The Return of Touring Car Racing?

  • Thread starter JohnBM01
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The DTM is the biggest touring car series outside of the norm. I'm usually thinking of economy cars that aren't that powerful when talking about touring cars. DTM (and even the Australian V8 Supercars) are big exceptions. DTM cars have serious and wicked aero enhancements. I've seen plenty of winglets and vents on the cars which race in the series. I'm normally thinking of sports cars with the cars represented in today's DTM, especially considering they are using sedans rather than coupes.

I decided to leave you with a treat. Racingsportscars.com { http:www.racingsportscars.com } recently opened up an ETCC photo listing feauturing ETCC race cars from between 1970 to 1990. Check it out here:

http://www.racingsportscars.com/photo_etcc.html

That should REALLY add to the touring car discussion.
 
I've been playing around with some of the designated touring cars in GT4 that I've unlocked in Arcade Mode from GT Mode.

The 320i Touring Car seems to be one of the prime examples of what I'm going for in terms of touring car racing. While most traditional touring cars are front-wheel drive, the BMW 320i Touring Car is one of a few rear-wheel drive touring cars. Rear-wheel drive will give you that jump off the line and even help in the handling department a bit. Unwary drivers will be accustomed to the flaw of RWD- spinouts. By turning off TCS with the 320i Touring Car, this is one of the few RWD cars which is actually easy to drive. The car is perfect in the turns and doesn't really punish you for doing some stupid driving unless you simply take if off-track and into the infield. It is a nice race car that I've underrated in Arcade Mode. I would really use a BMW 320i Touring Car in GT5 if there was a legit Touring Car series in GT5.

Modifications inside the car are what I'd like to see rendered well for touring cars. In other words, the modifications for the real touring cars is what I want to be able to accomplish in building my own touring car in GT5. The 320i Touring Car has a visible, rendered roll cage. There is also a touring car wing equipped on the back of the car which can certainly be tuned to maximize downforce at the rear. There are even some wider body parts to add to the downforce and even allow for bigger tires to be used. I think windshield decals (for example, think of the "Vodafone" decals on the windshields of DTM race cars) should be as legal of modifications as adding a purchaseable rear wing for a car.

The worst touring car I've raced was the Honda Integra Type R Touring Car. You may remember this car from GT Concept. This game has it, and it has some bad understeer at speed. Plus, it's top speed isn't all that impressive, even for touring cars. It wants to fishtail like a RWD car when TCS is off. I'm sure even Realtime Acura could have designed a better Integra/RSX better than PD did with this machine. And I'm sure that it gets worse around the only wet track in GT4- Tsukuba Wet. It can also benefit from better gear selection. Either gears 1 and 2 need to be taller or the final gear needs some tuning to be better at speed.

Now for some Super Touring. The Alfa Romeo 155 2.5 V6 TI from 1993 is a wicked Italian machine with its wonderful handling and those four wicked tailpipes which shoots Hell fire under braking. It has 4WD so you spend more time carving corners than spinning out. Take an Audi A4 DTM Race Car around the streets of Hong Kong. The car is very poised and controlled in corners and rarely spins out for this RWD machine. This is a very polished machine in handling and in overall performance. The Audi TT-R DTM Race Car has won not only in the Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft, but also the 24 Hours at the Nürburgring about two or three years ago. The Abt Audi TT-R is not the yellow one, but the one in beautiful blue livery with Walkman NetMD livery. The TT is available in FWD or 4WD in real life, but is RWD in DTM. Its control is somewhat less than the A4, though. It is slightly more powerful than the A4 DTM racer.

An across-the-board improvement in modifying cars and in entry-level and BTCC and WTCC-style action would enhance the touring car fans. Carry on with touring car talk, GTPlanet.
 
/\/\ See this is where the racing mods comming back would really help this kind of idea go a long way. Get an Alfa Romeo and turn it into a touring car. Same with various sedans and so on. It would also be amazing if like in TOCA 3, you could join a season for touring car races... However, the closest I've come to touring car races in GT4 is the DTM races in the Euro Hall... It's pretty much as close as your going to get for the time being.

As a side note...

Other great FR touring cars to try

Opel Astra is a complete madman, as is the Toyota Altezza. The D2 BMW is also another great example of a FR touring car that can blow the doors off most cars with little or no problems with the wheels spinning too much on you...

Sites of interest for you...

http://www.dtmpower.net/

http://www.dtmpowerracing.com/
 
Oh, I'd definitely include anything of Super Taikyu, especially those which would fit the bill of a proper touring car. No question. Anyone else want to add to this thing?
 
