Operation Gran Tofurismo: Part 1
Nov. 19th, 2025 06:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yrevalInitial D is a manga series, created by Shuichi Shigeno, which ran from 1995 until 2013 in Weekly Young Magazine. It tells the story of Takumi Fujiwara, a young man working for a petrol station owned by his father Bunta, a former racing driver, in a mountainous area of Gunma Prefecture, delivering tofu in an old Toyota Sprinter Trueno. One of his work colleagues is the leader of a street racing team, the Akina Speed Stars, but is unaware that Takumi has been practicing his driving skills while on the job. Eventually, the Speed Stars are challenged by a rival team, the Red Suns, and are thoroughly defeated - until Takumi appears in his Trueno and beats the shiny new Mazda RX-7 of the Red Suns' Keisuke Takahashi. The series then follows the exploits of Takumi as he rises through the street racing ranks and eventually becomes a renowned rally driver, setting up the sequel series, MF Ghost.
The series was a massive hit, spawning multiple anime series and movies, no less than 27 video games, a live-action movie (with a second possibly on the way), becoming associated with an entire genre of music, and influencing countless pieces of car-related media over the last thirty years - including the subject of this post, Gran Turismo.
My aim is to make as much progress through GT Mode as possible while driving only cars based on the AE86 chassis - meaning the fourth generation Toyota Sprinter Trueno mentioned above, or the fifth generation Toyota Corolla Levin (essentially the same car as the Trueno, but with fixed headlights instead of pop-up headlights and a few other minor styling differences). While the AE86 has a reputation in the Initial D universe as a bit of an old banger, in reality it had a decent motorsport career - taking Toyota to the 1986 European Touring Car Championship manufacturers' title and Chris Hodgetts to the 1986 and 1987 British Touring Car Championship drivers' titles - and as late as 2001 it was being raced in the All Japan Grand Touring Car Championship, the forerunner to the modern Super GT championship. Not to mention drifting, where to this day the AE86 competes and holds its own against cars forty years newer. So clearly there's some potential here - the question is, just how much?
The rules of this challenge are as follows:
Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!
I head to the Toyota used car dealership and pick up the Trueno for 7,900 credits, in the same colours as Takumi's car. The remaining 2,100 credits are spent on a racing flywheel and a stage 1 weight reduction, and after picking up the B licence, it's time to tackle the Sunday Cup. Here's how the field looks. My Trueno is the least powerful car, but also the lightest, and around the tight and twisty Autumn Ring Mini that should work in my favour. In GT1 (unlike GT7, or any GT game after 4 for that matter) you can take part in a practice session and one-shot qualifying before the race. I qualify fifth - this looks like it could be tough. The race is a different story, though - by the halfway point of the first lap I am in the lead, and I take a reasonably comfortable victory.
Race 2 is at the High Speed Ring - where, on paper, my power deficit should make victory much more difficult. Sure enough, in qualifying I'm a long way off the pace. But once again, I fight my way through the field in the race.
The third and final race of the Sunday Cup is at the Grand Valley East Course, where I wrap up the championship:
After picking up my winnings and selling the Mazda Demio A-spec prize car, I have a budget of nearly 40,000 credits with which to upgrade my car. The credits go towards a stage 1 turbo kit, hard racing tyres, semi-racing exhaust, semi-racing suspension, and a twin-plate clutch. Next stop is the FR Challenge. The level of opponent is a big step up from the Sunday Cup: despite the upgrades, I still have the least powerful car on the grid. There is a Levin and another Trueno on the grid, too, while it looks like the main threat will come from the RX-7 - is that you, Keisuke? I take some time to set up my semi-racing suspension - pay special attention to the ride height. The PS1 GT games have... not so much a bug, as a programming oversight, where if the front of your car is lower than the rear, the game assumes you are going downhill and boosts your acceleration accordingly.
