Customer Race Cars

[JohnBM01]

GT4 had a whole mess of cars. The diversity of normal cars, concept cars, tuner cars, and racing cars were pretty huge. Now, it's time to ask about something that probably won't happen, but customer race cars would be the way to go if you didn't have an outlandish balance of money. If you wanted to be a competitor, you can go out and pay 4.5M Cr. for a Le Mans prototype race car, or you can look into a race car you can buy from the factory (like in real-life racing) and can modify yourself. GTPlanet, the second part of the previous sentence is the situation I'd like to discuss for this thread.

To get an idea, check out this website I visited yesterday:
http://www.mulsannescorner.com/

Look up the LMP/WSC machines in this example, as a majority of them are what I'm mostly concentrated on in terms of racing cars. Imagine being able to purchase customer cars with your choice of engine and tire packages. You'll be freely able to have new parts to upgrade with. To tie in with my "My Home" ideas, you may be able to build your own engine to your own specifications as long as you have the finances. How do you think the idea of customer race cars would work, if you think it will?

And just for fun, here's two links with my favorite race car of all time from this website:
http://www.mulsannescorner.com/ferrari333.html
http://www.mulsannescorner.com/ferrari333-2.html

May never make it into a GT game, but I'm not bothered. Anyways, customer race cars. Buy one, tune it up, upgrade it, take it to the track. Do you see this idea working in GT5? And if so, how can you make this effective? Reply now!

 

[McLaren]

I like this, and the perfect car for this idea is the Dodge Viper Competition Coupe.
These race cars are bought by customers, and put the way they wanted.

This would be a great feature for GT5.

 

[German Muscle]

i think this is asking to much out of GT5, would be a good idea for GT6 tho

 

[G-T-4-Fan]

It's a great idea, but yes: would it only be fun if you didn't just add another different engine name in it, but giving it a whole new engine sound? Cause if you could modify everything on the car, EVERYTHING should make a difference in the sounds and handling. Every statistics of real life engines and gearboxes should be implimented into the game. Not even to talk about the maths that come with aerodynamics. It would be great, but I think it won't even be possible in GT6

But offcourse, PD always suprised us a bit

 

[G25RJ]

That is a very challenging idea, but if they pull it off, it would be the most addictive part of the game, imagine building a car from the engine to the external art, it would be awesome. Any one could have it’s unique car.
The only problem is that is too big to be part of a game, maybe a idea for KY to make a completely new game.

 

[Teampots]

how about Kit Cars, you know buy one in an array of models from a humble Westfield (caterham looky) or a cobra looky, build it add your own engine only problem you have to sacrifice a car for parts such as suspension etc

 

[High-Test]

How about a '32 Ford 5 window, chopped 4 inches, channeled 5, with a 392 Hemi and some Hilborn Injectors? I think GT4 was missing four things that would have made it pwn all: Zoomies, Traditional Hot Rods, Whitewalls, and flat black paint. Could there be a junkyard where you get secondhand parts? or an online swap meet where you can trade parts and cars with other people? I'd like the ability to fully customize my cars. The Buick Special in GT4 would have been killer If it had Flat Black paint, metallic green Flames, Black steelies with Whitewalls, and have the roof chopped 3 inches.

I'm all for the build a car from the ground up Idea, It'd be interesting if parts broke, and you had to swap for or look everywhere for that 787B Engine block you broke when you overheated and got rear-ended at the end of the Mulsanne straight.

 

[JohnBM01]

My premise behind all of this is in being able to buy tuned cars in case you want a race car for low prices. Now, the customer race car deal relate to things such as LMPs and certain GT race cars. I think it would make getting race cars a bit less expensive. I think this would help for those who do not have to pay 4.5M Cr for an LMP. Imagine purchasing a customer LMP race car for 1.5M Cr. You get the car, some racing tires, maybe a few engines to work with, and next thing you know it, you're in the race of your life in GT World Championship- with a car that may actually WIN something. That was the premise behind this argument, but it does seem like a good idea.

 

[standard235]

All I can say is I love ALL of these ideas.

 

[Cap'n Jack]

This is sort of like the HSV GTS-R. Its a race ready HSV, goes for a bit over $200,000AUS. Not road legal though.

