As I already said, this Car Pack is probably the most underwhelming since the FM6 days - featuring only four new entries to the series, and with two couples of cars having very similar PI. The fact that the arrival of all of the included cars (with the exception of the Eclipse) was anticipated by the dev build leaks didn't make things any more exciting. However, the fact that it is the most underwhelming pack doesn't make it completely unworthy of attention - and some of the rides of the Mountain Dew pack are true diamonds in the rough. Besides, the latest leaks are... Promising
, to say the least.
The Holden - full name, Holden FX 48-215 - is the car that challenged Ford's and Austin's quasi-monopoly on the Australian car market, and
won. Designed by GM on the basis of a project for a small Chevrolet sedan that was discarded as the booming US market began favoring gas-guzzling landbarges, and built entirely in Australia at the insistent request of then-Prime Minister Ben Chifley, the "Holden" was a car made for the rugged conditions of a vast, rural country mostly reliant on agriculture and mining: bits and pieces that would've been useless in the warm Australian climate, like a heater or a large battery, were eschewed in the name of streamlining the manufacturing process and saving weight; on the other hand, great efforts were taken to ensure the body was "dust-proof", and the mechanics reliable in any foreseeable conditions. The engine - a 60-hp, 2.1 litre "Grey" inline-6 - put the power to the ground through a 3-speed gearbox, and allowed the car to accelerate from 0 to 100 in 18.7 or 27.7 seconds, depending on who you're asking: which is to say, the FX wasn't, by any means, a performance car.
Its simplistic approach, rustic but endearing styling and mass appeal - the FX and the follow-up FJ doubled the number of Australian car owners in their nine years production run - may draw some comparisons to the French-as-baguettes Citroen 2CV and equally Italian Fiat 500. The way the car drives will confirm those first impressions: the car has a decent off-the-line acceleration, courtesy of a short-ish first gear, which however leads to absolutely nowhere, with a top speed of just 130kph which it takes forever to reach. The handling doesn't scream "racecar" either, with the body leaning heavily on corners; all things we already experienced driving the lovely 50-2016 FX ute which was present since launch as a Barn Find. But why would you race this? Just enjoy the ride! They don't make cars like this anymore - unrefined, minimalistic, quasi-eternal people carriers able to put a country on wheels and become a symbol in the process.
Goliath laptime: 23:23.604
Verdict: "steady as she goes" never made for a good racecar.
By the late 60s, the post-war economic boom had fully subsided, America's infatuation with large cars was waning, and the sales of smaller imports was steadily rising. Cars like the immortal VW Beetle were joined by the products of the rising Japanese car industry - with Toyota and Nissan/Datsun spearheading an invasion which would see Honda and Mazda also seize a significant share of the US car market, and Mitsubishi enter a long-term alliance with Chrysler (but more on that later). Of course GM wanted a big slice of the new compact car market, and it spared no expense in order to produce a car sure to appeal to the American masses. The Vega's design process employed all the then-newest techniques and technologies to produce a car that was supposed to be a world-beater: the engine was a 2.3 litre inline-4 with an aluminum die-cast block, and the chassis was designed to deliver a comfortable handling, coupled with European driving characteristic - borrowing some parts from Opel's bin where needed. The car was designed by a single team of engineers to reduce costs, and save time; on its production line one of the first computerized quality control programs was implemented, the brainchild of one John Delorean. When it hit showrooms in 1970 it received enormous praise by the press, winning several accolades - including Motor Trend's coveted Car of the Year award. Then, the problems started popping up: the hastily-engineered engine essentially self-destroyed due to a combination of overheating, vibrations and poor design choices; and a faulty rust-proofing process, coupled with the cost-driven decision to eschew fender liners, led to many cars going back to the dealers with rotten fenders, or worse corrosion damage. Only in 1976 those reliability issues would be solved through the introduction of the redesigned "Dura-Built" engine and a new galvanization process for the exposed body panels, but it was too little, too late - and the Vega finally left production the following year, having forever tarnished GM's reputation for reliability and having really paved the way for foreign compacts to dominate the US domestic markets for decades to come.
