By: Dave Abrahams
Hong Kong - The best thing about designing a car for a video game is that you're not constrained by real-world considerations such as production engineering and cost-effectiveness.
But the cars that have been developed for platforms such as Grand Theft Auto and Gran Turismo, and have no existence beyond the console, are anything but futuristic fantasies; they’re based firmly in reality, offering a startling vision of what future performance cars could be like.
This one, available now for download on Gran Turismo 6, was the winner of a competition between Infiniti design studios all round the world to design a 'pure GT car', and was originally proposed by the company's Beijing design team.
HARD COPY
Starting with the original hand-drawn sketches by the Chinese team, the Infiniti Concept Vision Gran Turismo was shaped and detailed digitally, then re-created as a 'hard copy' in clay to be smoothed and refined by eye, and finally scanned back into virtuality for simulated wind-tunnel testing.
Because this is much more than a styling exercise; the design phase included all the technical parameters such as aerodynamics, weight distribution, suspension settings and engine performance. Under-floor airflow, front and rear spoiler were shaped by real-world data, as was the positioning of the drive-train components.
The concept has a longitudinally mind-mounted engine and transaxle set-up (much like a Lamborghini or McLaren) and has been configured for active drifting with 45:55 front/rear weight distribution and rear-wheel drive.
And now gamers who own Gran Turismo 6 can step into the future of GT cars, test driving the Infiniti Concept Vision Gran Turismo on the great circuits of the world.