Car of the Week | Mazda RX-Vision '15

[XSquareStickIt]

Only Vic attempted last week's challenge set by SomePsychicDude, destroying the GT-R Cup at Blue Moon Bay with a 700PP (!) Hakosuka that has all of the goodies packed into the tiny box! (Meanwhile, I can't even drive the stock car properly... )

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Bulbasaur, Charmander, or Squirtle. Which of the three did you pick to start your journey to become a Pokémon Master?

Charizard, Charmander's "fully evolved" form, may have become almost the third mascot of the world's highest grossing media franchise, receiving gimmick after gimmick as the generations trudge on, to say nothing of its ever–expanding moveset. However, let's not forget that, in the first generations of games, the rival character canonically picks Squirtle, and quite frankly, he might've been onto something as the grandson of a world–renowned Pokémon professor: Squirtle is the starter of choice for casual players and speedrunners alike of Gen 1 games, easily quashing Brock's Rock–type Pokémon in the early game, and learning the Dark–Type Bite just in time to chew up and spit out Misty in the Gen 3 remakes, all while relieving the player of the necessity of catching a Pokémon that can use Surf—itself the only useful HM move in battle—and even having access to the utterly broken Blizzard to freeze Lance and his Dragon–types dead in their tracks in the late game! Really, Squirtle and its evolutionary line is just the unofficial, undisclosed "easy mode" of Gen 1 Pokémon. In Generation 8, the turtles even got access to the single best boosting move ever conceived in the franchise's 28–year history: Shell Smash, which not only makes regular Blastoise a threat in the lower tiers of play, but outright got Mega Blastoise banished to Anything Goes in National Dex! Let's see Charizard (or Venusaur) lay claim to being grouped together with the most demonic Pokémon in the actively power–crept franchise, like Mega Rayquaza and Crowned Zacian!

But will your in–depth knowledge of Pokémon betray you if you pick the Toyota Aqua in Gran Turismo 7?

Spoiler: Weekly Lobbies Information

Weekly Lobbies​

Our weekly lobbies are ongoing as usual, and anyone (not a dick) is welcome to join us in racing bone stock Toyota Aquas under BoP conditions!

Click on the hyperlinks to convert the times to your time zone, and feel free to add the hosts as friends on PSN to make searching for the lobbies easier!

The Americas Lobby​

• Tuesday. 3rd September, 10 P.M. CST
• Host: Victory_Reign93

The Asia/Oceania also kinda European Lobby​

• Saturday, 7th September, 4 P.M. Singapore Time
• Host: XSquareStickIt

BoP/Settings Disabled: On (Temporarily reverts cars to stock; WIDE BODIED AND ENGINE SWAPPED CARS ARE NOT ELIGIBLE!)
Tracks: Randomly selected by lobby participants (~5 mins practice, ~10 mins sprint)
PP Limit: 369PP
Car: No Limit
Tyres: Comfort Medium

~Single–Player Challenge!~​

The Toyota Aqua boasts incredible fuel efficiency in real–life, but how much does that help it in a racing game?

The SPC for this week takes a page out of Skyrocket44's book of antics: Using a bone stock Toyota Aqua, what is the highest PP–ed opponent you can beat around Tokyo Expressway - Central Clockwise in a Custom Race?

The lap count, tyre wear, and fuel usage is up to you to decide, but your opponent(s) should similarly be bone stock as well.

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Of course, we always welcome opinions, tunes, liveries, photos, videos, or stories about the car here on the thread!

 

[05XR8]

It's no Prius or Yaris, but let me aquaess makes a cool Super Taikyu ST-5 choice.

 

[Nismonath5]

On the topic of the Aqua, here's a time that NZ media used a pic from GT6 on one of their news articles.

Gran Turismo, where the cars look so good it fools the media

 

[ScottPuss20]

The Toyota Aqua is one hell of a choice for this week. Talk about something without any sporting intentions. At least the Honda Jazz/Fit has a half decent chassis...

 

[Alex p.]

