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- K31thc0m
what an evil combo
Car of the Week | Toyota GT-ONE (TS020) '99
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ThAT IS
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Obelisk
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A Chaparral 2J on Sports Softs outpaced a Mission X on Racing Softs at Watkins Glen Short. Said Mission X was being piloted by @Vic Reign93.
A Mazda 787b on RS was substantially faster than the fastest Mission X on RS at Suzuka Full.
A Genesis VGT and a Skoda VGT both performed better than the Mission X.
...Someone tell me why Porsche thought a fully RR EV with as much power as a Chiron was a good idea?
Beater, because somehow the ulta modern/near-future hypercar got spanked silly by a noisy brick built on 1960s racing technology and hobbled with tires worse than it's supposed to run.
Edit: I also believe a few of you owe the Chaparral 2J an apology for being so harsh on its handling, especially after tonight's experience. 😂
A Mazda 787b on RS was substantially faster than the fastest Mission X on RS at Suzuka Full.
A Genesis VGT and a Skoda VGT both performed better than the Mission X.
...Someone tell me why Porsche thought a fully RR EV with as much power as a Chiron was a good idea?
Beater, because somehow the ulta modern/near-future hypercar got spanked silly by a noisy brick built on 1960s racing technology and hobbled with tires worse than it's supposed to run.
Edit: I also believe a few of you owe the Chaparral 2J an apology for being so harsh on its handling, especially after tonight's experience. 😂
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The Porsche Mission X Y - Because Y in the world did Porsche think sending 1300hp to the rear wheels only was a good idea?
It’s like Porsche received a commission from the queen of bad ideas to build something that can outdo the Mustang in the art of flinging oneself into the crowds at Cars and Coffee.
Or someone at Porsche finally went off the deep end and went full mad scientist.
TLDR: The Porsche Mission Y experience in a nutshell:
It’s like Porsche received a commission from the queen of bad ideas to build something that can outdo the Mustang in the art of flinging oneself into the crowds at Cars and Coffee.
Or someone at Porsche finally went off the deep end and went full mad scientist.
TLDR: The Porsche Mission Y experience in a nutshell:
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Congrats to @K31thc0m for being the only one with the balls to try out last week's Mission Impossibull TT! He obliterated my initial time by almost 7 seconds, setting a 1:47.416! Well done!
And to the rest of you, yes, I did just call you out
We might not be featuring another automaker's birthday present to itself this week, but considering it's the returning @Baron Blitz Red 's car choice, it very nearly could've been
Instead, he went for something perhaps more apropos; it's red, and it also made a grand return not too long ago...
Please welcome back under the COTW spotlight, the Toyota GT-One (TS020) '99!
In the late 90s, Toyota Team Europe were notorious for pushing the envelope, first with the infamous cheat of the Celica Rally Car's turbo, and then in 1998 when they (successfully) argued to the FIA that the GT-One's empty fuel tank was space that would fit a suitcase, thereby allowing a purpose–built racecar to pass as a road car and be successfully homologated. On the track, the GT-Ones were heavy favourites to win, with a front–row lockout in the 1999 season of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, but fate—or perhaps even karma—had other plans for the impossibly optimised Toyotas, with TTE's highest finish being best of the rest. Of course, with the TS020's inclusion in Gran Turismo 2, the svelte TS020 has been fondly remembered by many, and it has finally made the big leap from Standard to "Super Premium" status in GT7!
Join us in racing the TS020 in our weekly lobbies to find out just how tenacious the TS020 is in GT7 in our weekly lobbies, where we'll be having a slight twist in proceedings...
Our weekly lobbies are ongoing as usual with slight twists. Anyone (not a dick) is welcome to join us!
First, @Obelisk will be hosting the Tuesday lobby instead of @Vic Reign93 just for this week. The Saturday lobby is unchanged and will still be hosted by me.
For both lobbies, we'll be running the first 3 races with BoP on to see how the GT-One compares against the established competitors of its new home, Gr.2. Then, the later 3 races will be BoP off to unleash the true might of the GT-One. For all 6 races, any car that fits under the regulations are welcome comparisons, so don't worry if you don't have a TS020 of your own!
Here in GT7, you'll be lapping a bone stock TS020 around the whole of Spa 24 Hour Layout, with a bit of an add–on...
Yep, your mission this week is to simply find the car in Gr.2 that is the closest match for the TS020, stock for stock! And of course, have fun with it
Of course, we always welcome opinions, tunes, liveries, photos, videos, or stories about the car here on the the thread!
And to the rest of you, yes, I did just call you out
We might not be featuring another automaker's birthday present to itself this week, but considering it's the returning @Baron Blitz Red 's car choice, it very nearly could've been
Instead, he went for something perhaps more apropos; it's red, and it also made a grand return not too long ago...Please welcome back under the COTW spotlight, the Toyota GT-One (TS020) '99!
1998 Le Mans Toyota GT-One #27 by ImbissBrunto
#esso #gtone #1998
#esso #gtone #1998
In the late 90s, Toyota Team Europe were notorious for pushing the envelope, first with the infamous cheat of the Celica Rally Car's turbo, and then in 1998 when they (successfully) argued to the FIA that the GT-One's empty fuel tank was space that would fit a suitcase, thereby allowing a purpose–built racecar to pass as a road car and be successfully homologated. On the track, the GT-Ones were heavy favourites to win, with a front–row lockout in the 1999 season of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, but fate—or perhaps even karma—had other plans for the impossibly optimised Toyotas, with TTE's highest finish being best of the rest. Of course, with the TS020's inclusion in Gran Turismo 2, the svelte TS020 has been fondly remembered by many, and it has finally made the big leap from Standard to "Super Premium" status in GT7!
Join us in racing the TS020 in our weekly lobbies to find out just how tenacious the TS020 is in GT7 in our weekly lobbies, where we'll be having a slight twist in proceedings...
