Car of the Week 228: COTY GTS Finale

[Nismonath5]

Just before I crack on with my review, as promised I'll chuck up the list of cars we raced in GT6 in 2018, those final months before the servers shut down, so we know what's eligible for Car Of The Year.

In no particular order (Well, reverse order I guess. I'm going backwards through the old thread!)

2004 Acura RSX Type S
2005 BMW 330i
2004 Honda Integra Type R Touring Car
2011 Gran Turismo RedBull X2011 Prototype
1997 Toyota Supra RZ
2011 Gran Turismo RedBull X2014 Jr
1967 Ferrari 330 P4
2004 Holden Commodore VZ
2012 Aston Martin V12 Vantage
2001 Suzuki Concept S2
1963 Alfa Romeo Giulia Sprint Speciale

So yeah, those cars, combined with the ones that have been raced here on GTS (Which can be found in the OP) are all eligible for 2018 COTY. Inbox @Racer283 with your votes, and we shall get a winner!

Now, on with the review! See you soon

 

[Rinsky]

I'm sorry Gentlemen, but that is DEFINITELY the new GReddy Fugu Z... dead giveaway are the side mirrors and the bonnet. The "eyes" are also pretty well spot on.

Cheers

Yeah. I wanted to say FuguZ off the bat but didn't want to spoil it for everyone. Headlights are a dead giveaway because you can see the bodywork in front of them.

I really hope both of you know we were just joking around and I'm almost positive you did.

There is absolutely no mistaking a Z car not for me anyway.

 

[Draggon]

@Rinsky is right. Besides, unlike some of you I had my drivers license when the Z car first came out. I oughta know what it is

 

[Nismonath5]

My Favourite Group A Icon!!!
Complete with glorious boxer sound!

I cannot express how badly I wanted a PS4 after seeing this beauty would be joining the GTS lineup. Granted, it's been in the franchise since GT4 (Or GT3... I think?), but it's always looked and sounded, well, a little bit sub-par.



However, thankfully the good folks at Polyphony have really delivered this time, with a car that looks good, sounds amazing and drives like you're Colin McRae himself!!!

Unlike everyone else, I was quite late to the meet meaning my only races with y'all were on dirt, though right off the bat I did get into an epic fight with @Baron Blitz Red while @Racer283 watched from not too far back! I managed to fend off Mr. Ex-Pikes Peak for 98% of the race, right until he managed to slip by and refused to make any mistakes I could take advantage of!

This was not a sight I wanted to see a couple of corners from the line.

I'm not sure if it was GT Sport's physics or the Impreza, but damn it felt incredbile on dirt! You can climb straight into it and bust out some stellar times on dirt without much more than a few corners' worth of practise! On the sealed tracks, it has just as much grip and control, even with sport hard tyres! Traction control can be turned off and you can pull some pretty stylish slides around corners, and being a top spec JDM, it boasts pretty solid acceleration (though 5th gear is also noticeably taller, so be warned if you're caught in an impromptu drag race to the finish!) and a respectable top speed too. It also has less weight than other N300 JDM, such as the Supra, R33 and NSX, and for some reason still earns a handicap bonus in some races! This makes it great for farming, I do the 4wd challenge at BB Speedway, takes 5 minutes and I get about 75,000 credits a pop!

As mentioned earlier, it sounds incredible, with a throaty, raspy boxer sound that is only rivalled by the likes of mid-2000's NFS games! Visually, it's perfect, finally in full premium trim! It's one of my favourite looking Japanese 90's sports cars, and that's not going to change soon!

Action Level: 99999999999999999

With a SWRT livery, it's actually easy to forget that this is, in fact, a road going homoligation model not a fully fledged rally car. It's that good. And really, there's barely a critisism to be made about the 22B. It's cheap, it's excellent value for money, it's beginner friendly, it's forgiving, it's gorgeous, it sounds amazing, and all this is without a single mileage point being spent on it!!!

I'm calling it a sleeper, not because I didn't expect it to be so good, but because it took my already high expectations and cranked them up a notch!

Now for pics:

 

[Baron Blitz Red]

I really hope both of you know we were just joking around and I'm almost positive you did.

Oh most definitely... I was laughing as I wrote my post TBH.

@Rinsky is right. Besides, unlike some of you I had my drivers license when the Z car first came out. I oughta know what it is

I was lucky enough to own one of these back in the days when I had hair . I wish I could have the time machine that brings me back to those days... the cars I had way back when I actually miss more than my hair.