It managed a 09.45.708. Without the abysmal top end, it would fair quite well me thinks. But it is what is. I just noticed something though: we won't have to change gears in this one, so that's at least something positive haha.

YT review: "A little, ******, disappointing car to hoon around the Nordschleife imo! Good city car though I think."

Verdict: City sleeper and race track beater.

 

[SomePlayaDude]

Alexa play Week 16 Wednesday lobby - final race.

 

[Nismonath5]

The Toyota Aqua is one hell of a choice for this week. Talk about something without any sporting intentions. At least the Honda Jazz/Fit has a half decent chassis...

That's half the fun of the "traditional" GT experience. Taking a standard, ordinary passenger vehicle and hotting it up to become a potent track toy.

 

[Aiko_Mac]

It seems that the pp of the cars is getting lower every week! (This comment will age like milk)

 

[Alex p.]

It seems that the pp of the cars is getting lower every week! (This comment will age like milk)

Indeed it will, next week.

 

[Skyrocket44]

Okay, interesting challenge. I could pick Tomahawks, but it is a shorter track, so I might lowball things first and see if...
waitasecond.

IS THAT THE SLIDER THAT CONTROLS HOW FAST CARS ARE REFUELLED!!!???
Welp, that's the challenge solved. I closed that loophole for a reason, y'know.

And I lapped the field for good measure.

Shared a replay too. Check it out.

 

[SomePlayaDude]

 

[Alex p.]

Oh god, another Alex pick.
View attachment 1387886


I can already see what’s coming already.

View attachment 1387885

Every time I pick the next abomination I always envision the convo between you and XSquare to go somewhat like this:

 

[XSquareStickIt]

Every time I pick the next abomination I always envision the convo between you and XSquare to go somewhat like this:




View attachment 1388042

Since we're apparently making this week Konosuba themed, let me put it to you in Konosuba terms what I want to do to you:

 

[Alex p.]

Since we're apparently making this week Konosuba themed, let me put it to you in Konosuba terms what I want to do to you:

I still love u doe.

 

[RX8 Racer]

Since we're apparently making this week Konosuba themed, let me put it to you in Konosuba terms what I want to do to you:

As for me, I would drag Alex off to the Shadow Realm for giving me war flashbacks to that utterly cursed TGR Prius race.

@XSquareStickIt, @ScottPuss20 and my live reactions to Alex’s choice:

 

[sejtur]

Since we're apparently making this week Konosuba themed, let me put it to you in Konosuba terms what I want to do to you:

What show is that from?

 

[Alex p.]

What show is that from?

Konosuba?

 

[XSquareStickIt]

What show is that from?

The show's name is「この素晴らしい世界に祝福を！」, "Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo!", or "KonoSuba: God's Blessing on This Wonderful World!", or just "Konosuba" as it's most commonly known.

It's an excellently written comedy light novel turned anime that takes the piss out of tired Isekai anime tropes and clichés, and I highly recommend it (if you don't mind the females being overtly sexualised). I only got into this anime very recently because of Alex choosing the Toyota Aqua, and there's a character named Aqua in the show.

All three seasons of the anime and a spin–off series are free on YouTube in Japanese dub with subtitles. Here's the link for Season 1's playlist:

 

[Alex p.]

The show's name is「この素晴らしい世界に祝福を！」, "Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo!", or "KonoSuba: God's Blessing on This Wonderful World!", or just "Konosuba" as it's most commonly known.

It's an excellently written comedy light novel turned anime that takes the piss out of tired Isekai anime tropes and clichés, and I highly recommend it (if you don't mind the females being overtly sexualised). I only got into this anime very recently because of Alex choosing the Toyota Aqua, and there's a character named Aqua in the show.

All three seasons of the anime and a spin–off series are free on YouTube in Japanese dub with subtitles. Here's the link for Season 1's playlist:

Glad to be of service.

 

[XSquareStickIt]

Glad to be of service.

View attachment 1388353

 

[Alex p.]