Join Our Weekly Lobbies!
Our weekly lobbies are ongoing as usual with slight twists. Anyone (not a dick) is welcome to join us!
First, @Obelisk will be hosting the Tuesday lobby instead of @Vic Reign93 just for this week. The Saturday lobby is unchanged and will still be hosted by me.
For both lobbies, we'll be running the first 3 races with BoP on to see how the GT-One compares against the established competitors of its new home, Gr.2. Then, the later 3 races will be BoP off to unleash the true might of the GT-One. For all 6 races, any car that fits under the regulations are welcome comparisons, so don't worry if you don't have a TS020 of your own!
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!
Tracks: Randomly selected by lobby participants (~5 mins practice, ~10 mins sprint)
PP Limit: 826 (first 3 races) / 840 (last 3 races)
Car: No Limit
Tyres: Racing Medium (first 3 races) / No limit (last 3 races)
The Americas Lobby
- Tuesday. 28th January, 10 P.M. CST
- Host: Obelisk (PSN: RMedia_Obelisk)
The Asia/Oceania also kinda European Lobby
- Saturday, 1st February, 4 P.M. Singapore Time
- Host: XSquareStickIt (PSN: XSquareStickIt)
Tracks: Randomly selected by lobby participants (~5 mins practice, ~10 mins sprint)
PP Limit: 826 (first 3 races) / 840 (last 3 races)
Car: No Limit
Tyres: Racing Medium (first 3 races) / No limit (last 3 races)
~Single–Player Challenge!~
This week's SPC is (unintentionally?) nostalgic: in GT2's IA-10 licence test, players are tasked to bring a TS020 through a faux Eau Rouge as quickly as possible.
Here in GT7, you'll be lapping a bone stock TS020 around the whole of Spa 24 Hour Layout, with a bit of an add–on...
Yep, your mission this week is to simply find the car in Gr.2 that is the closest match for the TS020, stock for stock! And of course, have fun with it
Of course, we always welcome opinions, tunes, liveries, photos, videos, or stories about the car here on the the thread!
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- XSquareStickIt
When writing reviews for Car of the Week, I'm always acutely aware that I'm playing pretend: I'm pretending in a virtual environment to be a professional reviewer with real racing experience that has no trouble bringing a car to and keeping it at the limits. As such, I always try to be conscious of my target audience and medium when I write; I can't exactly slam my head into the back of my seat and make a convoluted face holding onto the steering wheel for my life and then write, "OH MY GOD THAT ACCELERATION IS INSANE OOF! HAHAHAHAHAHA!" in a written review of a car in a video game, nor can I ascertain how much towing capacity and wading depth a 2011 Ford Raptor has, or what kind of swag a Ferrari F8 would afford someone pulling up to a fancy hotel. After all, the digital world is very different from the real world, having very different limitations and priorities. And because standards and expectations are so different in a game, sometimes I can come to conclusions that would make me sound completely insane if expressed in the real world, like how a 2017 Ford GT feels soulless and boring, and that the Mazda RX-8 is one of the best sports cars ever made. But if I were to take my role–playing of a professional reviewer more seriously, I'd try to sugarcoat my harsh opinions more, perhaps by saying things like, "playing pretend isn't Porsche's forte", because the Mission X makes absolutely zero sense to me as a Gran Turismo 7 player.
In the medium of a video game that ought to be played for pleasure and maybe even an escape from reality, Porsche presents the Mission X to us players almost like an advertisement to drum up interest and hype for the eventual successor to the 918 Spyder. They pumped out a release video showing off the car on YouTube to coincide with the car being added into the game, and they'd proudly share with us in the car's description page trifling details like where its headlights draw inspiration from, or how a stopwatch can be installed in front of the passenger seat for whatever reason. As a GT7 player however, what I'd like to know before any of that is, "how much does this weigh?" and "which wheels on this are being propelled?" You know, the very bare basic of questions that usually don't bear asking. Except, Porsche would rather tell us that the Mission X has built–in video recording capabilities than the mass of the damn car. This is Gran Turismo 7 on the PlayStation 4 & 5; a 1956 356 Carrera would have built–in video recording function. It's called the Share button, and it's on every DS4 and DS5 controller.
The only hint of the Mission X's all–governing mass figure lies in a single sentence of the car's description: it is claimed to have a power–to–mass ratio of 1PS/kg. From this, we could infer from the Mission X's 1,360PS (1,341HP, 1,000kW) figure and conclude that the it weighs 1,360kg (2,998lbs). However, if we pay for the privilege of PS+, we can attempt to verify this hypothetical mass figure: Create an Open Lobby, set the minimum mass of entrant cars to 1,361kg, and, oh, what's this? The Mission X can still enter! In fact, the Mission X remains eligible all the way until the Minimum Mass is set to no lower than 1,601kg (3,530lbs), meaning that the Mission X's actual mass is 1,600kg (3,527lbs), and that Porsche and/or Polyphony Digital outright lied to our faces about how much the Mission X actually weighs. It breaks my heart to see this kind of shenanigans from a car bearing the Porsche emblem, because that's the company I had previously praised for being honest with their mass figures by quoting kerb mass instead of dry mass, and the Mission X's undisclosed mass figure veiled behind a paywall feels like a bitchslap of betrayal. It's one thing not being able to meet a performance target, but to then obscure basic facts and tell a bold–faced lie that Porsche have achieved said target is a scumbag move both in the real and virtual worlds alike, especially when said lie could endanger others.