Unfortunately, Simbin (GTR game series) has the licence rights for PC and consoles for both greatest FIA's touring venues: FIA WTCC and FIA GT.

Codies hold the other two licences, V8 Supercars and DTM.

JGTC is the only touring licence that PD (Sony) has licenced rights on so far, but I guess for only some models and official temas, since majority of JGTC cars and liveries - all private - are absent from the series.

I guess that some DTM and touring models in GT4 are pretty much result of single agreement with certain manufactorer and it's portfolio.
 
Is there a chance that they could sweet talk i.e. buy, the rights to some of them? I'm guessing not, but we can hope... Exclusive rights hurts every industry... You'd think they'd have made that realization by now.
 
amar212
Codies hold the other two licences, V8 Supercars and DTM.
Click to expand...

Who holds the BTCC licence now? - i know Codemasters still use the ToCA name even though BTCC cars are not in TRD3 - seems a little strange. Perhaps PD could buy the rights to BTCC - they could do a lot worse.
 
Hi guys, loving this Thread i am a massive fan of touring cars, favouirte touring car of all time,for me is the 99 BTCC nissan Primera driven by Laurent Aiello. one thing am looking forward in GT5 is 'hopefully' the larger grids. this means that if they do have a large selection of Touring cars it should make for some awesome racing such as the BTCC 98 season, best season ever, plus it would make for some awesome Photo opportunities.
 
I'd also like to see better variaty in JGTC races. There's always been tons of JGTC500 races (I can never have too many of those :sly:), but no races with JGTC300 fields. They've been gaving us the cars, but not the races! The 300 class has gone almost unoticed; no races, and only a fraction of the cars compared to the 500 class.
 
Why doesn't PD look into Speed World Challenge's Touring Car series? It isn't like the BTCC or FIA Touring Car, but it's an American brand of touring car racing that's still highly respectable.

Licensing. That's sometimes why I like real cars that actually raced, but then why I sort of hate it too. Remember all or most of the Racing Modifications in GT1 and the Special Models? Many of them were generic paintschemes or were representative of existing paintschemes (by the way in GT1, who'd want a BLACK Subaru Impreza Rally Car whereas WR Blue Mica is sort of the signature color of recent Subarus?). I don't think GT5 needs a huge plethora of ready-made touring cars. I think we should still be able to build up our own cars and take them out racing. Just tune an economy sedan or coupe and fit a rear Touring Car-style wing to it. PD will need to be creative with Racing Modifications to allow for bigger and wider tires for racing. I don't know too much on touring car regulations unless touring cars have to go with some sort of commercially-available, non-pure racing tire for the cars.

I'd really look to companies like Alfa Romeo, Volvo, Seat, Audi, BMW, Lexus, Toyota, Opel, Vauxhall, and other such companies to come up with ready-made touring cars (even if they are in a fictional GT paintscheme). The Volvo S60 was actually a project car of mine in GT4. I wanted it to be a powerful Swedish touruing car like in SPEED GT a few years back. Part of the fun of touring car racing is in building up affordable and nimble economy cars. The price of the cars in GT will probably give you enough money to modify it as you see fit. That's granted that you have the finances to completely build up your own touring car. You can build a pure racing machine even if sports cars aren't in your blood. Then too, most touring cars allow for completely equal competition unless you're matched up against pure competition.

I recommend you pick up the good game with a horrible title- "Jarrett and Labonte Stock Car Racing." You race a great number of cars around a great number of tracks. This was back when the ToCA series was more or less about touring car racing only. Many different cars were modded for racing. There's anything from a Toyota Camry, to a Lincoln LS, to a Fiat Marea, to even Alfa Romeo 156's and Ford Falcons (Holden's in the game too). Of course, not the V8 Supercar Falcons and Commodores, mind you. I'll give this game a refresher and share my stuff with you all later.
 
TheCracker
Who holds the BTCC licence now? - i know Codemasters still use the ToCA name even though BTCC cars are not in TRD3 - seems a little strange. Perhaps PD could buy the rights to BTCC - they could do a lot worse.
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Codemasters were offered the chance to buy rights for BTCC as they already had the TOCA name, but declined hence why there not in TRD3. I believe I heard someone say there is a planned Touring Car game coming out for PS2 or PS2, and it may have the BTCC license.

On the original idea - I would love to see it GT, but I feel you would need a bigger grid (6 isn't enough for touring cars) and if licensing was still an issue (which I think it would) they could bring back the cars with race mods for touring cars like GT2
 
I just wanna see more race events so i can participates with my useless cars like the infinty g20 or cars like that.