 

[sejtur]

The show's name is「この素晴らしい世界に祝福を！」, "Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo!", or "KonoSuba: God's Blessing on This Wonderful World!", or just "Konosuba" as it's most commonly known.

It's an excellently written comedy light novel turned anime that takes the piss out of tired Isekai anime tropes and clichés, and I highly recommend it (if you don't mind the females being overtly sexualised). I only got into this anime very recently because of Alex choosing the Toyota Aqua, and there's a character named Aqua in the show.

All three seasons of the anime and a spin–off series are free on YouTube in Japanese dub with subtitles. Here's the link for Season 1's playlist:

Thank you so much! I'll check it out, sounds very interesting with the tropes!

 

[XSquareStickIt]

As promised, foreshadowing next week's car (don't worry if you don't get it, it's a lame inside joke).

​

 

[K31thc0m]

photo dump
thanks for the 5 races i did

 

[SomePlayaDude]

 

[XSquareStickIt]

photo dump
thanks for the 5 races i did

Dayum, you work fast!

Welcome to GTPlanet and Car of the Week! We hold weekly races at the same time every week (11 A.M. Wednesday, 4 P.M. Saturday). Next week's car should be a lot more interesting than the Aqua I'll announce the next car on Monday.

 

[lilcat89]

The Toyota Aqua…part of the starter trio, or the unholy trinity as I refer to them. This was the first time that I have spent more than 10 miles in any of the starter cars. I will start of with some background. The Aqua is known as the PriusC here in America. The C stands for City and we only got the first generation of it.

So, with the background done, let’s begin. The Mazda Demio and the Honda Fit joined our spotlighted Toyota Aqua at the requisite Road Atlanta to find out which is the perfect starter car. All three are completely showroom stock and on Comfort Medium tires. Not to give anything away, but I was surprised by the outcome.

I will start with the slowest of the group, the Mazda Demio. The diesel engine and no hybrid assist hurts the Mazda, but it’s lighter weight and chassis tuning keeps it within a tenth of where the Fit Hybrid would end up, at 1:56.18. It felt the slowest down the back straight as well.

The next in speed is the Honda Fit Hybrid. It pulled a time of 1:56.02 around the road course. I was surprised at how close the Fit was to the Demio considering the Fit felt so much quicker with the Hybrid assist. The Fit’s hybrid system discharges rather slowly. Which means the boost isn’t much, but it does last a few laps, which means the Fit is more consistent in pace than the highlighted Aqua that I will come to in a second.

Now to the spotlight of this week, the Toyota Aqua. I was very shocked by how much quicker the Aqua is over the other two over a single hybrid-assisted lap. It did a 1:52.67 around Road Atlanta. The CVT also has a helping hand in the lap time by keeping the engine at maximum power. The downside to this amount of performance is that the Aqua uses up its Hybrid boost in a little over a lap. After the hybrid is gone, the performance drops to 1:56.30. So, in the span of 2 laps, the Aqua goes from by far the quickest to the slowest of the trio.

On the handling front, the Aqua is the worst of the bunch. It rotates similar to the others off throttle, but it goes to terminal understeer at corner exit.

So what’s the right choice to begin your GT7 career with? Well, the Aqua punches above its weight, until the Hybrid boost is gone, then it falls back to the other two. As quick as the Aqua is on single lap pace, I can’t recommend it with the rollie pollie chassis tuning. The hybrid can make it a sleeper, but without that boost, it’s a total BEATER everywhere else. The Honda Fit Hybrid is still my choice of the “Unholy Trinity”.

 

[Obelisk]

"Busy week, Obe?" rang out as I walked through the door. It's Vic, sitting there with an Alienware branded phone in hand.

"Busy doesn't even begin to describe it." I answer, throwing my hoodie over a nearby chair.

"No luck with the mower?"

"Yeah. No mower yet." I say, heading towards the breakroom.

"At least you'll be touching grass today. Heads up!" he replies, followed by the jingle of a keychain being thrown in my direction. I catch it in one hand and take a look. Toyota keys.

"Prius?"

"Prius."