Here's some free information for a change: In the hugely popular Amazon series, "The Grand Tour", the predecessor to the car the Mission X previews, the 918 Spyder, set the fastest lap time among its "Holy Trinity" rivals—the McLaren P1 and LaFerrari—around Algarve International Circuit, despite the Porsche being the heaviest with the least combined power of the trio. That might, might, be testament to the wisdom of Porsche engineers making the 918 drive all four of its wheels, making it much easier to handle than its boneheaded rivals that try to put down almost a thousand horsepower through just their rear wheels. With that being said, can anyone in any world tell me why the HELL does the Mission X, with over 50% more power than the 918, drive 50% less wheels than the 918?! While Porsche are tight–lipped about which wheels of the Mission X are driven, it's depicted in the game as being RR for some unfathomable reason, and even asking anyone to imagine what that does to the handling of the car ought to be a crime, to say nothing about actually subjecting someone to have to wrangle it around a track.
The Mission X is completely undrivable without TCS. Don't just take my word for it; Ex–World Tour driver Tidgney recommends TCS even when the Mission X is wearing Racing Soft rubber, which is three whole compounds up from the Sports Soft the car comes default with. It's so incalculably awful on Sports Hard tyres that it breaks the PP system of the game. I personally drive it on TCS 2/5 on said Sport Soft tyres, and even then, it feels every bit as lairy and unwieldy as a Dodge Demon without aids. It wheelspins well into the 200km/h range on TCS2 in the dry. It's always at the limit of its tyres' grip, so much so that even cresting a gentle hill—such as the one right before the triple high speed sweepers of Dragon Trial Seaside—with TCS on 2/5 is enough to send the car spearing off into the barriers. On cold tyres, it wouldn't even need the crest of a hill to kill its driver; my Mission X lost itself going in a straight line in the dry, WITH TCS ON AT 2/5, on the slight downhill straight between Turns 1 and 2 of Red Bull Ring. And while it's normally very taut and flat in the corners, the rear tyres of the Mission X don't like to be leaned on too much. If the car is steered too hard in an attempt to fight the understeer when rolling on the accelerator pedal for high speed sweepers (such as Turns 2 & 3 of Watkins Glen, or most of Tokyo East), the car is prone to suddenly penduluming and fishtailing like an air–cooled 911, which blows my mind because the MX is much better balanced as an EV, with a weight distribution of 45/55. I suspect there's some shenanigans going on with rear steer and/or torque vectoring that causes this suddenly nostalgic behaviour in the MX, because it also acts unnaturally if one side of its wheels are placed off–track, giving that sensation of being sucked off the paved road by the grass or gravel. I haven't noticed any rear steering with the Mission X in Scapes, though.
The most egregious part of driving the MX, of course, is the sheer distance it needs to adequately slow for a corner, better measured in time zones than distance boards. To illustrate my point, I did a quick little experiment wherein I brought three cars—a first gen 911 (a 1973 901 Carrera RS 2.7), an eighth–gen 911 (a 2022 992 GT3 RS), and the Mission X '23—to Watkins Glen, and I'd approach Turn 1 at full speed and try to take T1 as quickly as possible with all three cars bone stock with their default tyres.
Despite both 911s varying greatly in overall speed and capabilities, there was only about 30m in difference between the braking points of the 901 and the 992; the 901 braked at around 320m before the corner, while the 992 needed to brake around 350m. That's an increase of just 30m across 50 years of evolution of the 911. Now, take a guess how much longer a 2023 Mission X needs to slow for the very same corner under identical conditions than the 2022 992 GT3 RS.
It needed to brake around 660m away from T1.
The Mission X needed to apply its brakes fully 310m further away from the 992 GT3 RS just to make the damn apex of the turn! The distance boards only go up to 400m because no one expects a car to need that long to slow for the turn! 400m is usually just a wake–up call that the corner is approaching, especially in a GT3 racecar that usually brakes closer to the 250m mark on Racing Hard tyres. And yet, the Mission X had to brake WAY before it even approaches the first distance marker for the turn. It's asking me to brake even before I can SEE the damn corner I'm braking for! I've even had to count the number of catch fence stakes, each 20m apart from the other, to even give you that 660m approximation! Because of these impossible–to–judge braking distances, I've had to, for the first time in playing GT games, go full n00b mode and turn on braking zone markers to help me when driving the Mission X. They're usually not very precise at all, but they're very poignant and VERY necessary reminders nonetheless for just how obscenely long the MX needs to slow for a corner, where there otherwise would be none.
To be entirely fair, the Mission X would be a technological marvel in its own right if it materialised into the real world behaving exactly like it does in Gran Turismo 7: 1,600kg is unbelievably, impossibly light for a performance EV that has a thousand kW and enough range for 10 laps of Red Bull Ring at full tilt. Its top speed of 328km/h (204mph) ought to sate all but the clinically insane of Autobahn cruisers. It's just that, in Gran Turismo, there really isn't much that gives players a sense of speed; all we get is wind noise, which gets mostly drowned out by the electric motors at full blast. Absent any feelings of g and not even having the periodic reminder of speed that is shifting gears ourselves, the way in which the Mission X gathers speed is not just akin to getting sucked into a wormhole; it's also paradoxically stealthy. I think that most of the complaints about the car not stopping well is down to just how unaware we as players before a TV screen are of how quickly the Mission X is flinging us through the straights of any given circuit and into its corners. It does LMP1 speeds on the straights, naturally leading players to fall back onto their LMP1 instincts with braking and cornering, but the Mission X has only road car brakes and tyres. Excellent they may be by road car standards, those brakes and tyres are completely disproportionate to the straight line speed the Mission X has. The Mission X actually has slightly higher minimum corner speeds than even the stripped out, winged track toy, the 992 GT3 RS, but it never feels as agile in the corners as the 992 because it's SO MUCH goddamn faster than the 992 in a straight line. In other words, I think the Mission X is so unreasonably, irresponsibly fast on the straights that it completely warps all understanding and perception of distance, time, and speed in my head, and I highly suspect this is true for most other players as well.