 

[JohnBM01]

You know, people... I like to think of Customer Cars as another type of secondhand dealership. A strategy I usually employ when it comes to concepts from one game, is to look for certain elements of a game that may make it into a sequel. For example, "GTA: Vice City" featured motorcycles and helicopters to use for the first time in the series. Then "GTA: San Andreas" featured many more motorcycles, helicopters, and even planes, harvesters, forklifts, cranes, and more. What does this have to do with the next GT? Well, you may remember seeing those used race cars in the Used Car lots. Sure, you didn't have the money. However, just imagine seeing a few more tuned race cars. Like imagine if someone sold off his/her club racing silver Nissan 240SX for you to race and make even better. Or let's up the ante on classic race cars. Let's say you're able to find a Ford GT40 Race Car from 1969 (as featured in GT4).

So if the most recent GT is any indication, we may see a slew of different race cars up for sale. Or take cars such as the Altezza Touring Car, Subaru Impreza Touring Car, Honda S2000 LM Race Car, Mazda 6/Atenza Touring Car, and such, and be able to modify its paintschemes. Make a race car YOUR race car. Modify if any way you see fit. Paint a car one color, then maybe your name on the sides with color-shifting paint. Design your own race team colors. Make a car yours. That's the whole premise. You can modify it up any way you like. Give it more power, racing tires, whatever... because you're in charge. You have to like this idea if you're into customizing and taking virtual unknown race cars and make them shine. Think of Lola, Reynard, Dallara, and all them in having cars available to you to purchase and modify. Just imagine, my good people... Just imagine...

 

[gumpy]

What about second hand racing cars ? Similar to the black ones from GT4 but always available and maybe slightly slower than the others. Maybe only the older models.

 

[JohnBM01]

Well, that's what I thought before my last post. However, I was thinking of maybe having stuff like the fantasy Touring and LM race cars. It would surely be nice to paint up your own Toyota GT-One from its boring black Test Car colors to something of your own. Let's say all the race cars in the next GT have test car versions, or at least unpainted models that just happen to be for sale at secondhand dealers. What then?

I was kind of under the assumption that the real race cars like the Le Mans-winning Mazda 787B wouldn't have secondhand variations available for GT gamers to buy. If that sounds weird, I have a lot on my mind right now, and kind of can't talk about this right.

 

[JohnBM01]

Something I've never liked in most games is when you put on a decal or something and when you try to move it to another section of the car, it disappears. I'd like a decal deal in which if I designated a decal to be placed on the hood, that I'd like to place it all the way to the rear or on one of the two rear fenders (granted the car in question has any).

Let's have a racing outlook here. Read this website: < http://auto.howstuffworks.com/champ-car8.htm >. I decided to read up on basically what the sponsorship deal would be like and its correlation to racing in the GT series. This had to do with Champ Car when it used to be known as CART. Here are three paragraphs that explain something I'd like to delve into with Racing Modifications:

from: http://auto.howstuffworks.com/champ-car8.htm

Sponsors are vital to all major forms of automobile racing. The sponsors provide the capital that supports the teams and allows them to race. Without the sponsors there would be no teams, and therefore no racing.

Sponsoring a Champ Car is not an inexpensive proposition. There are many different levels of sponsorship and the teams work in different quality brackets. At the low end, a sponsor can form a syndicate and pay on the order of $250,000 or $500,000 to be one of the sponsors of a multi-sponsor car. At the high end, an exclusive sponsorship can exceed $10 million per year. In return, the sponsor's goal is to get exposure for the company's name. The car, the banners on pit row and other types of signs let millions of TV viewers and fans at the track see the sponsor as a part of Champ Car racing.

Beyond the exposure that motorsports provides for Motorola, they use their program to develop business relations with customers and consumers, and to develop business-to-business opportunities and partnerships. Motorola also uses motorsports to increase brand awareness to an extremely large global audience that has proven to be brand loyal to sponsors supporting motorsports as a whole. Additionally, with CART being a global series, Motorola has the ability to participate with all of their global customers, business units and sectors to develop programs and promotions worldwide.

A topic like Racing Modifications can entail a broad variety of subject areas. It is why I try to be diverse in looking at the many issues regarding modification of race cars. A reason why I think there should be some sort of race team deal is so that you can be able to make your own race cars from commercially-available machines in GT5. Remember my thread on customer race cars ( https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/showthread.php?t=65022 )? Maybe you could be able to have a mini sponsorship deal so that sponsors can award you and your team money to build new race cars. Think of it as the ability to take a street car and be able to make a racing silhouette (I usually misspell this word) designed to your liking. It should all be in an effort not to make Gran Turismo into a hardcore racing simulator, but more of something to please everyone- casual sim and hardcore sim alike. The middle ground, so to speak.