I let out a deep sigh, but before I can open my mouth back up, Vic cuts me off.

"No, you can't put Yard in it with a plasma cutter."

At least Vic and I've got a pair of 250 GTOs waiting back at the Horizon Festival branch.

---

... Whoever chose the Prius, I hope you find pebbles in your shoe for the rest of your life. Or lose half of your horsepower in your Copen.

In all seriousness, it's great that the mundane and ordinary cars get their time in the limelight. As much of a joke as the Prius is in the GT games, it is a car that's been fairly successful in the real world. The first few were produced in 1997, and went on sale in 2001. Since then, the Prius and its associated variants have all sold a collective total of 6.1 million units, making up 61% of all of Toyota's hybrid sales since 1997.

Questionable visual designs aside, it's an effective compact hatchback with a hybrid system boasting an effective MPG of 58 city and 52 highway (as of the 2022 model) and riding on the coattails of Toyota's reputation for bulletproof engineering.

And the 5th generation model ain't too shabby looking.

But this isn't about the current Prius. We're looking at the one featured in GT7, the initial run of the third gen from 2009.

Doing the SPD thing of teasing my next car choice. Soon. Soon...
The 2009 Toyota Prius G is a super accessible car, being that it can be found in the Brand Central for a relatively humble 24,500 credits. You can also sometimes find it in the Used Car Dealership, so if you're patient, you can nab it for cheaper.

It comes with eight colors, four of which are a white to silver gradient, while the other four are two blues, a red and a black paint. I personally like the White Pearl, Dark Blue Mica and Black paints as they're really simple, inoffensive colors that work pretty well for the car.

What that 24k gets you is a 1.8 liter inline four (though it's officially a 1.5, i wonder if there were different versions?) producing 120 HP @ 5,000 RPM and 104.8 ft-lbs @ 4,500 rpm. The car comes in at a very modest 2,976 lbs (1350 kg) which is pretty light for a hatchback in this category. Some more recent hatchbacks such as the new Mazda3 come in a little heavier despite being a bit smaller in stature than the Prius.

The Prius' combustion engine is mated to a CVT transmission with only one drive gear. This was in the early era of modern CVTs where they did not have simulated gears, so you're stuck with the buzzing at peak power when going open throttle.

Performance wise, the Prius is nothing to write home about. The gearbox/CVT is geared at 1.000 gear ratio and 3.267 final drive, leaving it with a max gear speed of 201 kph @ 5500 RPM according to the adjustment chart in the tuning menu. The power curve is relatively straightforward too, with a linear increase in HP to peak, then a linear drop in power past peak. The torque curve starts very high (eyeballing it, I'd say around 90 ft-lbs?) and climbs to its peak, where it hovers until the engine asphyxiates after 5,000 RPM.

The car is relatively softly sprung, with 1.4 front and 1.55 rear springs, though I find it very interesting that the rear damper expansion is five points below the front damper expansion (35/30).

Differential wise, it looks to be a wide-open diff. Surprisingly, though, the Prius is capable of 0.9 Gs on the Comfort Medium tyres, up to 0.96 Gs at 150 MPH (as if it'd ever hit that speed). Other hatchbacks I've encountered tend to hover closer to 0.85 on equivalent tires both IRL and in-game, so this stands out to me right away.

At 373.35 PP, there is a lot of room to work with this car, but we'll get to that later. The first thing to do, logically, is to immediately take this consumer car to a track and thrash it mercilessly.

That is what Toyota would've wanted, right?

... right?

My money's on the Prius.

Remember how I mentioned this was an early CVT without the simulated gears?

It turns out that this CVT felt unnatural to people, due to how smoothly the car was accelerating, so Toyota changed that in later CVTs. My 2019 Corolla had nine simulated gears and one physical gear. Cheeky designers.

Anyways, this lack of ratios means your experience with the car is going to be a very on/off one. What do I mean by that?

On the throttle? All of the revs. Off the throttle? No revs.