Cheers

 

[Racer283]

Last week we tested the Subaru Impreza STI 22B, which is one of the most iconic rally car. The 22B went up against the Lancer Evo in rally races. Taking the 22B to the races proved to be some close and intense battles whether it be on tarmac or dirt. I know during the races I was playing around with the torque distribution just to see what would happen. I really didn't notice any difference changing the settings of the torque but still had some close fights with @Baron Blitz Red and @Nismonath5. When taking the 22B to the dirt tracks, it felt at home. It felt like dirt racing is a lot easier on GTS than GT6. In the end I give the Subaru Impreza STI 22B a sleeper status.

It's getting close to the end of the year so it's almost time for COTW awards. How this will work is nominate the car for Car of the Year and Beater of the Year. These cars can span from GT6 COTW and GTS COTW. As for the other awards from previous years, @Nismonath5 is working on compiling them. When you get a chance, send me your nominations and also suggest the most improved COTW member.

Now onto the next victim to COTW. We head from the king of the dirt track to the show room SEMA. Please welcome Sung Kang's Greddy Fugu Z. Mitoferrari choose this weeks COTW. Bring your Fast and Furious attitude and lets go racing.

 

[05XR8]

Recently did some suspension testing. Used a race set up on RM(217hp & stock gears)and then RSS(294hp on "E85" & stock gears). The car was 7 seconds quicker on the RSS "rubber".

 

[Nismonath5]

I will be missing tonight's meet due to my trip to Wellington, and also next week as my flight back is quite late..

But I did score my first podium in Sport mode!

 

[Racer283]

I will be missing tonight's meet due to my trip to Wellington, and also next week as my flight back is quite late..

But I did score my first podium in Sport mode!

Have fun on your trip. We'll see you in a couple of weeks.

 

[Obelisk]

Not making it tonight. Sorry fellas.

 

[Draggon]

Wow, three whole days since race night, and no reviews yet I'm sure that's because all you guys love this weeks pick and are driving them non-stop, right? Well, me no-likey this car. Maybe it should have been named the fubar-z. When I first hopped into it, I had to double ck to see if PD had supplied it with CS tires it was so slippery. Even upgrading to SS does little. After some time in the M3 and also the F50, it was a true disappointment by comparison. Race night was a lot of sphincter clentching for me, not feeling comfortable enough to predict what it was gonna do.

The two huge surprises was that it defeated @JackRyanWMU 's RX-7 Spirit (no slouch at all) and that the little ol' Alpine A-110 '17 demolished the Fugu Z. No one was more shocked than I, blasting off from last to first before reaching turn 1 at Lago Maggiore, then pulling an almost 2 second lead even before the end of the lap. Quitting was the only appropriate thing to do.....we've seen META cars in COTW before, but this was ridiculous.

Verdict on this one is super-mega huge beater. That being said, I did plug in a tune by Praiano and with some changes to suit my driving style it's pretty nice. But that's not what we do.

Ash's avatar is doing a happy dance. Neener-neener, my Alpine kicked your butt Sung Kang. SEMA winner, phbbbbt!

 

[Obelisk]

I've had the opposite experience with the FuguZ from just tooling around in it, weirdly enough. I thought it was pretty grippy! It seems like it isn't quite heavy enough in stock form for the widebody to have the effect it should.

 

[Nismonath5]

Obviously, being on holiday, I haven't been driving the Z much, but from the test drive I gave it the night of the update, it definately seems tail happy, though whether that's a bad thing or not is up to each individual.



Personally it seemed playful, with oversteer threatening to rear its head at each and every turn. The sort of car that @Vic Reign93 would be right at home in, sliding around while whooping us all.

Would have loved to give it a go amongst all of you, maybe I'll use it in a future meet..

I'll not make a B or S verdict, given how little I've driven it, but yeah. There's me two cents chucked in!

 

[Rinsky]

When update 1.31 landed this was one of the car I was most looking forward to. I was happy to see this not being a stock 240Z instead it was very tastefully modified and not overly done. It has a great looking body kit, upgraded wheels & brakes, a modified engine with no turbos this time, upgraded exhaust, upgraded gauges in the dash. This was a great looking car all around. The best part is it landed in the N-Class and not the Gr.X. So we could race this car in a number of different events.
The most surprising to me is its available to race in the Stars & Stripes event and there is nothing American about the car maybe except the driver sits on the left hand side and things are in the correct MPH. Yes that a friendly jab at you right hand side Km/h drivers.