I will love to have more catagory choose from and horsepower limit to participate in a race.
 
KSaiyu
I believe I heard someone say there is a planned Touring Car game coming out for PS2 or PS2, and it may have the BTCC license.
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I think they are making a World Touring Car Championship game soon, don't know about BTCC.
 
Just dropped in here and found this thread.

According to a few posts on the Codies forums (regarding criticism that they haven't included the BTCC in TOCA 3), Alan Gow (BTCC head bloke), or someone else senior, has been quoted as saying that Codies still have the license. Don't know how true it is, but it's been said.

I'd love to see Touring Car racing return in GT5 - BTCC for me, all the way - fantastic close racing with cars that aren't too different from their stock equivalents, and are built from standard factory cars.

@ John - if you want to play with building yourself a BTCC Civic in GT4, take a look here - I think I got fairly close :)
 
gregc
if you want to play with building yourself a BTCC Civic in GT4, take a look here - I think I got fairly close :)
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Finally, someone as sad as me! I've been tried to recreate BTCC cars etc since I finished the game too. Made a fairly successful Team Dynamics Integra Type-R but it's just not the same.
Ah, the joys of racing modification.(Please bring it back!)
 
With Forza 2 set to make a pretty big splash this Christmas, I think Polyphony will up the ante in a number of ways. Both of these games are going to scream on their respective systems. Bonus to the gamer! :)

If Polyphony includes an actual Career Mode like Toca 3 has, I think there's a good chance of many different types of racing. Or even if they don't include it just yet. I still think the Touring Car people will have something to feed them.
 
I think this is the most fun thing about touring car racing. This is where you can build up a fairly dull economy car and turn it into something that can win you some races. This is when I say that this is the most competitive form of racing a front-wheel drive car can have (other than rally). Touring car racing is mostly dominated by front-drivers, and putting a FWD car into touring car is the equivalent of a high-powered RWD sports car in a GT race. I have included a number of ideas in "Enough With the Optical" regarding racing modification and how it should be done or segmented. Many of those ideas could work very well for touring cars. So give it a look, will you?

What classic touring cars would you include in GT5?
 
Stratus NATCC
Caterpillar Falcon
Pirtek Falcon
Ford Racing Works Falcon
K-Mart Commodore
Holden Works Commodore
Dodge Charger SRT-8 Race Car
 
I don't know about the Charger there, Jim Prower. I see it a bit more as a sports car or a high-performance car than a considerable touring car. But if you remember in "Jarrett and LaBonte Stock Car Racing," one of the touring cars available was the Lincoln LS. The Lincoln LS was probably the most exciting Lincoln of the modern era, able to outdo BMW. They do make very nice limosuines with the Town Car.

Anyhow, I think building up touring cars out of non-sports cars makes things very interesting. If you hate economy sedans, this is about your best way to make them more interesting. I still say that I'd love to mod up the Scion tC as a touring car had the tC been in GT4. I may push for more BMWs in GT5. Many BMWs are excellent machines to begin with. Modifying their performance only makes things sweeter. The latest M5 may or may not be a nice pick for a touring car or even a touring sedan. Even when you can equip it to have seven gears (or I think it comes with seven gears) for it.

I think if Volvo was in GT1 or GT2, then it would somewhat be a shame not to see a touring car from Volvo. Either a Volvo touring car or one of those GT3-racing estate cars (station wagons for many of us others). No European touring car selections, Jim Prower? This was the continent in which the automobile was born! I don't know too much about European touring cars except that Alfa Romeo has had great success. I also can recall Steve Soper doing a great job piloting a mostly yellow Peugeot 406 around the BTCC. There's still a great number of classic touring car series in Europe, that are either existing, defunct, or virtually unknown.

Take a look at this car: { http://car.kak.net/bilder/audi.moto...?POSTNUKESID=ce80649639558a620d6f1f382221fb7b }. In GT2, you can take an Audi A4 2.8 Quattro and give it the Racing Modification to have a car similar to this. It's much like how you get the silver Audi touring car with the four Audi rings, but in red. You can also modify an Audi S4 to give it almost this look. Which is better? Well, the A4 in GT2 starts out at 193hp while the S4 starts out at about 261hp in GT2. So you win either way. That specific Audi was piloted by Frank Biela in the BTCC back in 1996.

Let's keep the touring car discussion going.
 
It's not that I don't like them, JohnBM01, but everyone else already mentioned them. Figured i'd be a little different.

I'm also a fan of Big, V8, Rear Drive sedans, and also a Mopar Fan. so that came out.