Therefore, to help ground my expectations and set a baseline, I thought I'd do my pretend reviewer thing and bring a comparison car that has much more comparable lap times to the Mission X: A 1970 Chaparral 2J, and I'm going to run them back–to–back on the same track.
Yes, the 2J is a racecar, while the Mission X previews a road car. But, I think this is a fair comparison nonetheless because, despite the game tagging the Mission X as a #Road Car, I call ******** on that tag. The Mission X in real life is, to the public's knowledge, a one–off, life–sized car model with little to no mechanical bits underneath. It doesn't even come with licence plates for crying out loud, nor can it be fitted with plates in GT Auto. I simply reject the notion that the Mission X is a #Road Car. And if it isn't road–legal, why shouldn't it be compared to racecars? If anything, Porsche have the advantage in this comparison test, because all Porsche had to do was to build a model car and pretend that it has a 1PS/kg power–to–mass ratio; Chaparral actually had to build a (however briefly) functioning car that extends beyond theory and speculation. Chaparral didn't just say that the 2J had 509kW and weighs 821 kilos; the 2J has 683HP and weighs 1,810 pounds. If or when the car the Mission X previews makes it to GT7 and gets chosen to feature on Car of the Week, I'll pit it against road cars then. The Mission X on its own is simply not a road car to me.
The mathematically inclined among you might have worked out that the Chappie has just a little over half the power and mass of the Mission X, giving them very similar power–to–mass ratios. Both cars have their own vices and quirks when driven quickly, but the Chappie is much faster around a racetrack, having braking performance proportionate to the speeds it can do, and has much more range on a full tank of fuel than the Mission X has on a full charge. Okay, yeah, the Chappie is on Racing Hard tyres, one grade up from the Sports Soft that come default with the Mission X. But I set a 1:19.9 around Red Bull Ring with little effort in the Chappie, and the absolute quickest time achieved by the very best players of the game with the Mission X and Racing Soft tyres was a 1:20.6. I'm sorry, but when a futuristic make–believe car gets walloped by an antiquated box from the seventies in terms of outright speed, range, and ease of use, I find it impossibly difficult to even pretend to be mildly impressed by that or excited for what the future brings. Like... what is the Mission X even good for in this game?
At the end of the day, I'm playing pretend. I pretend to be an experienced racing driver and a writer who knows how to cite sources and when to use a semicolon. I pretend my opinions matter in a small corner of the internet I made. But what does it say about a car in real life if it is too cartoonishly quick and dangerous even in a video game? MAYBE the sense of speed will be much, much more prominent in real life, what with NVH, g forces, and the fear of death, and people will be therefore more sensible with it in real life than we GT7 players are in the game. While I admit to the shortcomings of myself and my mediums, I very much like that this digital world eliminates a lot of real world pains and politics to place a laser–focus on the cars' own merits and driving sensations; no one is going to ban the sale or use of ICEs in this game, and I don't have to beg to be loaned a car to review, meaning I don't have a working relationship with anyone, be they car owners or manufacturers, and thus I can be entirely honest with my writing with nothing to lose. And my personal thoughts and opinions of the Mission X as someone who paid a million of his own Credits to judge it free of politics on its own merits across several racetracks are thus: I just don't know what the hell anyone is supposed to do with 1,360PS. I think the Mission X is just performance for the sake of it, just so that Porsche can remain part of the Holy Trinity. It's not something I want to drive nor find meaning in, and the thought of someone in the real world with way more money than skill and experience being able to buy something resembling it genuinely terrifies me. After driving the Mission X in the virtual world, I deeply suspect that, if I were a regular Porsche customer in the real world with a deep respect for the 911 and an even deeper love for the Cayman, that the Mission X would convince me that Porsche have completely lost the plot and all their marbles, completely evaporating whatever faith and goodwill I have for the company. The only thing they got right with the Mission X is its sole body colour of brown, because the car's a heap of ****.
Am I only pretending to care to justify being so harsh? I'll let you figure that out yourself.
In the medium of a video game that ought to be played for pleasure and maybe even an escape from reality, Porsche presents the Mission X to us players almost like an advertisement to drum up interest and hype for the eventual successor to the 918 Spyder. They pumped out a release video showing off the car on YouTube to coincide with the car being added into the game, and they'd proudly share with us in the car's description page trifling details like where its headlights draw inspiration from, or how a stopwatch can be installed in front of the passenger seat for whatever reason. As a GT7 player however, what I'd like to know before any of that is, "how much does this weigh?" and "which wheels on this are being propelled?" You know, the very bare basic of questions that usually don't bear asking. Except, Porsche would rather tell us that the Mission X has built–in video recording capabilities than the mass of the damn car. This is Gran Turismo 7 on the PlayStation 4 & 5; a 1956 356 Carrera would have built–in video recording function. It's called the Share button, and it's on every DS4 and DS5 controller.
The only hint of the Mission X's all–governing mass figure lies in a single sentence of the car's description: it is claimed to have a power–to–mass ratio of 1PS/kg. From this, we could infer from the Mission X's 1,360PS (1,341HP, 1,000kW) figure and conclude that the it weighs 1,360kg (2,998lbs). However, if we pay for the privilege of PS+, we can attempt to verify this hypothetical mass figure: Create an Open Lobby, set the minimum mass of entrant cars to 1,361kg, and, oh, what's this? The Mission X can still enter! In fact, the Mission X remains eligible all the way until the Minimum Mass is set to no lower than 1,601kg (3,530lbs), meaning that the Mission X's actual mass is 1,600kg (3,527lbs), and that Porsche and/or Polyphony Digital outright lied to our faces about how much the Mission X actually weighs. It breaks my heart to see this kind of shenanigans from a car bearing the Porsche emblem, because that's the company I had previously praised for being honest with their mass figures by quoting kerb mass instead of dry mass, and the Mission X's undisclosed mass figure veiled behind a paywall feels like a bitchslap of betrayal. It's one thing not being able to meet a performance target, but to then obscure basic facts and tell a bold–faced lie that Porsche have achieved said target is a scumbag move both in the real and virtual worlds alike, especially when said lie could endanger others.
