Gran Turismo 4

[SyrTran]

It's slightly disappointing if you're a fan of classic American muscle, though.  I've had it for over a month, and it seems like the Japanese designers don't know/care about musclecar specs.

First, I won the '67 Cougar XR-7.  It had about 320hp.  It also had a 390ci engine.  Someone should've explained to the designers that the '7' stood for 7 _liters_.  That's 427 cubic inches, guys.  And about 380hp.  At least a simple (stage 1) tune-up gave it another 100hp. :-D

Then, I won the 70 Plymouth Superbird, an honest-to-deity Legend.  They got the engine size and hp right, but the rear wing is _not_ adjustable, and it has a top speed of 120 MPH.  Real Superbirds were barely-street-legal versions of the NASCAR cars.  Their 400+HP 440ci engines would pull -stock- Superbirds to well past 150MPH.  And the rear wing was (and still is) adjustable.  Not to mention sub-13-second quarter mile (400m) times, but that just may be my inability to launch from a dead stop. ;-)

[SyrTran]

I just checked again, and the Superbird has the 426 instead of the 440 (both engines were available in the real car).  I don't know what the top speed on the 426 version was.  It may be accurate at 120. :-(

What _still_ amazes me about driving the big-block Cougar is that the darn thing has great handling!  FE engines aren't light by any measure, and the Cougar is one of those light-rear-end pony cars.  I was expecting the dictionary definition of "understeer", but the nose goes around corners very nicely.  It's a lot of fun to drive.

That said, I'd have to say that the street car I like driving best is the Ford GT.  Except, the first time (and second time, and so on) I drove it, I couldn't understand why the handling was so slippery.  It's supposed to be a SUPERcar!  Why wouldn't it stay on the road?!?

Um, after a couple more times "introducing myself" to the guardrails, I realized I was entering corners almost twice as fast as with the Mustang GT or Nismo 400 (yet -another- Skyline ;-)).  If the real car is this smooth, I'm definitely going to have to figure out which family member to sell to get one. :-D