Cars that surprised you...

[EJRocky]

What are some of those cars that you didn't drive for ages, and then when you finally did, you were blown away by?

My personal vote goes for the MG TF. All the while, while playing GT4, I just didn't see a reason to get it... or the MGF for that matter. I had driven the MGF in the License Tests and thought... mehh, it was okay... and I thought the same of the TF too.

But I recently bought the TF, and was instantly blown away. This is an amazing car... it just goes like a rocket. It's not too fast - 120 or thereabouts max - but the handling is amazing. Seriously.

So what cars took you by surprise?

 

[Parnelli Bone]

Hate to burst your bubble (new thread and all) but this topic already exists. I'm guessing it's just a page or two behind this one, since I'm pretty sure we were all discussing it not long ago....

 

[Pescarolo/C60]

The Gillet Vertigo Race Car.

Surprising for all the wrong reasons . . . looks awesome, is expensive, then you get to a corner or a straight or ANY road surface, and it kind of goes wrong from there really.

 

[SaberFire]

I know we have a "cars you thought were great, but ended up crap" topic, and a favourite cars topic, but I don't recall a "Cars that surprised you" topic.
Forgive me if I'm wrong. 👍

I heartily recommend the Volvo S60 T Sport. An FF car, yes, but I don't think you'll care much. It just handles totally unlike anything you'd expect. And it comes with a nice turbo to boot

 

[MinoltaMan89]

I know we have a "cars you thought were great, but ended up crap" topic, and a favourite cars topic, but I don't recall a "Cars that surprised you" topic.
Forgive me if I'm wrong. 👍

I think we have a "Sleeper/fun cars" thread, which is basically the same thing as this.

 

[Viper-Fan]

The Ford GT, thought it was going to have rubbish handling characteristics even with R3's equipped, turns out it was great to drive. IMO, has an edge over the other supercars featured in GT4. Certainly a very quick car all round.

 

[Shoogar]

A car that surprised me, would have to be the Escudo. In GT3, you can get it to 1839 BHP, and in GT4, it's a lot less. It is a very stiff car, and I find it extremely annoying in rally races..

 

[jagenigma]

A car that surprised me, would have to be the Escudo. In GT3, you can get it to 1839 BHP, and in GT4, it's a lot less. It is a very stiff car, and I find it extremely annoying in rally races..

Yeah, The Escudo handled MUCH better in GT2. It was the supercar of the game. It handled greatly, it accelerated faster than any other car in the game and it even beat out the R33 Drag and Drag 180SX.
In GT3, by some weird calculation made by PD, the Escudo was given so much power, about 1883HP when fully tuned and run for about 10 races. You could do the wheelie trick that could make you go past the limits of the speedometer. Then in GT4, I guess PD realized the mistake and made the escudo handle like garbage and have a low top end. It does have 1124 HP when tuned but it doesn't get past 235 MPH for me, no matter how i set the car up. Only with NITRO can i get past that.

 

[Pescarolo/C60]

The Ford GT, thought it was going to have rubbish handling characteristics even with R3's equipped, turns out it was great to drive. IMO, has an edge over the other supercars featured in GT4. Certainly a very quick car all round.

Good car but the brakes are a bit wooden, if you tune it it can go blisteringly quickly.
I managed to tune one that could go faster than an Audi ABT TT-R Touring Car with stage 2 turbo.

OOOH YEA!!! 👍

 

[Viper-Fan]

Good car but the brakes are a bit wooden, if you tune it it can go blisteringly quickly.
I managed to tune one that could go faster than an Audi ABT TT-R Touring Car with stage 2 turbo.

OOOH YEA!!! 👍

B-Spec can't drive the Ford GT to save its life on the 200 miles of Laguna Seca endurance race. Hopeless man. I don't know why that Proto Motors Spirra is so efficient against the US opposition. I doubt it could beat a Corvette & Viper, let alone a Ford GT in real life. At least not the '04 Spirra model. The Spirra was ahead of me by 23 laps or so. I just quit the race. I plan on doing it with a with a BMW M3. Only "A-Specing "it on my next attempt.

 

[Cougar23]

BMW 2002 Turbo '73 - Not stock of course but with ample modifications, this thing flies for its age. I thought it would be very slow when I first saw It, but I'm glad I took the time to tune it. It is now one of my most used cars because it is so much fun to drive.

 

[niky]

Hmmm... Pontiac Sunfire. Never really thought about it. Always thought it was complete crap. Then drove it for a comparison I made a few years ago.

Guess what? It was complete crap.

 

[Rikki GT-R]

Mercury Cougar

Had it for ages and always thought of it as an old crap muscle car. Then I took it into the World Classics in the professional hall and was offered 1 A-Spec point per race. Surprisingly fast and handles like a dream. The complete reverse of the stereotypical muscle car 👍

 

[Crashbroke23]

The Chevy Cammaro LM surprised me for being so composed when driving it, and for a LLLLOOOOONNNNNNNNGGG transmission setting in Arcade mode.
The other one that surprised me was the Ford GT LM Spec II for how awfully it handled, it lacked a lot of mechanical grip when I drove it.