In race 1 at Grand Valley East Course Reverse, I qualify fifth and lead home a Trueno 1-2. It only gets better in qualifying for race 2 at Deep Forest Reverse, as I pick up my first pole position of the run. But the RX-7 takes the victory, setting up a race 3 decider at Grand Valley Speedway Reverse. The RX-7 takes the pole, while I am 6th by some distance. But in the race, I fight through the field once again to claim the series victory:
After selling the prize car - a Nissan Silvia - I spend another 30,000 or so credits on upgrades and head for the Lightweight Challenge - this is an odd championship that is only open to certain cars. The common thread seems to be that the eligible cars have naturally aspirated engines with a displacement of less than 2 litres, although not all such cars are able to race in this series. Despite being fitted with a turbo kit earlier in the run, the Trueno is eligible. For the first time in this run, my Trueno isn't the least powerful car on the grid. And sure enough, pole position and the win are secured at Autumn Ring Mini Reverse. Race 2 at Clubman Stage Route 5 is a little trickier, with a narrow victory after qualifying 6th. A mistake in race 3 at Deep Forest Reverse costs me the win, but it's not enough to stop me from winning the championship.
Join the Club, Man
After selling the Mazda MX-5 prize car and spending the proceeds on more upgrades, I obtain the A licence and get to work on the Clubman Cup. The opposition here is of a similar standard to the FR Challenge. But with the Trueno having been significantly upgraded since then, they put up nowhere near as much resistance, allowing me to take three wins out of three and two pole positions (a second place in qualifying for race 2 at Clubman Stage Route 5 being the sole blemish on my record).
With the prize money, and the proceeds from selling the prize car (a Chevrolet Camaro this time - a significant step up in performance from previous prize cars, but I still get the same 12,000 credits for selling it) I now have enough credits to add every upgrade to my Trueno except for the racing modification.
The Grand Tour
(note 1: this section will be rather light on screenshots as I clicked away from Duckstation at some point and the screenshot hotkey only works if Duckstation is in focus. Sorry!)
I'm going to need those upgrades, as this is what awaits me in the GT Cup:
(note 2: why does my car appear slightly lighter here than in the garage? It's because of another programming oversight: the formula used to convert the power from PS (short for pferdestärke, a rough metric-based equivalent of the horsepower, and the unit of power used in the Japanese version) to horsepower is being applied to the car's weight as well)
A Dodge Viper? A Honda NSX? What chance does the Trueno have against them? Qualifying for race 1 at Grand Valley Speedway suggests the answer is "none". We've seen previously that qualifying is one thing and the race is another, but surely ten seconds a lap is too much of a gap to bridge? The race begins, and the Griffith, Supra, and Impreza are overtaken in the first lap. I spend the second lap and about half of the third battling for second with the Viper, before closing in on the leading NSX as we come to the final chicane, overtaking it, and just about managing to hold on to the position on the home straight. Wow - this might actually be doable. Race 2 at Deep Forest is won with another final lap pass on the NSX, and another win at Special Stage Route 5 - a surprisingly comfortable one, this time - sees me secure the championship with a race to spare. I'm not quite able to pull off the sweep as I have to settle for second in Race 4 at Trial Mountain, but I certainly didn't see that coming at the start of this championship.
Taking on the World (and failing)
After selling the prize car (a full-on racing version of the Toyota Chaser, and yes, you still only get 12,000 credits for it), applying the racing modification, and obtaining the International A licence, it's time to tackle the ultimate challenge - the GT World Cup. Here are the opponent cars and oh my word. We have:
Conclusion
While the series would soon go on to bigger and better things, it's easy to see how this game caused such a sensation when you compare it to the other racing games that were around in the late '90s. It wasn't just the unprecedented amount of content, as even though the CPU oponents don't put up the stiffest challenge (in equal machinery, at least) the actual driving feels great and as long as you're willing to handicap yourself a little in terms of the car you select relative to the opposition, the racing action as a whole is top-notch - the GT Cup in particular was great fun.
The adventure continues in Gran Turismo 2. Until next time...