Revving the car on a dead stop with the brakes on will cap it out at roughly 2750 RPM. Wide open throttle will see the engine rev up smoothly to 4800 RPM while it accelerates, and then hover at 5100 RPM past 65 MPH

Lifting off the throttle at any point will net you an immense amount of understeer as the CVT promptly decides that the user has given up spirited driving and attempts to grab the most fuel efficient ratio possible. You have to keep your foot in at least 75% to keep the engine at a high enough RPM for rotation mid-corner.

Ironically, the Prius is quick to oversteer if you left-foot brake, so it sort of encourages aggressive pedalwork (braking on full throttle for example) to get the most out of the car at stock form. It almost reminds me of the Copen with how much front grip it has available to it on WOT.

On Grand Valley Short, my test track for the occassion, I could not get the car past 90 MPH and I suspect not many places have straights long enough for the Prius to get its full speed out. ...Not that it has much speed to begin with.

The hybrid system definitely helps it accelerate and stay at speed, and the burn rate is pretty decent. Around GVS, I was seeing about 22% charge burn every two laps, so you could get up to 10 laps of full hybrid power. But on a slightly longer event like SRC's 15 minute races at Goodwood or Watkins Glen, it would definitely run out of juice and cripple the car immensely.

The fastest I was able to get around GVS (on controller) was a 1:39.096, and it was a tiny bit frustrating. As a comparison point, my cup Copen manages a 1:38.380 on a wheel. This is not a knock against the Prius, but just an observation.

But this did teach me something - every car has very specific requirements on how to drive it and a lot of them overlap due to similarities between themselves and peers. The Prius doesn't have many peers like it, so the specific driving style it demands is much harder to get the hang of due to lack of experience.

Not only that, but the car rewards the time invested into learning the specific driving style it needs to be successful. Long story short: Your inputs absolutely matter with this car, and mastering the precision of your inputs is how you maximize speed in the Prius.

But this is Gran Turismo, and you can do whatever you want to your car.

A full workover of the car, including aero and engine tuning, puts it right at 501 PP on Sports Hard tyres. It packs 149 HP and weighs 2489 lbs with weight reduction stage 2. It could be reduced further to 2321 lbs, but I'm keeping some mass on it to get more power out of the combustion engine.

Now the question is: How does it do when cranked to 10?

At Tsukuba for week 1, I ran a stock FC RX-7 on wheel as part of my testing and it ran a 1:08.834. This is roughly 460 PP vs the cranked Prius' 500 PP.

So how did the Prius do on a controller?

1:08.645.

Mind you, I am terrible on a controller these days. I severely handicapped myself on this one by 1) using the new-to-me DualSense controller that I am still not used to and 2) doing all of this over PS Remote Play.

And I still beat my best effort in a legendary sports car that should be outpowering the Prius in every single aspect.

This isn't the only time I've taken a Prius through some absurd stuff - back in my controller days on GT6, I won a very closely contested 375 PP race in a Prius despite my opponent being in a superior Fiat 500 Abarth. It's one of my fondest memories of my GT6 days.



In stock form, it's a Prius. It's not much, but it's an honest car that puts in honest work for everyday people. That all gets turned on its head when you build it up for low HP, low PP racing. Some upgrades later and you've suddenly got a lightweight, single-gear car with hybrid assistance (read: lots of instant torque) designed to stay at peak power and torque under open throttle. You're gonna struggle to keep up with it on circuits designed for lots of acceleration zones/corner exits. It can be hard to get the hang of, but when you do finally click with the Prius, people are going to think twice about laughing at you at the next 400/500 pp race.

Stock form is Neutral, upgraded is a Sleeper.

I miss the GT300 Prius.

Refer to driving/upgrade section of this review for my thoughts on the Toyota Aqua. it's a smaller Prius with less battery and power. Same verdict.

 

[Skyrocket44]

I have a maxed-out Aqua just rotting in my garage. Every time I drove it, I always noticed that it keeps recharging the battery. Go in the settings, you can see that the power curve clips way above the top of the inset box.