At the time of me writing this I have not tested it out on the SH tires it comes with instead I put SS on it before it had any mileage and entered it in an hour long custom against a field of N-400 cars. This is all before it was chosen for COTW. Let me just say the car doesn't disappoint with a simple Sport Tire upgrade.

From this point it's SH tires and some GT league testing.
The 240Z is able to enter a wide variety of GT League races and its ability to win those races also very. In any race that has the chase the rabbit or those races where one car in the back of the pack gets an insane power boost and smokes everyone on the last lap...well the 240Z doesn't fare well in those races. All the other normal races though it does do well in winning most if not all in classes from N-400 to N-600 but it's out classed when stepping up to the premier league N-1000. It a fun car to drive but the SH tires really make it become more of a drift car. Switch over to SS and it has more of that race car feel.

I didn't make online race night but I really like the car so my vote is Sleeper.

@Draggon Funny you should mention the Alpine A110 '17 as it's this car that will be getting my vote for COTY

 

[Nismonath5]

The other thing I forgot to mention is the reverse light bug. The reverse lights come on with the brake lights, and when you enter reverse they don't come on. Just a nit-picky little thing that bugs me for some reason.

 

[Draggon]

After reading everyone else's opinions I decided to give it another chance. Hats off to those of you who are comfortable with this car on SH tires. I have trouble with the way it spins the tires at 6500 rpm if you're in any sort of a turn. It just feels funny, like the turbo lag the FT1500 has. On SS tires it's OK. I can live with it.

Verdict upgraded to: neutral

 

[JackRyanWMU]

Livery by kiiski700
​

The Greddy Fugu Z is a car that can't quite decide what it wants to be.

Is it a street tuner car? Well, the modifications made to the styling aren't overly radical. Without the wide fender flares and tires the car could almost pass as a stock 240Z at a glance, which is no bad thing. However, it doesn't have the power you would expect from a tuner car. 285 horsepower may be nothing to sneeze at, but as noted on the car's in-game notes, the engine requires Indycar grade Ethanol fuel to achieve that mark. With regular gasoline the car makes closer to family sedan numbers of power, not something that would impress the Fast & Furious crowd.

​

Is it a vintage race car? It certainly looks the part with the stripped-down roll-cage interior and the aforementioned wide tires. It's certainly a lightweight, making even cars like the RX-7 seem porky by comparison. What it didn't have was a racing car feel. Under track conditions the Fugu Z seemed unsure of itself when shod with Sports Hards and I never felt truly confident that it would take a corner without pushing wide or experiencing sudden oversteer. Sports Soft tires improved the handling some, but even then it never displayed the track prowess I thought it could be capable of.

So is it a Beater? I wouldn't go that far. There's been many other cars I've driven that were far worse. However, given its 300K price tag and many worthy alternatives at its performance level, I wouldn't recommend it either.

 

[Rinsky]

After reading everyone else's opinions I decided to give it another chance. Hats off to those of you who are comfortable with this car on SH tires. I have trouble with the way it spins the tires at 6500 rpm if you're in any sort of a turn. It just feels funny, like the turbo lag the FT1500 has. On SS tires it's OK. I can live with it.

Verdict upgraded to: neutral

You should try the S2000 on SS then the 240Z on SH seems like a walk in the Park.

 

[TonyJZX]

Its one of the best looking 240z tuners ever. Its subtle too in that it almost passes for a vintage track racer.

The 300hp engine is disappointing... they should have just gone with the flow and used a std RB26DETT which obviously has twice the power potential.

I also feel like its been pushed into being a track star when in reality is the six figure play car of an actor and a tuning company.

Still, its probably the best Gran Turismo SEMA original yet.

 

[Draggon]

You should try the S2000 on SS then the 240Z on SH seems like a walk in the Park.

Oh yea, THAT one..........lol

 

[05XR8]

Thing with this car is, it CAN be tuned to be a track star. I like growing with it's standard 217hp. It's still pretty quick in that tune.

Out the box, I wonder if it's exactly spec'd as the real car. The camber, rear toe and spring rates, seem standard PD "generic tuning 101". When I change the ARB, dampers and camber, even just a little, the car comes alive.

300k is a lot, but not a lot next to a VGT Daihatsu or B.A.T. The Mach Forty and Nova will smoke it for the same Cr. That's still not the point. It's just a cool classic Z car, with modern touches. I'm enjoying it for what it is and would definitely recommend any level of player to... well,... "play" with it.

