It’s unlikely that you’ve missed the fact that it’s Monterey Car Week, and this weekend it hosts one of the most exclusive, high-society car events of all: the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance.
Every August, a parade of cars that each individually cost more money to buy, maintain, and restore than most of us would make in two or three lifetimes make a little trip up onto a ramp at a golf course, where the great and good of the automotive design world pick and choose which one of them is the “Best in Show.”
The spectacle, featuring traditionally high-value names like Ferrari and Bugatti as well as classics and historics that are unfamiliar to younger and less engaged car enthusiasts, has increasingly been appearing out of touch with modern society. However, it also hosts a surprisingly accessible face among the champagne-quaffing in the shape of a video game.
The Gran Turismo Connection
Among those taking in the fleet of multi-million dollar cars parked on the 18th hole’s fairway at Pebble Beach each summer is Kazunori Yamauchi, the creator of the Gran Turismo franchise. Since 2008, Yamauchi has been an honorary judge and as well as selecting his choice for the prized Best in Show category, he makes his own pick for the “Gran Turismo Trophy.”
Far from just being another award on the winner’s mantle and another rosette on the car’s windscreen, this prize grants a rather different opportunity: the chance for the winning vehicle to be scanned and digitized for inclusion in a Gran Turismo game. This not only preserves the car for all time, in a form, but gives the average enthusiast the chance to experience it virtually in the comfort of their own home.
That’s precisely what has happened over the past two decades, with the game that made its name as a celebration of modern Japanese car culture (okay, there were a dozen US and British cars too) now becoming an interactive museum for vintage and historic motoring as well.
The first car to take the award back in 2008 was the prototype Lamborghini Miura P400, the oldest Miura still in existence, appearing in digital form in Gran Turismo 5 in 2010. That was followed by the Alfa Romeo Giulia TZ2 in 2009, the BAT1 Abarth 1500 concept in 2010, and Virgil Exner’s Plymouth XNR Ghia Roadster in 2011. The original Bertone Runabout won in 2022, and the new Bertone is basing the brand’s revival on a modern interpretation of it.
Bringing a classic car into a game is no simple task, however. While modern cars have CAD data that many developers rely on to create digital models, a historic car must be manually scanned. That’s a convoluted and time-intensive process involving hand-held laser scanning equipment and thousands of photographs to capture not authentic body shapes, but the different textures and colors of the components too.
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That does mean that not every owner is on board with the idea, though, and of the 17 winners of the Trophy so far, only eight have appeared in the games. All are available in Gran Turismo 7, allowing players with a PS4 or PS5 the chance to not only look at but drive on any one of the game’s tracks.
Whether the driving itself is entirely authentic is a different question, as a lot of the cars that cannot be driven hard in the real world (or at all, as with some of the virtual concept cars) are approximated to how they should drive and tweaked to suit. Given that the XNR is unlikely to be taken to 130mph around Suzuka in the real world, the simulation is at least good enough.
When coupled with the PlayStation’s virtual reality technology – PSVR2 – the whole experience is elevated, as it places you right into the car as if you were the driver and able to look around. I’ve shot a few comparisons with a helmet cam in modern machinery vs PSVR2, and it really is remarkable stuff, only short of being able to reach out and touch the buttons and switches.
Few of us could say how the 1929 Mercedes-Benz S Barker Tourer, which won the GT Award in 2017 as well as Best in Show and appears in GT7, feels in real life, but it’d be a surprise if the virtual version doesn’t get really, really close. Allied to a 6DOF (six degrees of freedom) motion rig, it’d probably be uncanny.
This notion of preserving historic vehicles and democratizing them via video games is by no means exclusive to this trophy or to Gran Turismo alone.
GT features other historic vehicles from brand museums – notably the Mercedes-Benz W196R – and previous GT games have brought the Ford Model T and even the Benz Patent Motorwagen and Daimler Motor Carriage. If you want to take to the wheel of a Bugatti Type 35, Forza Motorsport has you covered. And that’s to say nothing of game “mods,” where individuals (or groups) create their own cars compatible with titles like Assetto Corsa, sometimes at the behest of the owners.
It’s not just a case of plucking cars from the past either, but sometimes preservation for the future. When Mazda’s Furai concept was burned to ashes during a Top Gear test in 2008, players could continue to drive it in Gran Turismo 4. More recently, the Turn 10 Studios team behind Forza Motorsport recreated the car from CAD data for its 2023 title, bringing it right into the 4K era.
The reverse could also be true: an accurate enough digital recreation could help with the restoration of the original in case of disaster. A similar fate to the Furai’s befell a unique Ford Probe I Ghia concept after the Concours d’Elegance in 2024. Had it been subject to scanning for a video game, its chances of revival would increase, but it wasn’t, and it appears that it will remain lost.
This Sunday, Kazunori Yamauchi will choose the 2026 Gran Turismo Trophy winner, and we hope the owner of the winning car will allow it to be included in an upcoming edition of the game. By scanning, digitizing, and simulating these vehicles, racing games ensure that classic cars remain living, functioning things, and – more importantly – interactive for generations to come.
Top graphic images: GranTurismo.com; Sony
That’s really cool. I really hope more owners take advantage of this.
The Furai is one of my favorite cars of all time, but I don’t understand why or how it ever existed. It’s one thing to make a cool concept car, and even better if it can move under it’s own power, but to engineer the hell out of a one-off never to be used again chassis so it can be competitive on track using an engine never meant to go into production just for the hell of it makes no sense. I’m so glad they did that and they’re one of my favorite manufacturers for doing stuff a bit out of left field.