Here's some free information for a change: In the hugely popular Amazon series, "The Grand Tour", the predecessor to the car the Mission X previews, the 918 Spyder, set the fastest lap time among its "Holy Trinity" rivals—the McLaren P1 and LaFerrari—around Algarve International Circuit, despite the Porsche being the heaviest with the least combined power of the trio. That might, might, be testament to the wisdom of Porsche engineers making the 918 drive all four of its wheels, making it much easier to handle than its boneheaded rivals that try to put down almost a thousand horsepower through just their rear wheels. With that being said, can anyone in any world tell me why the HELL does the Mission X, with over 50% more power than the 918, drive 50% less wheels than the 918?! While Porsche are tight–lipped about which wheels of the Mission X are driven, it's depicted in the game as being RR for some unfathomable reason, and even asking anyone to imagine what that does to the handling of the car ought to be a crime, to say nothing about actually subjecting someone to have to wrangle it around a track.
Porsche VGT Vexx by Sagittarius
#vexx #porschevgt
#vexx #porschevgt
The Mission X is completely undrivable without TCS. Don't just take my word for it; Ex–World Tour driver Tidgney recommends TCS even when the Mission X is wearing Racing Soft rubber, which is three whole compounds up from the Sports Soft the car comes default with. It's so incalculably awful on Sports Hard tyres that it breaks the PP system of the game. I personally drive it on TCS 2/5 on said Sport Soft tyres, and even then, it feels every bit as lairy and unwieldy as a Dodge Demon without aids. It wheelspins well into the 200km/h range on TCS2 in the dry. It's always at the limit of its tyres' grip, so much so that even cresting a gentle hill—such as the one right before the triple high speed sweepers of Dragon Trial Seaside—with TCS on 2/5 is enough to send the car spearing off into the barriers. On cold tyres, it wouldn't even need the crest of a hill to kill its driver; my Mission X lost itself going in a straight line in the dry, WITH TCS ON AT 2/5, on the slight downhill straight between Turns 1 and 2 of Red Bull Ring. And while it's normally very taut and flat in the corners, the rear tyres of the Mission X don't like to be leaned on too much. If the car is steered too hard in an attempt to fight the understeer when rolling on the accelerator pedal for high speed sweepers (such as Turns 2 & 3 of Watkins Glen, or most of Tokyo East), the car is prone to suddenly penduluming and fishtailing like an air–cooled 911, which blows my mind because the MX is much better balanced as an EV, with a weight distribution of 45/55. I suspect there's some shenanigans going on with rear steer and/or torque vectoring that causes this suddenly nostalgic behaviour in the MX, because it also acts unnaturally if one side of its wheels are placed off–track, giving that sensation of being sucked off the paved road by the grass or gravel. I haven't noticed any rear steering with the Mission X in Scapes, though.
The most egregious part of driving the MX, of course, is the sheer distance it needs to adequately slow for a corner, better measured in time zones than distance boards. To illustrate my point, I did a quick little experiment wherein I brought three cars—a first gen 911 (a 1973 901 Carrera RS 2.7), an eighth–gen 911 (a 2022 992 GT3 RS), and the Mission X '23—to Watkins Glen, and I'd approach Turn 1 at full speed and try to take T1 as quickly as possible with all three cars bone stock with their default tyres.
Despite both 911s varying greatly in overall speed and capabilities, there was only about 30m in difference between the braking points of the 901 and the 992; the 901 braked at around 320m before the corner, while the 992 needed to brake around 350m. That's an increase of just 30m across 50 years of evolution of the 911. Now, take a guess how much longer a 2023 Mission X needs to slow for the very same corner under identical conditions than the 2022 992 GT3 RS.
It needed to brake around 660m away from T1.
The Mission X needed to apply its brakes fully 310m further away from the 992 GT3 RS just to make the damn apex of the turn! The distance boards only go up to 400m because no one expects a car to need that long to slow for the turn! 400m is usually just a wake–up call that the corner is approaching, especially in a GT3 racecar that usually brakes closer to the 250m mark on Racing Hard tyres. And yet, the Mission X had to brake WAY before it even approaches the first distance marker for the turn. It's asking me to brake even before I can SEE the damn corner I'm braking for! I've even had to count the number of catch fence stakes, each 20m apart from the other, to even give you that 660m approximation! Because of these impossible–to–judge braking distances, I've had to, for the first time in playing GT games, go full n00b mode and turn on braking zone markers to help me when driving the Mission X. They're usually not very precise at all, but they're very poignant and VERY necessary reminders nonetheless for just how obscenely long the MX needs to slow for a corner, where there otherwise would be none.
To be entirely fair, the Mission X would be a technological marvel in its own right if it materialised into the real world behaving exactly like it does in Gran Turismo 7: 1,600kg is unbelievably, impossibly light for a performance EV that has a thousand kW and enough range for 10 laps of Red Bull Ring at full tilt. Its top speed of 328km/h (204mph) ought to sate all but the clinically insane of Autobahn cruisers. It's just that, in Gran Turismo, there really isn't much that gives players a sense of speed; all we get is wind noise, which gets mostly drowned out by the electric motors at full blast. Absent any feelings of g and not even having the periodic reminder of speed that is shifting gears ourselves, the way in which the Mission X gathers speed is not just akin to getting sucked into a wormhole; it's also paradoxically stealthy. I think that most of the complaints about the car not stopping well is down to just how unaware we as players before a TV screen are of how quickly the Mission X is flinging us through the straights of any given circuit and into its corners. It does LMP1 speeds on the straights, naturally leading players to fall back onto their LMP1 instincts with braking and cornering, but the Mission X has only road car brakes and tyres. Excellent they may be by road car standards, those brakes and tyres are completely disproportionate to the straight line speed the Mission X has. The Mission X actually has slightly higher minimum corner speeds than even the stripped out, winged track toy, the 992 GT3 RS, but it never feels as agile in the corners as the 992 because it's SO MUCH goddamn faster than the 992 in a straight line. In other words, I think the Mission X is so unreasonably, irresponsibly fast on the straights that it completely warps all understanding and perception of distance, time, and speed in my head, and I highly suspect this is true for most other players as well.