 

[Racer283]

Here we go for another week of reviews. We tried out the Sung Kang's Greddy Fugu Z. This car for the most part looks like the Nissan 240Z but has been modified. It quite the beautiful car as it has a wide body on it that doesn't make it stick out like sore thumb. Racing the Fugu Z was decent but not the best. Personally I enjoy the look of the car but didn't quite give a fun racing factor to it. I give it a beater status.

This week we go from the SEMA Show Floor to one of the most iconic BMWs. This week we will be testing the BMW M3 Sport Evolution '89.

 

[Draggon]

How funny, I'm driving that BMW at this very moment

 

[Baron Blitz Red]

I did get into an epic fight with @Baron Blitz Red while @Racer283 watched from not too far back! I managed to fend off Mr. Ex-Pikes Peak for 98% of the race, right until he managed to slip by and refused to make any mistakes I could take advantage of!

View attachment 785490
This was not a sight I wanted to see a couple of corners from the line.

Personally, I loved this battle we had, mainly because we rarely race on dirt (even though we had done dirt racing on GT6's version of COTW), and secondly the Homer and the Nelson pics I strategically put on the back end of my 22B was with that situation in mind... pulling away just before the finish line, that is. I would have never predicted it would have been against you though.

As for Pikes Peak, I REALLY wish it would make a come-back in GT Sport... back in the GT6 days @BenMillard had a Club on the go with a fantastic recreation of a "modern" day version of Pikes Peak. Unlike in real life racing there, in Ben's club I was almost untouchable at Pikes Peak in multiple cars, and IIRC, I almost matched the (now former) all time record set by Seb Loeb of 8:13.878 as well, although I was in the "Monster" Suzuki.

When update 1.31 landed this was one of the car I was most looking forward to. I was happy to see this not being a stock 240Z instead it was very tastefully modified and not overly done. It has a great looking body kit, upgraded wheels & brakes, a modified engine with no turbos this time, upgraded exhaust, upgraded gauges in the dash. This was a great looking car all around. The best part is it landed in the N-Class and not the Gr.X. So we could race this car in a number of different events.
The most surprising to me is its available to race in the Stars & Stripes event and there is nothing American about the car maybe except the driver sits on the left hand side and things are in the correct MPH. Yes that a friendly jab at you right hand side Km/h drivers.

I too had the Z as my most anticipated car of the update... and I agree with most of the above quote except your surprise about it being American. Similar to the Acura, (and to my knowledge) there was no such thing as a Japanese Datsun. (I will have to fact check that though)

After reading everyone else's opinions I decided to give it another chance. Hats off to those of you who are comfortable with this car on SH tires. I have trouble with the way it spins the tires at 6500 rpm if you're in any sort of a turn.

I too had troubles with the wheel spin... until I put TC 2 on, that is. One of, if not the only lower N class cars I've had to use TC 2 to boot.

Cheers

 

[Nismonath5]

Also guys... this is happening.

https://www.gtplanet.net/heres-your...s-of-lemons-team-with-other-gtplanet-members/

Special invite to the COTW family!!

 

[TonyJZX]

I'm in the air over the M3 Evo. I bought one since its one of those cars I never get in the daily.

But its a car of the 80's and its hard for me to get excited over a 200hp car.

The Camry V6 I drive at work have more power.

 

[MidFieldMaven]

BMW M3 Sport Evolution '89
2,467 cc
234 hp / 7,000 rpm
177 ft-lbs / 5,000 rpm
2,646 lbs (1,200 kg)

At Tsukuba on Sport Hard tires:

1:06.373 - Toyota MR2 GT-S '97
1:06.427 - Nissan Fairlady Z 300ZX TT 2seater '89
1:07.896 - Toyota Supra 3.0GT Turbo A '89
1:07.902 - BMW M3 Sport Evolution '89
1:07.980 - Mazda RX-7 GT-X (FC) '90

MR2 and 300ZX simply destroy the M3 as well as other rivals of the time, such as the Supra and RX-7. I had to include the MR2 since the SW20 originally came out in 1990. If I were in the market for one of these cars in 1990, I would not choose the M3. I'm a Japanese fanboy, through and through. It's a beater for me. MR2 and 300ZX are much faster and more reliable.

 

[JackRyanWMU]

Sooooo......Guess who figured out how upload replays on YouTube?

​

And yes, Car of the Week action will be coming in the future.

 

[Rinsky]

Sorry I have not been racing online for COTW the past two weeks. Its just that time of year when I seems like I have very little free time.

 

[Quonceito]

It's a fantastic car with such a nostalgic look to it and can be a handful to drive at times making it so fun.

One make races with these can look absolutely fantastic with replays. One of my favorites for sure, especially when going with old school themed racing.