved deep into the game's code eventually confirmed that the McLaren F1 is not present in the game, though they did find that there was a planned McLaren F1 race car that never got completed. The person who initiated the "100 black cars" cheat eventually confessed to making it up.
• The Very Definitely Final Dungeon:
  • Each game has one final event at the very end. These events generally last a long time in some of the most difficult courses of the game.
  • Certain games have long, complicated tracks saved as the very last track introduced. Examples include Special Stage Route 11 in the first and Côte d'Azur (Circuit de Monaco) in the third, both of which are also the final race in their game's final tournament.
• What a Piece of Junk:
  • The Buick Special is not your grandma's Buick. It is actually a pretty nice muscle car; only it is rather bulky, not very aerodynamic, and happens to have been manufactured in 1962. However, it has well over 500 horsepower and can be tuned to insane lengths. As such, it may look out of place but can easily compete head-to-head with many of the game's super-cars.
  • Also mentioned above on Those Wacky Nazis, the Auto Union Streamline is quite aerodynamic for a 1935 race car. It's somewhat useless, but if you tune it correctly, it can outperform modern Le Mans Prototypes on straight-line-speed-based race events.
  • Pretty much any road car (especially in the earlier games) due to very limited visual customization; you can be able to tune a car into a rocket, but you aren't able to turn a car into a Rice Burner. Enjoy doing this to your Renault Avantime.
    • Somewhat averted in Sport with the introduction of the Livery Editor, which allows for custom decals and wheels. No body kits or custom wings are present, though.
• Writing Around Trademarks:
  • In all games it appears in, the Peugeot 206 Rally Car '99 has Gran Turismo logos instead of V-Rally ones, except for 2 where they're blank instead.
  • The New York track in 4 avoids going near the Rockefeller Center, where a Pokémon Center^note now Nintendo New York was at the time.
  • 7 includes a list of various major historical events that have happened in the 20th and early 21st century, regardless of how relevant they are to driving. This includes the launches of the first four PlayStation consoles and the PSP, but not the launches of any of the systems' competitors-or really anything involving non-PlayStation gaming, with the exception of the release of Tetris. Regardless, it still lists the launches of various Microsoft Windows versions despite Microsoft owning the Xbox brand, and the stock photo used to represent Tetris is that of a man playing Nintendo's NES port, complete with a visible NES controller, Nintendo logo and all.

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Da-dum, da-dum, da-dum, da-dum, da-da-da-da-da-da-dum, dum, da-dum...
MMM, OHHH YEAHHH... OHHH YEAHHH... OHHH YEAHHH...^note SUCH A GOOOOD TIIIIIIIME. A REALLY GOOOOOD TIIIIIME...