But in the magic wonderland of Forza, you won't have to deal with any of that. All that's left is the intriguing lines of the Vega GT: a car that really takes the best from the Camaro II, squeezing it in a smaller-but-equally-attractive package. It's not a racing monster, sure, but the relatively high-strung L-11 inline-4 engine is enough to push it at speeds of 180kph - which may be a bit too optimistic - and the well-balanced chassis, coupled with the optional F41 package make it a hoot to drive at its pace. It's hard to find a small car from the era with such charm....
Goliath laptime: 17:46.366
Verdict: a shame it isn't the Cosworth instead.
Of course, for every GM or Ford pouring millions of dollars and man-hours in a shoddily assembled market failure (speaking of that, where's the Pinto?), there's an AMC taking its most successful model, chopping off its tail with an axe, giving it a mocking nameplate, and putting it on the market. The absolute madmen, how can you
not love them?
The Gremlin's peculiar shape was actually sketched - allegedly on an air sickness bag - by legendary designer Richard Teague as a possible shortened version of the Javelin ponycar in 1966; the resulting AMX GT concept, which was first shown in 1968, would go on to prefigure the finished product, which made its debut in 1970 as a chopped-down Hornet. And despite being born out of AMC's financial difficulties and inability to invest in the development of an all-new platform, the Gremlin worked like a charm, steadily building a reputation for reliability (and drag strip flippability) and moving almost 700,000 units in its eight years production run, while winning the race to be the "first American subcompact" that didn't ferociously hate its use. If the Vega has
charm, the Gremlin has
charisma: it's an unrepentant symbol of the 70s, equalled only by shag carpets, pet rocks and disco music, and it was so ubiquitous that not one, but two future US Presidents - Bill Clinton and George W. Bush - drove one in their younger years. Its long hood promises muscle car-like performance; and in an era when even muscle cars were painfully slow and underpowered, the Gremlin X made good on that promise thanks to a 5-litre V8 producing...
122 hp. But hey, it's loud, and that's all that matters! And besides, the handling of this impish car is good enough that it'd be fun to drive even with half the power: as it is, the Gremlin's a good car for harmless shenanigans, which is why it has a place not only in the history of American car industry, but amongst the greatest pony cars of its time.
Goliath laptime: 17:49.503
Verdict: it's a puppy? No, it's a new car!
The Dodge Dart is... *yaaaaaaaaawn* a compact sedan based on the Alfa Romeo Giulietta. It was the first car built under Fiat's ownership of the Chrysler brand, and in the "GT" trim it's powered by a 2.4 litre "Tigershark" inline-4 engine with Multiair technology. There is not much else to say: it is a bland, boring car which has only one role in Forza: to remind us how much more interesting - mind you, not
better, just more
interesting - other cars may be. But hey, put stiffer suspension and an aggressive cam on it, and things start to get rowdy - which leads to an important question: why didn't Dodge do it in the first place? At least there's hope that the new Neon, essentially a Fiat Tipo with a new front grille, will get an SRT version at some point. Okay, I take that back...
Goliath laptime: 15:20.187
Verdict: the best Dodge you can rent at your local Hertz.
The Mitsubishi Eclipse was the product of an alliance between Mitsubishi and the Chrysler group, which allowed the former to more easily establish a foothold on the American shores, and the latter to have some quality vehicles in their otherwise abysmal lineup through the 80s and early 90s. In its day it was an eccellent car, occupying a slot between cheaper products, like the Civic-based Honda Integra, and larger, more powerful cars, like Mitsubishi's own 3000GT and the venerable Mazda RX-7. To do so, in its top-of-the-range GSX models it paired the excellent
4G63 turbocharged engine with 4wd traction and slick styling that made it a very desireable car. But unfortunately, when the scourge of the "tuner culture" came, very few specimens survived untarnished. Its role as protagonist Brian O'Connor's first car in the original "Fast and Furious" movie marked its destiny: countless Eclipses, both low- and high-trim versions, were fitted with horrible bodykits, non-functional wings, "Lambo-style" doors, cheap wheels and other tasteless modifications such as neons and garish paintjobs which emulated those seen in movies and videogames of the period. The 3rd- and 4th-generation cars would abandon the feeling of refined sophistication which made the 1st- and 2nd-gen stand out in their class, and were clearly intended to appeal more to the tuner crowd: this attempt to cash on the nameplate's popularity eventually tarnished its reputation even further, and when the "hot import nights" ended, Mitsubishi was left with no one to sell Eclipses to. Nowadays even pristine GSXs, despite their scarcity, fetch surprisingly low prices - a shame, really, unless you're looking to snatch one. Now, you may say, "enough with the banter! How does it drive?", to which I shall answer that it shouldn't surprise you, but...
