After our speculation as to what new cars will be included in Gran Turismo 7‘s July update, the cars have now been confirmed, alongside a toy-car-themed Scapes location and its release date.
Gran Turismo 7 Version 1.19 update release date
A new post on the Gran Turismo website has confirmed server maintenance at the following times:
28th July 2022, 6 am – 8 am UTC / 7 am – 9 am BST. That translates to a starting time of 2 am on the 28th for those in EDT, but 11 pm on the 27th for those in PDT.
During the maintenance period, a new 1.19 update will be available to download for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 players and will be playable once the servers are back up.
The three cars are now official, so below is a quick overview of the story behind each one. The Gran Turismo series is famed for only including care of significance, and these three are not exceptions to that rule.
Maserati A6GCS/53 Spyder 1954
From any angle, Maserati’s A6GCS/53 Spyder is a thing of beauty. This particular example – chassis number 2078 – was believed to have been driven by Italian pilot Luigi Musso, although exact records cannot be confirmed.
However, it is thought Musso drove this chassis to first in class in the Giro di Sicilia road race and followed this up with third overall in the Mille Miglia – then a round of the World Sportscar Championship.
Also in 1954, Musso won the Gran Premio di Napoli (the previous year’s field featured Juan Manuel Fangio, Alberto Ascari and Giuseppe Farina, no less) before winning his class on the Targa Florio, placing second overall.
The Maserati made its way to American owner Dean Meiling in 1998 via Argentina and Italy, and it was under his ownership that the car won the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance Gran Turismo Award.
Famously, every car that wins this award – judged by Gran Turismo guru Kazunori Yamauchi – ends up immortalised digitally in a GT game. The Maserati won it in 2014, so its appearance in GT7 has been a long time coming.
With an inline-six-cylinder engine producing around 170bhp, the Maserati may seem a little underpowered by today’s standards. However, its 863kg weight and low-profile, Pininfarina-designed body made the car a force to be reckoned with on the world sportscar racing stage.
Nissan Skyline Super Silhouette Group 5 1984
This barely recognisable Nissan Skyline was built for the Japanese Super Silhouette Series. Running from 1979-1983, the championship was organised for outlandish cars based on road-going models, anchored to the international Group 5 regulations.
Manufacturers had to use their base vehicle’s engine block and appearance, but additional wings and aerodynamic skirts were permitted, leading to some incredible-looking cars. Internally, they were the pinnacle of motorsport technology, looking more like an advanced single-seater than a standard saloon.
The Nissan Skyline Super Silhouette was based on the R30 Skyline road car. Weighing around1,000kg and producing over 550bhp from its 2.1l four-cylinder engine meant the car had huge racing potential. The car has only appeared in one GT game so far – 1999’s Gran Turismo 2. However, it has appeared in Forza Motorsport 7 and Project CARS 3, among other games.
Its ‘mullet’ set-up of 16-inch wheels at the front axle and 19-inch wheels at the rear gave the car a ‘hot-rod’ style appearance. It was quite apt given Japan’s developing ‘Bōsōzoku’ scene for modifying cars in extravagant ways, the movement having spread from the motorcycle gang scene.
Other famous Group 5 cars include the Zakspeed Ford Capri Turbo, BMW M1 and Porsche 935 Moby Dick, as used variously at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the bonkers Deutsche Rennsport Meisterschaft (DRM) championship. More cars like these would be very welcome in GT7…
Nissan driver Masahiro Hasemi managed to take seven wins across the 1982-83 seasons in the Skyline, but this was only good enough to reach a championship high of sixth overall. If the series was based on looks, it would surely be a winner.
Porsche 918 Spyder 2013
Part of motoring’s so-called holy trinity, the Porsche 918 Spyder found itself stacked up against the McLaren P1 and the Ferrari LaFerrari in 2013. On paper, the Porsche was outgunned in almost every department: it was the least powerful, it was the heaviest and it was the cheapest – important in the world of hypercar ownership and the bragging rights it entails.
However, it also happened to be the quickest on-track and was generally thought to be better engineered and a more comfortable car to drive day-to-day. This success is a testament to the technical know-how of the Weissach brand and its team of genius engineers.
It’s the only one of the three that features a removable roof – the two roof panels can be detached and stored in the car’s front luggage compartment (just remember to fit the carbon wind deflector to protect your bouffant barnet).
The 918 shares aesthetic DNA with Porsche’s last hypercar effort, the Carrera GT, but this time Porsche introduced a hybrid powertrain and swapped out the Carrera GT’s raspy V10 for a buzzing V8. Hybrid power gave the car two electric motors on the front axle, capable of providing an additional 282bhp.
When combined with the car’s 4.6l V8 petrol engine, the 918 produced 875bhp (Fun fact: this engine was based on the one from the Porsche RS Spyder LMP2 car, which could often be seen beating the mighty Audi R10 in the LMP1 class of the American Le Mans Series).
Although the Porsche 918 Spyder ceased production in 2015 after all 918 examples sold, it is still seen by many as the holiest of the holy trinity… and not just because of the removable roof panels.
Shikoku and Tomica Town Scapes
New Scapes locations for Shikoku have been added, the smallest of the main islands making up Japan. But, more intriguingly, is Tomica Town. The Japanese diecast toy manufacturer has been making diminutive versions of real-world cars since 1970, and you’ll notice is the main sponsor of the Skyline Super Silhouette that’s also part of this update.
Now you’ll be able to place your vehicles within a diecast world. Stange. Very, Polyphony.
The patch notes are not yet available for the next update, but we’ll be back tomorrow morning, 28th July, with a full rundown.
Source: Gran Turismo