Therefore, to help ground my expectations and set a baseline, I thought I'd do my pretend reviewer thing and bring a comparison car that has much more comparable lap times to the Mission X: A 1970 Chaparral 2J, and I'm going to run them back–to–back on the same track.
Yes, the 2J is a racecar, while the Mission X previews a road car. But, I think this is a fair comparison nonetheless because, despite the game tagging the Mission X as a #Road Car, I call ******** on that tag. The Mission X in real life is, to the public's knowledge, a one–off, life–sized car model with little to no mechanical bits underneath. It doesn't even come with licence plates for crying out loud, nor can it be fitted with plates in GT Auto. I simply reject the notion that the Mission X is a #Road Car. And if it isn't road–legal, why shouldn't it be compared to racecars? If anything, Porsche have the advantage in this comparison test, because all Porsche had to do was to build a model car and pretend that it has a 1PS/kg power–to–mass ratio; Chaparral actually had to build a (however briefly) functioning car that extends beyond theory and speculation. Chaparral didn't just say that the 2J had 509kW and weighs 821 kilos; the 2J has 683HP and weighs 1,810 pounds. If or when the car the Mission X previews makes it to GT7 and gets chosen to feature on Car of the Week, I'll pit it against road cars then. The Mission X on its own is simply not a road car to me.
The mathematically inclined among you might have worked out that the Chappie has just a little over half the power and mass of the Mission X, giving them very similar power–to–mass ratios. Both cars have their own vices and quirks when driven quickly, but the Chappie is much faster around a racetrack, having braking performance proportionate to the speeds it can do, and has much more range on a full tank of fuel than the Mission X has on a full charge. Okay, yeah, the Chappie is on Racing Hard tyres, one grade up from the Sports Soft that come default with the Mission X. But I set a 1:19.9 around Red Bull Ring with little effort in the Chappie, and the absolute quickest time achieved by the very best players of the game with the Mission X and Racing Soft tyres was a 1:20.6. I'm sorry, but when a futuristic make–believe car gets walloped by an antiquated box from the seventies in terms of outright speed, range, and ease of use, I find it impossibly difficult to even pretend to be mildly impressed by that or excited for what the future brings. Like... what is the Mission X even good for in this game?
At the end of the day, I'm playing pretend. I pretend to be an experienced racing driver and a writer who knows how to cite sources and when to use a semicolon. I pretend my opinions matter in a small corner of the internet I made. But what does it say about a car in real life if it is too cartoonishly quick and dangerous even in a video game? MAYBE the sense of speed will be much, much more prominent in real life, what with NVH, g forces, and the fear of death, and people will be therefore more sensible with it in real life than we GT7 players are in the game. While I admit to the shortcomings of myself and my mediums, I very much like that this digital world eliminates a lot of real world pains and politics to place a laser–focus on the cars' own merits and driving sensations; no one is going to ban the sale or use of ICEs in this game, and I don't have to beg to be loaned a car to review, meaning I don't have a working relationship with anyone, be they car owners or manufacturers, and thus I can be entirely honest with my writing with nothing to lose. And my personal thoughts and opinions of the Mission X as someone who paid a million of his own Credits to judge it free of politics on its own merits across several racetracks are thus: I just don't know what the hell anyone is supposed to do with 1,360PS. I think the Mission X is just performance for the sake of it, just so that Porsche can remain part of the Holy Trinity. It's not something I want to drive nor find meaning in, and the thought of someone in the real world with way more money than skill and experience being able to buy something resembling it genuinely terrifies me. After driving the Mission X in the virtual world, I deeply suspect that, if I were a regular Porsche customer in the real world with a deep respect for the 911 and an even deeper love for the Cayman, that the Mission X would convince me that Porsche have completely lost the plot and all their marbles, completely evaporating whatever faith and goodwill I have for the company. The only thing they got right with the Mission X is its sole body colour of brown, because the car's a heap of ****.
Am I only pretending to care to justify being so harsh? I'll let you figure that out yourself.
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Obelisk
Premium
- 9,779
- United States
- RMedia_Obelisk
A little under ten years ago, I was heckled by some dude on Youtube who went by the name McClaren Designs. He’d found a video I posted of a dramatic one lap race of the Nurburgring in a Toyota TS020, and he felt that it warranted me paying a thread to some dinky thread on a Gran Turismo forum called “Car of the Week”. That week, they were reviewing the TS020, and McClaren Design felt I’d have a worthy contribution in that Youtube video.
A little under ten years ago, I joined Car of the Week.
It’s amazing how much can happen in that time span. At the time I joined, I was just starting my sophomore semester in college.
Now, nearly ten years later, I find myself staring at a GTPlanet Car of the Week thread that has decided to review the TS020. Time is a flat circle, huh? It would be remiss of me not to comment on this week’s car.
Added to Gran Turismo 7 as part of the March 2024 / v1.44 Update, the TS020 has finally come home after nearly six years of absence from the franchise; in doing so, it has also rightfully received the super-premium upgrade it so desperately needed back when GT5 first released.