It's not that I have anything against Touring cars, (In fact, one of my four GT2 games is all Tourers, both the light front-drivers and the big V8-Supercar and DTM-type cars.) but everybody seems to be focused on the Sub-300HP class, (I mod them to 399, in GT2 no more) and no-love for the bigger engines. It makes me sad.
 
Jim Prower
It's not that I don't like them, JohnBM01, but everyone else already mentioned them. Figured i'd be a little different.

I'm also a fan of Big, V8, Rear Drive sedans, and also a Mopar Fan. so that came out.

It's not that I have anything against Touring cars, (In fact, one of my four GT2 games is all Tourers, both the light front-drivers and the big V8-Supercar and DTM-type cars.) but everybody seems to be focused on the Sub-300HP class, (I mod them to 399, no more) and no-love for the bigger engines. It makes me sad.
Click to expand...

Its probably because the various S2000 Touring Car series (2ltr mostly front drivers) are still 'real' touring cars in the tradition sense of the phrase. V8 Supercars and especially DTM's are little more than 'silhouette' formulas these days.
 
The Return of Touring Car Racing... but also the return of this thread being revived. It's obvious I hate "Pro Race Driver" with a passion, but I just wanted to use this example to talk about what this game has to offer in terms of some of the Touring Car events. The ToCA Championship (the ToCA Race Driver series' moneymaker) in Pro Race Driver features six different cars for the PS2 version. So you don't get 14 cars to a track in this variant. But you do get these cars:

Vauxhall Astra Coupé - available as Vauxhall Motorsport (red/white) or Team Egg Sport (dark blue/green)
Lexus IS200 - available as ABG Motorsport (black with white accents)
Peugeot 406 - available as Peugeot Sport UK (light yellow)
MG ZS - available as MG Sport and Racing (dark gray and neon green)
Alfa Romeo 147 - available as JSM (black with red accents and yellow sun visor decal

A Touring Car discipline would include a bunch of series specially catered to more economy cars. Parentheses only include the car colors you can race the car in PRD. * The Americas Series features the ugly Chevrolet Cavalier Z24 from 2001 or 2002 (purple with yellow flames, or pale green with lime green), a Dodge Neon Sedan (red/yellow/green, or yellow with red and red checkers), and the Eagle Talon (white and aquamarine, purple and red flames with yellow outlining, or blue and white). * The Alfa GTV Cup only consists of a red Alfa Romeo GTV hardtop. * The Pacific Challenge has the Mitsubishi Mirage (white and red with red wheels, white/red/yellow with yellow wheels, or crimson and white), the Subaru Impreza WRX from around 1999 (white and lavender with red accents, or faded green and light pink), and the Toyota Chaser (white/dark blue/aquamarine, or yellow/green). * The Southern European Championship has you racing cars like the Subaru Impreza WRX (white and bluish-gray, dark aquamarine and white, or white/dark green with yellow accents), GMD DPRS T-230 (almond and crimson, or dark green with purple and pink accents), and the Proton Satria GTi (gray with dark orange, or white and blue with yellow accents and blue wheels). * The Northern European Championship only features the Saab 9-5 Aero (gray, dark green, light orange, blue, crimson, aquamarine, or yellow).

There has to be a clear and well-defined prescence of these cars to actually make something of this all.
 
A late question I've been meaning to ask for years is why isn't the BMW 320 Touring Car eligible to race in the Deutsche Touring Car Meisterschaft series in GT4?
 
I'd love to see some of the older touring cars from the BTCC and DTM championships of the 80s and 90s. That was a great era. I'd also like to see some cars that featured in Bathurst! I used to watch that on TV with my Dad in the 80s!
 
sanpanico
A late question I've been meaning to ask for years is why isn't the BMW 320 Touring Car eligible to race in the Deutsche Touring Car Meisterschaft series in GT4?
Click to expand...
Because it's not a DTM type car. Soeone correct me if I'm wrong but I think it's a Super 2000 specification car that competed in the ETCC. It's very different to a DTM silhouette. Even if it could enter it would most probably not stand a chance.
 
Dave A
Because it's not a DTM type car. Soeone correct me if I'm wrong but I think it's a Super 2000 specification car that competed in the ETCC. It's very different to a DTM silhouette. Even if it could enter it would most probably not stand a chance.
Click to expand...

Correct!

The BMW is not a Touring Car (DTM) is a Super Touring Car (WTCC), a race for production models with max of 2.0L engine!

Some of the cars:

- Alfa Romeo 156
- BMW 320si
- Seat Leon Cupra
- Seat Toledo Cupra
- Ford Focus RS
- Chevrolet Lacetti
- . . .

:)👍
 

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