The series was a massive hit, spawning multiple anime series and movies, no less than 27 video games, a live-action movie (with a second possibly on the way), becoming associated with an entire genre of music, and influencing countless pieces of car-related media over the last thirty years - including the subject of this post, Gran Turismo.
My aim is to make as much progress through GT Mode as possible while driving only cars based on the AE86 chassis - meaning the fourth generation Toyota Sprinter Trueno mentioned above, or the fifth generation Toyota Corolla Levin (essentially the same car as the Trueno, but with fixed headlights instead of pop-up headlights and a few other minor styling differences). While the AE86 has a reputation in the Initial D universe as a bit of an old banger, in reality it had a decent motorsport career - taking Toyota to the 1986 European Touring Car Championship manufacturers' title and Chris Hodgetts to the 1986 and 1987 British Touring Car Championship drivers' titles - and as late as 2001 it was being raced in the All Japan Grand Touring Car Championship, the forerunner to the modern Super GT championship. Not to mention drifting, where to this day the AE86 competes and holds its own against cars forty years newer. So clearly there's some potential here - the question is, just how much?
The rules of this challenge are as follows:
- Apart from licence tests, the only cars that will be driven will be the Toyota Corolla Levin GT-Apex and Toyota Sprinter Trueno GT-Apex (in GT1 at least - there are related cars that appear in future GT games that I'll mention if they come up). In general, the Trueno - and in particular, the High-Tech Two Tone black and white Trueno made famous by Initial D - will be preferred
- The challenge is considered to be completed when the main GT League championship (the GT World Cup in GT1) has been won
- I will give myself three attempts at series races and five attempts at single races (unless it's clearly unwinnable)
- I will not quit and re-enter just to re-roll the opponent cars
Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!
I head to the Toyota used car dealership and pick up the Trueno for 7,900 credits, in the same colours as Takumi's car. The remaining 2,100 credits are spent on a racing flywheel and a stage 1 weight reduction, and after picking up the B licence, it's time to tackle the Sunday Cup. Here's how the field looks. My Trueno is the least powerful car, but also the lightest, and around the tight and twisty Autumn Ring Mini that should work in my favour. In GT1 (unlike GT7, or any GT game after 4 for that matter) you can take part in a practice session and one-shot qualifying before the race. I qualify fifth - this looks like it could be tough. The race is a different story, though - by the halfway point of the first lap I am in the lead, and I take a reasonably comfortable victory.
Race 2 is at the High Speed Ring - where, on paper, my power deficit should make victory much more difficult. Sure enough, in qualifying I'm a long way off the pace. But once again, I fight my way through the field in the race.
The third and final race of the Sunday Cup is at the Grand Valley East Course, where I wrap up the championship:
After picking up my winnings and selling the Mazda Demio A-spec prize car, I have a budget of nearly 40,000 credits with which to upgrade my car. The credits go towards a stage 1 turbo kit, hard racing tyres, semi-racing exhaust, semi-racing suspension, and a twin-plate clutch. Next stop is the FR Challenge. The level of opponent is a big step up from the Sunday Cup: despite the upgrades, I still have the least powerful car on the grid. There is a Levin and another Trueno on the grid, too, while it looks like the main threat will come from the RX-7 - is that you, Keisuke? I take some time to set up my semi-racing suspension - pay special attention to the ride height. The PS1 GT games have... not so much a bug, as a programming oversight, where if the front of your car is lower than the rear, the game assumes you are going downhill and boosts your acceleration accordingly.
In race 1 at Grand Valley East Course Reverse, I qualify fifth and lead home a Trueno 1-2. It only gets better in qualifying for race 2 at Deep Forest Reverse, as I pick up my first pole position of the run. But the RX-7 takes the victory, setting up a race 3 decider at Grand Valley Speedway Reverse. The RX-7 takes the pole, while I am 6th by some distance. But in the race, I fight through the field once again to claim the series victory:
After selling the prize car - a Nissan Silvia - I spend another 30,000 or so credits on upgrades and head for the Lightweight Challenge - this is an odd championship that is only open to certain cars. The common thread seems to be that the eligible cars have naturally aspirated engines with a displacement of less than 2 litres, although not all such cars are able to race in this series. Despite being fitted with a turbo kit earlier in the run, the Trueno is eligible. For the first time in this run, my Trueno isn't the least powerful car on the grid. And sure enough, pole position and the win are secured at Autumn Ring Mini Reverse. Race 2 at Clubman Stage Route 5 is a little trickier, with a narrow victory after qualifying 6th. A mistake in race 3 at Deep Forest Reverse costs me the win, but it's not enough to stop me from winning the championship.