So what happens here is that the car is using both the engine and the motor, but because the engine self is making 151 BHP and the motor 60, the car takes excess power from the engine to charge the battery. Basically, if the car would put out more than 151, some of it gets used to charge the battery so only 151 enters the drivetrain. Turn the ECU down to 70%, and you still make 151 BHP, but the engine is now detuned to 147.7 and the batteries discharge. That's because the game, when it lists a hybrid car's combined power, doesn't take that into account when you adjust the ECU.

As for the power restrictor, it does restrict based on combined output. With it turned all the way down, you're making just 106 BHP, and since you can't alter the motor's power output, that engine's only making 46.

And that's about the only interesting thing about the Water. Don't lie to me - you've driven it, you've tasked it to perform insurmountable tasks like "don't understeer," you've experienced the joy of having half your power disappear into the void after 1 lap of any sizable track. It's like reliving the part in Richard Burns Rally where you smash into a tree and your turbo blows up, only this car blows it for you! Genius!

Really, the only thing the Waterlicious is good for is testing your patience. It never seems to run out of fuel, what with it Priusing along with its iconic Prius drone at 5000rpm. Were you to run this through a calculator, you'd notice that it would take 6-7 hours for the Volvic to dry out, depending on where you live and the effects of gravity. Now that sounds like it could run - say - a six hour race at - say - Fuji Speedway without ever needing to unscrew a filler cap. But no one would do that.

4 of each Toyoder hybrid (the ones that exist), a track that I hate, and what are those things at the top of the windshield? Are they eye sensors? Do they make a hellish beep every time you turn your head to yell at your kids in the back seat? Is it Velcro to keep the sun visor in place? Did they forget to take it off when they scanned this car?

I have to drive the Valpré for six agonizing hours. Half that time is spent dodging all the sports cars that do one of two things:

• smash their two remaining brain cells together trying to figure a way past a car with ten times less power than them
• speedrun an office harassment lawsuit.

The other half is waiting 80% of the lap for the battery to charge up so you can have full power for all of 20 seconds. You run out just after the final turn, and until you hit the throttle inside the chicane, the aQuellé is stuck at half mast. It becomes a sort of polyrhythmic sequence - sometimes you get full power after turn 1 and run out before the next hairpin. Next lap you get the battery after turn 5 and run out a few seconds before the chicane. In that case, you can take turn 13 flat without breaking a sweat. Then, coming out the final turn with all... all "guns" blazing, sticking to the right lane to let all the cool sports prototypes you could be driving past (unless they smacked a rear and need to pit in), you wait for the speedo to hit one-six-four before you brake again, and it's back to square one.
The worst part of it all is that the battery never runs out. You squeeze R2 until the skin peels off, and all the while you curse that little blob of green in the fuel gauge. I know it's for reversing, but why the hell did Toyota not make the CVT reversible?

Half empty, in case you ever doubted this car's potential for mileage. Over to the left, the tyres are holding up surprisingly well. You can double-stint the tyres if you want. Big "if," even bigger "want."
It was at this point where my wherewithal was starting to get eaten away by the endless whirr. If only, I thought, there was some method wake myself up while driving the Aqua.
Hmm...
Hhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm..........

Now that's a blast from my past. This is the sort of album you'd stick in your DVD player as background music for the braai back in 2007. It rarely saw play in the house - mostly Nicholis Louw, Die Campbells, and Scatman - and I think it's because of Be A Man. You can't have an album chock-full of sappy toothache-inducing Eurodance and then cram a slow ballad in the middle. We had to apologize for the sudden shift in tone before pressing Eject and putting on Wicus van der Merwe.

You don't need to pit in theory, but seeing how many times I get slapped, and the AI diving in when they take damage (which is often - I never saw one car do a full stint), I simply follow their rules. Just don't change tires, don't refuel, fix the suspension in two seconds, and get out. There will be more laps and less stops in the real race, just watch.

That's my fastest lap. 2:25.251, courtesy of a boost after Turn 1 and after the chicane. I don't know why I took this screencap. I have nothing to add here. I'm driving a mini-me Prius with I AM THE CANDYMAN blasting into my ear canals.