I talked about the possibility of perhaps coming up with a race car either made from scratch or bought from a dealer. Most of you would admit that this would be a great car for you to take and modify to your heart's delight (unless you're a Chevy guy/girl): < http://www.caranddriver.com/roadtests/11871/2006-ford-mustang-fr500gt.html >. Also imagine you taking a regular car and making it into something like these SCCA race cars: < http://www.racer-net.com/scca.htm >. Not to spoil anything, but look at the Grand Touring 1 page and look for a 1970 Chevrolet Corvette in GT-1 trim. That is a SWEET race car!

Continue looking into Racing Modifications here, GTPlanet.


(Read "Racing Modifications: Discuss and Review" to discuss this topic in a proper thread)

 

[Hapul]

maybe it would be interesting to hire cars, esp. expensive ones, from race teams or whatever to race in.

 

[JohnBM01]

This one is going out to all my fans of the SCCA Runoffs (I'm planning a similar thread in the "Drifting and Other Motorsports" forum). I am a big fan of C Sports Racer, D Sports Racer, Spec Racer Ford, and Sports 2000. I love sportscar racing and most other kinds of road racing. The SCCA Runoffs action for 2006 showcased D Sports Racer and beautiful machines including the Stohr WF1 and the West chassis cars (West LMR available in 2007). They are powered by something of 1000cc motorcycle engines. They would be great racing machines to have as spec racing cars. The 2006 Runoffs showcased a new Italian make known as Gloria. So here are some links for you:

http://sports.racer.net/index1.html (primary page of sports.racer.net)
http://sports.racer.net/chassis/index.html (list of SCCA Sports Racer chassis)

I may have some bigtime car maker links in the future. But for now, what do you make of perhaps seeing something like this in Gran Turismo 5?

 

[Tenacious D]

John, you know we want as much of the motorsports world as we can get in GT5, so this is like asking kids if they want ice cream.

The ToCA series has been a decent franchise for making lots of various racing leagues and types available, and GT5 would benefit greatly by adopting a similar structure.

 

[Thechampion_D1]

I love the caddilac northstar! it is a terrific car!

 

[shabba]

You'll find a 'second-hand' racecar lot wouldn't be too hard to justify - what happens to all the superceded cars when the racing teams update? Most get sold second-hand or handed down to other racing teams. Now I doubt they all end up 'black', but most would be debadged/stripped of paintwork.

So for people who are just starting out in a particular code, it can be a cost-effective way to be competitive. You might even find that a certain package of spare parts or even technical assistance may be sold as part of the price of the car - for example, a 2005 superceded Indy car with two spare engines, 1 spare shell and a spare gearbox - sold as a package. You might then do a shop around and find another Indycar rolling chassis for sale - no engine, damaged bodywork - cheap, you could then cannibalise parts from the first package and build two cars - engine and shell from the first package to cover the deficits in the rolling chassis... It has potential.

For custom building of new race cars, PD could emulate the racing manufacturers - Nismo, TRD, Prodrive/TWR, Mopar, STi, etc. with new cars that are customisable in the purchase package. For example you might contract Prodrive to build a 2007 STi for a particular code, and opt for the 3.0L EZ30 six cylinder engine. Get them to drop the compression ratio to 8.0:1, whack on a pair of hybrid turbos, 6 speed hollinger sequential dog-gearbox, OS-Giken 4 plate carbon clutch, ceramic brakes, carbon fibre body/driveshafts, etc... The package could include 1 spare engine and gearbox, and a certain amount of technical support.

Even if you did buy a second-hand package, nothing would stop you from having a tuner village where you could go to buy new/second-hand racing parts, including engines/gearboxes etc. Take a second-hand 787B and throw in a Getrag 6 speed H pattern dog-box; buy a 26B four rotor rotary to put into an RX-7FD (if it would fit); or even do what somebody has done and put a 27 litre Rolls Royce Merlin V-12 engine (from the Mustang fighter) into an old Mini and take it to the drag strip... The Merlin engines were making close to 2000HP by the time they came to the end of production. Even an early one made at least 1200HP... In a Mini...

As you could probably tell, I am very interested in the idea of customisable race cars. If you look at the JGTC Supras for example, you'll see three distinct engine variations. One lot used the standard 3 litre inline six. Several other teams used the 2 litre 4 cylinder, and I believe there was even a team that ran a Lexus 4 litre V8 in one of their cars. If they can do it, why can't we?