I’m sure others will speak of the GT1 era it was produced in, the older version of it from 1998, or how the fuel tank counted as a boot for a suitcase. I’m not too interested in discussing the history of the car - just the car itself.
The TS020 in this game is specifically TS020 chassis number LM804, meaning that this is the one and only GT-One to have entered the Le Mans 24hr race both as a GT1 (1998, #28) and as a LMGTP (1999, #3). So technically speaking, the car we are reviewing is both a GT and a Prototype class car at the same time.
So what exactly does a racing machine with high pedigree and dual designations mean for the average GT player and their hard-earned 2.5 million credits?
For one thing, it’s one of only three historic cars available for GT’s quasi-homologated Group 2 category - the others are the McLaren F1 Longtail and the CLK LM. Whether by choice or by coincidence, the CLK LM featured in GT7 was one of this specific TS020’s rivals in the 1998 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Bone stock, this car is rated at 764 HP @ 7500 RPM and 605.3 ft-lbs @ 6000 RPM. All of that thrust is sent through a 6 speed sequential transmission, and is used to propel a mere 1,984 lbs (900 kg) up to a purported top speed of 217 MPH (350 kph). All of this adds up to a car with stats almost identical to the Nissan R92CP, a Group C monster made some seven years prior. They weigh the same, but the R92 has 24 more ponies pushing it forward.
In theory, the TS020 should be capable of tackling the Group 1 machines as well as absolutely dominating in its assigned category of Gr.2.
After all, for something as high-powered as it is, it’s a surprisingly sure-footed car on its default Racing Mediums, has quite good speed and acceleration, and is quite pleasant to wrestle through the corners.
When it came time to test it against Sophy, the TS020 fell apart.
You see, there’s a little something called Balance of Performance. And the TS020, quite unfortunately, has too much power for Group 2 and winds up getting reeled in with a drop from 764 HP to 550 HP. Yep, you’re reading that right. It has to lose 214 HP just to be competitive… Which is not a good thing.
For starters, BOP locks the car to its default, non-adjustable transmission, meaning your driving experience will be limited to the first 5 forward gears, rather than the full gearbox. Acceleration gets hurt from this, but I suppose you get some fuel economy out of it? Then you get to the brakes, which are 26 year old racing brake technology… Even against just the Sophys, I was getting massively outbraked by the more modern 2000s and late 2010s GT500s.
And the problems don’t end there. You’d think a Le Mans monster like this would have the downforce to deal with these cars, right?
Hahaha… No. I noticed it in the Sophys first, but all of the classic Le Mans machines in Gr. 2 were struggling more in mid to high speed corners compared to the modern machines.
So…
Bad brakes, not quite enough downforce, not enough forward thrust. What is the redeeming factor in cars like these?
Sadly, the only thing the classic Gr. 2 cars seem to be good for are tracks that heavily favor “power” setups (Le Mans, Fuji in particular). What they lack in stopping power, acceleration and cornering speed they more than make up for in straight line speed.
As for putting this car in Gr. 2/1/etc? It doesn’t generate enough downforce (600/900 default) versus the Gr.1/Gr.C cars (700/1500 default). And relative to the screwballs that float between groups, the TS020 is tame.
So unfortunately, what we have here is a car that is, on its own merits, an excellent machine that will serve its driver dutifully. But when it’s introduced to its competitive peers, it loses its cohesion and winds up relegated to niche situations.
A car that once stood shoulder to shoulder with Gr.Cs and early LMPs no longer stands tall.
It is, in some ways, a polar opposite to the Chaparral 2J. Where the 2J is boisterous, unforgiving and psychopathic, the TS020 is friendly, composed and pleasant.
Where the 2J continues to throw middle fingers at everyone and everything, the TS020 retreats from the spotlight.
The TS020 has become a victim of the inexorable march of time and technology, its successors outperforming it at almost every step of the way in a fair fight. Better than what came before, but bested by what comes after. Even with that, I cannot find it in me to say “ignore this car”. It is still a gorgeous car to look at, and a beautiful machine to take to its limits. Definitely keep one in your collection for a Gr.C Weekly race, the WTC900, or whatever else tickles your fancy. It will still serve you well.
As far as legends go, the GT-One is aging gracefully and slowly... but it is clearly starting to run out of time. I wonder how much longer we’ll have until the sun sets on this remarkable machine.
Rating:
BOP: Beater
Unrestricted: Neutral
A little under ten years ago, I joined Car of the Week.
It’s amazing how much can happen in that time span. At the time I joined, I was just starting my sophomore semester in college.
Now, nearly ten years later, I find myself staring at a GTPlanet Car of the Week thread that has decided to review the TS020. Time is a flat circle, huh? It would be remiss of me not to comment on this week’s car.
Added to Gran Turismo 7 as part of the March 2024 / v1.44 Update, the TS020 has finally come home after nearly six years of absence from the franchise; in doing so, it has also rightfully received the super-premium upgrade it so desperately needed back when GT5 first released.
I’m sure others will speak of the GT1 era it was produced in, the older version of it from 1998, or how the fuel tank counted as a boot for a suitcase. I’m not too interested in discussing the history of the car - just the car itself.
The TS020 in this game is specifically TS020 chassis number LM804, meaning that this is the one and only GT-One to have entered the Le Mans 24hr race both as a GT1 (1998, #28) and as a LMGTP (1999, #3). So technically speaking, the car we are reviewing is both a GT and a Prototype class car at the same time.
So what exactly does a racing machine with high pedigree and dual designations mean for the average GT player and their hard-earned 2.5 million credits?