And that's Aquarium done, concluding with a Doctor Jones remix. How would I rate the album? I still have the Scatman CD. I don't know where Aquarium is.

Halfway through the final half, just a grand prix time to go. WHy did I do this.

I spun. I could sit here and mash the throttle to post a full-power lap. Naaaahhhhhhhh.

Why do this? To see if there is some redeeming quality to choose this car over the other starters? You can squeeze nearly 300 horsepower out of the Demio, and at least the Fit doesn't fully gimp itself when the battery runs out. I can't see anyone wanting to pick this as their starter car - a point made irrelevant by the fact that you get the other two shortly afterwards. And you know what else? This race started at 3:19PM in-game, so I thought that I'd be driving into the night at the end. NO! 6:40 is as late as it gets here at Fuji - a track where STO has a 24 hour race. If only Sony gave that hundred million dollars in Concord's budget to Kaz, then maybe Gran Turismo will finally reach the standards of a PC game from 2006.

Six hours of driving. By this point, it was three minutes past twelve on Saturday night. Sorry if I'm petering out here, I'm watching the qualifying at Nashville. I'm rooting for the bump.

I couldn't save the replay. Would have deleted it regardless, but I want something about this race to preserve. Here's my rewards...

...and here's the ten grand bonus I got.

Six hours, and I still couldn't find anything that would conjure passion for the Aqua. It is as normal-car as a normal car can be, while burdening its driver with the whirr and a one-lap battery. It's not fun, it's not chuckable, it loses half its power before you can salvage anything - is there even a reason to consider buying this car?
Maybe there is. You can ask anyone here what they thought of Toyota as it stood back in 2011, and their initial thoughts will invariably default to "sucks." And with good reason - The F1 program was a complete failure, and there was nothing someone would actively want to own, nothing to carry the flag. To tell those people that the name Supra would return, that there will exist a four-wheel-drive Yaris with 270 horsepower, and that they will become the dominant force in sports prototype racing - you'd be laughed at. The turnaround that that company instilled upon itself is quite something to behold. But it needed something to turn from.
The Aqua is just that. It's the dull twee little hybrid bumbling around city centre. It's the hole that Toyota had to dig itself out of to land where it is now. And to do that, it had to suck first. Just like you sucked at Gran Turismo. Just like I sucked.

And because of that, I can give the Aqua a unique rating.

B.O.A.T (beater of all time)

 

[XSquareStickIt]

Congratulations to @Skyrocket44 for managing to lap Tomahawk Xs in a freaking bone stock Aqua! Good shoutout to Vic too, for managing to beat an entire field of Gr.1 cars as well!

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It's @Baron Blitz Red 's choice to pick this week, and he's consistently went for cars new to GT7 to try out. This week however, there's just a tiny bit of a change to that pattern.

Newly returning to the series in v1.48 after being late to the party for two years, let's welcome back to the Gran Turismo series the #16 Honda Castrol MUGEN NSX '00, otherwise known as the Honda NSX GT500 '00 in this game!

Baron Blitz Red​

Long overdue I would say... #2kGT500

Cheers

Honda, one of the "Big Three" Japanese manufacturers, has been embroiled in the battle for supremacy in the fastest class of Super GT, GT500, since the category's infancy in 1996. However, being rear mid–engined, the NSX was subject to air intake and mass penalties solely for slinging its engine aft the cockpit, ultimately proving to be too much for teams fielding the NSX to overcome... that is, until the turn of the millennium, when the #16 car of Team Mugen x Dome Project consistently finished strongly over the 2000 season, snatching away the points lead from its competitors at the end of the season without winning a single race!

Needless to say, the #16 Castrol MUGEN NSX is one of the most historically significant cars in Honda's history, but its significance in Gran Turismo games should not be overlooked. With the 2000 NSX GT500 joining the 1997 Supra GT500 and 1999 GT-R GT500 in Gr.3, we finally have the completed trio of the JGTC GT500 cars of the Big Three in GT7, which has traditionally been the focus of late–game Gran Turismo careers. In short, it's just a sight for sore eyes! And it makes one hell of a sound as well!