Join the Club, Man
After selling the Mazda MX-5 prize car and spending the proceeds on more upgrades, I obtain the A licence and get to work on the Clubman Cup. The opposition here is of a similar standard to the FR Challenge. But with the Trueno having been significantly upgraded since then, they put up nowhere near as much resistance, allowing me to take three wins out of three and two pole positions (a second place in qualifying for race 2 at Clubman Stage Route 5 being the sole blemish on my record).
With the prize money, and the proceeds from selling the prize car (a Chevrolet Camaro this time - a significant step up in performance from previous prize cars, but I still get the same 12,000 credits for selling it) I now have enough credits to add every upgrade to my Trueno except for the racing modification.
The Grand Tour
(note 1: this section will be rather light on screenshots as I clicked away from Duckstation at some point and the screenshot hotkey only works if Duckstation is in focus. Sorry!)
I'm going to need those upgrades, as this is what awaits me in the GT Cup:
(note 2: why does my car appear slightly lighter here than in the garage? It's because of another programming oversight: the formula used to convert the power from PS (short for pferdestärke, a rough metric-based equivalent of the horsepower, and the unit of power used in the Japanese version) to horsepower is being applied to the car's weight as well)
A Dodge Viper? A Honda NSX? What chance does the Trueno have against them? Qualifying for race 1 at Grand Valley Speedway suggests the answer is "none". We've seen previously that qualifying is one thing and the race is another, but surely ten seconds a lap is too much of a gap to bridge? The race begins, and the Griffith, Supra, and Impreza are overtaken in the first lap. I spend the second lap and about half of the third battling for second with the Viper, before closing in on the leading NSX as we come to the final chicane, overtaking it, and just about managing to hold on to the position on the home straight. Wow - this might actually be doable. Race 2 at Deep Forest is won with another final lap pass on the NSX, and another win at Special Stage Route 5 - a surprisingly comfortable one, this time - sees me secure the championship with a race to spare. I'm not quite able to pull off the sweep as I have to settle for second in Race 4 at Trial Mountain, but I certainly didn't see that coming at the start of this championship.
Taking on the World (and failing)
After selling the prize car (a full-on racing version of the Toyota Chaser, and yes, you still only get 12,000 credits for it), applying the racing modification, and obtaining the International A licence, it's time to tackle the ultimate challenge - the GT World Cup. Here are the opponent cars and oh my word. We have:
- A Nissan Primera touring car and a Toyota Celica rally car (which is listed as an FF car instead of a 4WD like the actual Celica GT-Four - this is because of yet another programming oversight, where the Celica in this event uses the physics data from an entirely different car), which have a performance advantage over me but not an overwhelming one, and should be beatable
- A Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IV which is about as powerful as my main rivals in the GT Cup, but is much lighter
- A Honda NSX GT2 with significantly beefed-up specs compared to the real-life car, which won its class at the 1995 Le Mans 24 Hours
- A Subaru Impreza "Rally Edition" with about double the power that the real-life WRC car had
Conclusion
While the series would soon go on to bigger and better things, it's easy to see how this game caused such a sensation when you compare it to the other racing games that were around in the late '90s. It wasn't just the unprecedented amount of content, as even though the CPU oponents don't put up the stiffest challenge (in equal machinery, at least) the actual driving feels great and as long as you're willing to handicap yourself a little in terms of the car you select relative to the opposition, the racing action as a whole is top-notch - the GT Cup in particular was great fun.
The adventure continues in Gran Turismo 2. Until next time...