 

[Joel]

Buick Special. 'nuff said

 

[Ghost_drift]

Yeah, The Escudo handled MUCH better in GT2. It was the supercar of the game. It handled greatly, it accelerated faster than any other car in the game and it even beat out the R33 Drag and Drag 180SX.
In GT3, by some weird calculation made by PD, the Escudo was given so much power, about 1883HP when fully tuned and run for about 10 races. You could do the wheelie trick that could make you go past the limits of the speedometer. Then in GT4, I guess PD realized the mistake and made the escudo handle like garbage and have a low top end. It does have 1124 HP when tuned but it doesn't get past 235 MPH for me, no matter how i set the car up. Only with NITRO can i get past that.

I believe they let the Escudo go to stupid bhp in gt3, to show the fact that it was a twin engined monster. So it doubled the BHP.

 

[Rikki GT-R]

God I hate the Escudo. Press the accelerator, then....

Nothing... nothing... nothing... BOOM! Smash into a wall.

 

[EJRocky]

God I hate the Escudo. Press the accelerator, then....

Nothing... nothing... nothing... BOOM! Smash into a wall.

Exactly 👍

 

[Pescarolo/C60]

B-Spec can't drive the Ford GT to save its life on the 200 miles of Laguna Seca endurance race. Hopeless man. I don't know why that Proto Motors Spirra is so efficient against the US opposition. I doubt it could beat a Corvette & Viper, let alone a Ford GT in real life. At least not the '04 Spirra model. The Spirra was ahead of me by 23 laps or so. I just quit the race. I plan on doing it with a with a BMW M3. Only "A-Specing "it on my next attempt.

No B-SPEC can't drive anything really unless its massive overkill, if you want to use b-spec well then you need to use it loads to get its skills up.

 

[Cougar23]

Mercury Cougar

Had it for ages and always thought of it as an old crap muscle car. Then I took it into the World Classics in the professional hall and was offered 1 A-Spec point per race. Surprisingly fast and handles like a dream. The complete reverse of the stereotypical muscle car 👍

👍👍👍
Why do you think I named myself Cougar.
I absolutely love this car. My mate thinks I'm crazy caus I'm trying to get all the different colours of them and tune them all to different driving styles. eg. race, drift etc.

 

[Pierced Lead]

Buick Special. 'nuff said

'nuff said

 

[COOLfiat]

pierce lead, that was useless!

 

[EJRocky]

COOLfiat, that was kinda uncalled for. People say "use the searchbar" a lot... then, when someone DOES use the searchbar to find what he was looking for, and bumps an old thread, he gets a mouthful for it.

Anyway.

I discovered another one today... the Audi Le Mans Concept, which became the production R8. This is amazing... I wasn't expecting much, but jeez, can this thing accelerate! It's a stunning car, and I love it. Pity you can't change the wheels, but still... if you haven't driven it yet, go and win it in the Audi TT cup at Audi. I definitely advise it

 

[robofunc]

The Lotus Carlton surprised me. I thought Lotus made relatively low power, very light, great handling cars. Never realized they did a turbo L6 luxo/sport sedan. It can make lots of power and it drives like a dream--grip or drift.

 

[sesselpupser]

I have to say, at first (when I was really really young) I never thought the AE86 would ever be any good, so I never used it until GT4 and then instantly fell in love.

 

[DK]

The KPGC110 is absolutely weird when you turn off the aids. The inside wheel on a turn keeps smoking up! I didn't expect that...

 

[RaidoGT]

Mitsubishi i '03 concept car. The basis for what's now Mitsu's MiEV, the upcoming electric car. Guess it was a fuel-based prototype that got adapted to electro.

This one turned out better than I expected - for an underpowered compact car (only about 68 BHP), it's actually pretty decent.

I ran it stock, and managed to win a few compact car races with it against cars who had more powah. Handling is fairly nippy, MR-based and not a lot of understeer even in stock form. Top end bit better than expected too, goes up to about 160+ kph. Certainly not the worst car for the compact competitions.

 

[Parnelli Bone]

Mitsubishi i '03 concept car. The basis for what's now Mitsu's MiEV, the upcoming electric car. Guess it was a fuel-based prototype that got adapted to electro.

This one turned out better than I expected - for an underpowered compact car (only about 68 BHP), it's actually pretty decent.

I ran it stock, and managed to win a few compact car races with it against cars who had more powah. Handling is fairly nippy, MR-based and not a lot of understeer even in stock form. Top end bit better than expected too, goes up to about 160+ kph. Certainly not the worst car for the compact competitions.

Awesome. This makes me want to try the Mitsu i.

 

[allen of cars]

Mercedes-Benz 190E 2.5-1.6 Evolution 2

 

[SVX]

Mitsubishi i '03 concept car. The basis for what's now Mitsu's MiEV, the upcoming electric car. Guess it was a fuel-based prototype that got adapted to electro.

This one turned out better than I expected - for an underpowered compact car (only about 68 BHP), it's actually pretty decent.

I ran it stock, and managed to win a few compact car races with it against cars who had more powah. Handling is fairly nippy, MR-based and not a lot of understeer even in stock form. Top end bit better than expected too, goes up to about 160+ kph. Certainly not the worst car for the compact competitions.

There is a Mitsubishi I already as well.