With all that said, will you join us in racing this amazing car under BoP, or take part in the Single–Player Challenge featuring this car?

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Join Us In Our Weekly Lobbies!​

Spoiler: Weekly Lobbies Information

Our weekly lobbies are ongoing as usual, and anyone (not a dick) is welcome to join us in racing bone stock NSX GT500s under BoP conditions!

Click on the hyperlinks to convert the times to your time zone, and feel free to add the hosts as friends on PSN to make searching for the lobbies easier!

The Americas Lobby​

• Tuesday. 17th September, 10 P.M. CST
• Host: Victory_Reign93

The Asia/Oceania also kinda European Lobby​

• Saturday, 21st September, 4 P.M. Singapore Time
• Host: XSquareStickIt

BoP/Settings Disabled: On (Gr.3)
Tracks: Randomly selected by lobby participants (~5 mins practice, ~10 mins sprint)
PP Limit: No Limit
Car: Gr.3
Tyres: Racing Hard

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~Single–Player Challenge!~​

I tried doing a Grand Valley 300km with only six GT500 and GT300-type cars. Of course I didn’t finish. Crazy how many of us did those races(and repeated them) back then.

I think if the GT500 NSX ‘00 is added, I might have another look into it.

I'm going to hold you to that, you know Surprised no one else seems to have tried to recreate it with the reintroduction of Grand Valley...

That's right: this week's Single–Player Challenge recreates a Gran Turismo hood classic event: the Grand Valley 300km Endurance Race! Can you win it in a NSX GT500 '00?

The event will take roughly 2 hours to complete. Your car can be in any state of tune, but do note that BoP is On, which will adjust the car's power and mass to current BoP settings.

Set up a Custom Race with the following parameters. Any parameter not specified can be adjusted to your own liking for more or less of a challenge.

Race Type/Length: Laps/59
No. Of Cars: 20
Starting Pos.: 10
Start Type: Rolling
Starting Interval: 20m (default)
BoP: On
Boost: Weak
Slipstream Strength: Real
Tyre Wear: 1x
Fuel Consumption: 1x
Refueling Speed: Default (3ℓ/s)

Weather: Custom, Random
Time of Day: Sunrise
Time Progression Rate: 5x

Rivals: Select from Garage

Grid Slots 1–9: Gr.3 cars, default setups
Grid Slot 10: Honda NSX GT500 '00 (You!)
Grid Slots 11–20: Gr.4 cars, default setups

Flag Rules: On

Bonus points for dressing up the cars to look like a Super GT grid! If you have the garage for it, you can also try this grid roughly mimicking the entry list of the JGTC Year 2000 season:

Spoiler: Grid Suggestion

1. GT-R GT500 '99
2. Supra GT500 '97
3. NSX GT500 '00
4. GT-R GT3 '18
5. NSX Gr.3
6. GR Supra Racing Concept '18
7. F1 GTR - BMW '95
8. FT-1 Gr.3
9. Viper SRT GT3-R '15
10. NSX GT500 '00 (You!)
11. Cayman GT4 Clubsport '16
12. Atenza Gr.4
13. GR Supra Race Car '19
14. Viper Gr.4
15. 86 Gr.4
16. Silvia spec-R Aero (S15) Touring Car
17. RC F Gr.4
18. WRX Gr.4
19. GT-R Gr.4
20. 458 Gr.4

There's no competition this week; I can't ask anyone to share a 2h replay. Just share your strats, car impressions, and maybe even photos or videos of your race here on this thread!

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Of course, we always welcome opinions, tunes, liveries, photos, videos, or stories about the car here on the thread!

Spoiler

After screaming "NS SEEEEEEX" so much in our PS chat, I'm actually sad no one got the foreshadowing for the NSX being this week's car. Like, actually how dare you levels of sad.

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