Goliath laptime: 14:50.491
Verdict: ...it's really a Lancer Evo V with less luggage space, and more swagger.
Based on the Exige - a car I'm quite sure no one ever accused of being
too sane, despite it getting ever-so-slightly more
civilized in the last years - the 3-Eleven draws fully from the heritage of its predecessors, the legendary 1956 Eleven and its equally-bananas Elise-based older sister, the 2-Eleven.
In order to build the fastest roadcar in the history of the British manufacturer, Lotus engineers followed perfectly Colin Chapman's motto of "simplify, then add lightness": any creature comfort, including the windshield, has been removed to drive the car's weight back under the 1,000 kgs threshold that its parent model surpassed when it was fitted with a larger V6 engine. Said engine was then fitted with a supercharger, so as to make over 400 hp of power and 500 Nm of torque: numbers that are almost comical on a car so light, so radically untamed - after all, Chapman also say that he'd never drive one of his racecars, so he clearly knew what was at the end of his thought process.
But the way the car reacts to the road, following its contours closely, has a purity that can even be perceived through a televisor screen; and the acceleration coming out of corners is equally exhilarating. The livelihood of the rear end - which is always threatening to overtake the front in a spectacular fashion, and requires some finesse to be kept in check - only adds to the breathtaking thrill of driving even a virtual recreation of the fastest Lotus in history.
Goliath laptime: 12:26.614
Verdict: simplify, then AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH-
Ferrari is probably one of the greatest and largest manufacturers of racing cars in the world. It shouldn't come as a surprise, given its long history and founder Enzo Ferrari's fierce temper, that it's also one of the greatest and largest manufacturers of racing cars that have
never raced in history. The F50 GT was probably the second best in this particular category - following only the 637 Champ Car.
The F50 was already an insane piece of machinery, featuring a 60-valve V12 engine based on the engine which first appeared on the Ferrari 641 driven by Alain Prost and Nigel Mansell in the 1990 F1 season, and more specifically on the 4.7 l variant found in the latter 333 SP endurance racer. And if that wasn't enough, the engine was bolted directly to the carbon fiber monocoque, acting as a load-bearing element: this made for a famously nervous, twitchy and uncomfortable, yet
immensely fast ride - all characteristics which, together with its racing pedigree, made it the perfect car to celebrate Ferrari's golden jubilee.
At the time, GT racing was taking off again, after a decade of domination of the sportscar racing scene by purpose-built GTP and Group C prototypes. The BPR Global GT Series organized by an embryonal SRO revitalized endurance racing, while seeing the creation the "GT1" class, which saw heavily modified supercars from manufacturers such as McLaren, Porsche, Mercedes and Ferrari - with the F40 GTE - compete. Ferrari set to work with nearby chassis manufacturer Dallara to develop the F50 in a true racing beast: in order to allow the car to reach top speeds of over 370kph, the already impressive powerplant was upgraded so that it produced 750hp at over 10,000 rpm; a massive air intake ran over the now-fixed roof all the way to the engine compartment to provide enough airflow to keep things cool. The curb weight of the car was somehow brought down to 900 kgs, down from the 1400 kgs of the road-going car. A massive rear wing and diffuser generated amounts of downforce sufficient to make the GT faster than the aforementioned 333 SP around the Fiorano test track.
Then the BPR Series became the officially-sanctioned FIA GT1 Championship, and Porsche and Mercedes became much more involved, with cars that shared nothing with their supposed road-going counterparts: this led to the shelving of what would've been, without the trace of a doubt, Ferrari's fastest GT racer ever. For shame.
With all the downforce and mechanical grip at its disposal, the GT drives almost like a Formula car; but this shouldn't be seen as an invitation to always leave the throttle wide-open, as the 750 prancing horses will easily push the car at speeds it simply can't carry through corners without arbitrarily violating the laws of physics. Luckily, the carbon brakes are up to the task of stopping this very special F50 on a dime, and the steering is immensely precise, allowing the driver to easily achieve the optimal driving line even through the trickiest corners. And then there's the sound...
Goliath laptime: 10:14.782
Verdict: it's like the Sistine Chapel of GT1 racecars.