All in all, I think this train of thought is a very promising one. I'd be in it.

 

[SilverEclipse01]

My premise behind all of this is in being able to buy tuned cars in case you want a race car for low prices. Now, the customer race car deal relate to things such as LMPs and certain GT race cars. I think it would make getting race cars a bit less expensive. I think this would help for those who do not have to pay 4.5M Cr for an LMP. Imagine purchasing a customer LMP race car for 1.5M Cr. You get the car, some racing tires, maybe a few engines to work with, and next thing you know it, you're in the race of your life in GT World Championship- with a car that may actually WIN something. That was the premise behind this argument, but it does seem like a good idea.

It IS a good idea. It's the type of thing that happens in the real world. Especially if you can take that car, bought from the dealer, and tune it yourself to beat the "Works" car that the manufacturer is running. Think of a customer's Audi R8 beating out one of Audi's three works cars at Le Mans. Maybe a Corvette beating out Chevy's race team at Sebring. This might not happen every day in real life, but it does happen.

And it would be a wonderful addition to the GT series. One of the things I do not like about GT4 is that you can't even change the rims on most of the race cars in the game. Imagine being able to change the spoilers, rims, sponsor logos, and other elements. I remember looking at the Ferrari 550 cars that Prodrive was building and seeing the differences between those and the official Ferrari models once those finally came out (after seeing how successful Prodrive was). I would love to play out the same type of thing. Beat the manufacturers at their own game. Or just customize your own race version of a car and see how successful you can be with your race team.

 

[JohnBM01]

Yeah! You got the right idea, SilverEclipse01. I just want to say that there have been commercially-available racing machines in GT games before. One such example is the Lotus Motorsport Elise. Imagine painting up a Motorsport Elise with some of the nice colors available for the current-gen Elises. There has also been the Ford RS200 in GT2. Let's not forget the awesome Lotus Elise GT1 in GT2 as well. These customer race cars would mean nothing without a Racing Modification package. Unless you want to see non-painted racing machines. The benefactors of such series should be just about any style of racing ranging from touring cars to prototypes.

I think any homologated machines should have some racing modifications. Look at the M3 GTR in GT4. You could almost simply make your own BMW M3 racing machine. PD will need to look into more prototypes if they are going to introduce more models. I would personally love to see the more recent Courage models. I think Courage makes some beautiful LMP race cars. The French race car manufacturer has provided a model for Pescarolo Sport as seen in GT4. Since PD has Ferrari, it would be wonderful to see what they would offer. They can have racing models for the 360 Modena, F430, and (the ultimate dream car for me) the 333SP. If they get the 333SP, I'll modify it with loving care in GT5.

You're free to continue.

 

[L8 Apex]

I like the idea of being able to buy chassis and engines seperately for a DIY LMP/GTP/Group C combo, right down to the paint job. A P-900 Dallara with a twin-turbo Alfa V6 and a late '80s FIA C2 chassis (e.g. Argo, Lola, Spice, etc.) with a single turbo Olds Quad 4 would be just two of the setups I'd want to build and campaign. But as y'all have been saying, that would be an awful lot to ask for (for GT5, anyway), so I'd definitely settle for a feature that allowed you to buy an unpainted Corvette C6.R, Audi R8, Ferrari F430 GTC, etc. and give it your own livery and other little tweaks.

 

[sbursi]

The idea of buying a Lola, Courage, Porsche 997, Porsche Rs Spyder, Ferrari, Panoz, Aston Martin, or any other customer race car sounds great to me. It would be wonderful to see it in GT5

 

[3spddrft]

I like what Teampots said. I am not a huge fan of crazy race cars but custom road cars are most excellent. I would love to have a LARGE selection of original chasis designs and fictional PD made engines then be able to take them and compile them with parts from the tuning village and the junkyard to create whatever the heck you want.

 

[David Brooks]

I like the idea, but I reckon the idea of car packages ( spare engines included etc) only becomes relevant if the game incorporates damage modelling. If you really can blow your engine by missing a gear, or can smack the front end in, then getting spare parts with your new ride could be a real determining factor in your purchase decision. It would be a different game and you would drive with a different attitude. Sounds fantastic!

 

[Jim Prower]

I'd suggest Porsche's GT3 series of privately-available race cars, but i know about the messy licensing.