For one thing, it’s one of only three historic cars available for GT’s quasi-homologated Group 2 category - the others are the McLaren F1 Longtail and the CLK LM. Whether by choice or by coincidence, the CLK LM featured in GT7 was one of this specific TS020’s rivals in the 1998 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Bone stock, this car is rated at 764 HP @ 7500 RPM and 605.3 ft-lbs @ 6000 RPM. All of that thrust is sent through a 6 speed sequential transmission, and is used to propel a mere 1,984 lbs (900 kg) up to a purported top speed of 217 MPH (350 kph). All of this adds up to a car with stats almost identical to the Nissan R92CP, a Group C monster made some seven years prior. They weigh the same, but the R92 has 24 more ponies pushing it forward.
In theory, the TS020 should be capable of tackling the Group 1 machines as well as absolutely dominating in its assigned category of Gr.2.
After all, for something as high-powered as it is, it’s a surprisingly sure-footed car on its default Racing Mediums, has quite good speed and acceleration, and is quite pleasant to wrestle through the corners.
When it came time to test it against Sophy, the TS020 fell apart.
You see, there’s a little something called Balance of Performance. And the TS020, quite unfortunately, has too much power for Group 2 and winds up getting reeled in with a drop from 764 HP to 550 HP. Yep, you’re reading that right. It has to lose 214 HP just to be competitive… Which is not a good thing.
For starters, BOP locks the car to its default, non-adjustable transmission, meaning your driving experience will be limited to the first 5 forward gears, rather than the full gearbox. Acceleration gets hurt from this, but I suppose you get some fuel economy out of it? Then you get to the brakes, which are 26 year old racing brake technology… Even against just the Sophys, I was getting massively outbraked by the more modern 2000s and late 2010s GT500s.
And the problems don’t end there. You’d think a Le Mans monster like this would have the downforce to deal with these cars, right?
Hahaha… No. I noticed it in the Sophys first, but all of the classic Le Mans machines in Gr. 2 were struggling more in mid to high speed corners compared to the modern machines.
So…
Bad brakes, not quite enough downforce, not enough forward thrust. What is the redeeming factor in cars like these?
Sadly, the only thing the classic Gr. 2 cars seem to be good for are tracks that heavily favor “power” setups (Le Mans, Fuji in particular). What they lack in stopping power, acceleration and cornering speed they more than make up for in straight line speed.
As for putting this car in Gr. 2/1/etc? It doesn’t generate enough downforce (600/900 default) versus the Gr.1/Gr.C cars (700/1500 default). And relative to the screwballs that float between groups, the TS020 is tame.
So unfortunately, what we have here is a car that is, on its own merits, an excellent machine that will serve its driver dutifully. But when it’s introduced to its competitive peers, it loses its cohesion and winds up relegated to niche situations.
A car that once stood shoulder to shoulder with Gr.Cs and early LMPs no longer stands tall.
It is, in some ways, a polar opposite to the Chaparral 2J. Where the 2J is boisterous, unforgiving and psychopathic, the TS020 is friendly, composed and pleasant.
Where the 2J continues to throw middle fingers at everyone and everything, the TS020 retreats from the spotlight.
The TS020 has become a victim of the inexorable march of time and technology, its successors outperforming it at almost every step of the way in a fair fight. Better than what came before, but bested by what comes after. Even with that, I cannot find it in me to say “ignore this car”. It is still a gorgeous car to look at, and a beautiful machine to take to its limits. Definitely keep one in your collection for a Gr.C Weekly race, the WTC900, or whatever else tickles your fancy. It will still serve you well.
As far as legends go, the GT-One is aging gracefully and slowly... but it is clearly starting to run out of time. I wonder how much longer we’ll have until the sun sets on this remarkable machine.
Rating:
BOP: Beater
Unrestricted: Neutral
Last edited:
- 2,459
- South Auckland, New Zealand
- Nismonath5
The Toyota GT-One is one of those funny regulation-cheating stories of the motorsport world. Built for GT1 regs, the two big rules for any cars to be allowed was that it had to have a road going model, and had to have trunk space. Building a chassis and labelling it a "road car" was easy enough, but as for the trunk space? Well, as you've already read in Square's post, someone at TTE managed to convince the bigwigs in charge that an empty fuel tank counted as trunk space! (And what's more hilarious is they said "Fair enough" and gave them the tick of approval!)
Stories aside, this is one of those cars that really should be Group 1.5. This left PD with a choice. Put it in Gr.2 and let it be the pay-to-win option (alternatively bop it to oblivion), or put it in Gr.1 and see it forever gapped by actual LMP models. To be honest, I'm glad they went with the Gr.2 option.
I did a league recently in the TS020, and it was such fun! It goes well, it's nice and stable. It's engine noise has a distinctive sound to it, especially when you're pushing hard. A couple of times I noticed it was sounding particularly nice going up the cogs. In a way, it performs so well you'd think it was almost cheating in the class it was trying to- wait a minute...
It's definitely a must have for any good Gran Turismo player. I'd be keen to join in the races this week, if I'm able. It'll be good fun!
Stories aside, this is one of those cars that really should be Group 1.5. This left PD with a choice. Put it in Gr.2 and let it be the pay-to-win option (alternatively bop it to oblivion), or put it in Gr.1 and see it forever gapped by actual LMP models. To be honest, I'm glad they went with the Gr.2 option.
I did a league recently in the TS020, and it was such fun! It goes well, it's nice and stable. It's engine noise has a distinctive sound to it, especially when you're pushing hard. A couple of times I noticed it was sounding particularly nice going up the cogs. In a way, it performs so well you'd think it was almost cheating in the class it was trying to- wait a minute...
It's definitely a must have for any good Gran Turismo player. I'd be keen to join in the races this week, if I'm able. It'll be good fun!
- 1,827
- Space City, USA
- GTP_MPower
- JetsE36
I’m back, hopefully for good! Sorry that I pretty much picked a car and disappeared. Real life got in the way and never really had time for anything other than sleep. So, what a week to come back to being active! I had a few runs earlier this evening with the GT-One and its contemporaries. There will be a write-up later in my usual style.
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