Jann Mardenborough, the GT Academy-winning racing driver on whose life the Gran Turismo movie is based, has revealed that his original, home-made driving rig features in the film.
The British gamer-turned-racer was being interviewed by US motoring outlet MotorTrend when he made the surprise revelation — and it actually came by request from the director Neill Blomkamp.
We’ve actually already seen a very brief glimpse of the rig itself in the trailer, with Archie Madekwe — who stars as Mardenborough — using it to take on the GT Academy competition. As you can spot from the screenshot above, Madekwe is sitting in a red leather car seat, which is the same item Mardenborough bought from a scrapped Alfa Romeo.
The rest of the rig consists of a wooden structure Mardenborough made himself, although we haven’t yet seen the striking black pod in the film just yet. It also originally sported a Fanatec Porsche 911 Turbo S wheel and pedals, replaced with some slightly more modern fare in the movie.
MT posed the question to Mardenborough whether he still owned his original rig, over a decade on from his GT Academy success, and his answer revealed the easter egg:
“I have the PlayStation, I have the disc, I have the wheel and pedals. [Well], the pedals, no, because they were awful. I have the rig that I built, which — I’ll give a little bit of a spoiler — that rig is in the film. I’m very happy that Neill requested that and it’s a very unique piece, because I built it myself. So for it to be in there, it’s fantastic.”
It’s one of many details that director Blomkamp has gone to some lengths to include in the Gran Turismo movie as nods to fans. That includes replicating the chase camera of the games with a giant camera rig coming out of the back of the Nissan GT-Rs used for filming.
Surprisingly, and also revealed in the MotorTrend piece, there was only one unplanned crash of a GT-R and that came at the hands of Orlando Bloom. Bloom, who plays the Danny Moore character inspired by Nissan’s marketing lead Darren Cox, wasn’t supposed to drive in the film but requested some seat time only to promptly stuff the car into the scenery.
Gran Turismo will launch globally on August 11, although fans will get a chance to see the film a day early if they are attending the GT World Series Showdown in Amsterdam and have a Platinum ticket.
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