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Like many petrolheads, Polyphony Digital's Gran Turismo franchise played a major part in my early automotive education. Pixelated versions of any performance car you care to mention could be flung around a huge variety of real and imaginary tracks, without the worry of trivial facts like insurance, speed limits or actually being old enough to drive to ruin your fun. Many companies have become involved with the gaming series to help showcase their design ideas, and Nissan's premium Infiniti brand is no exception.
Displayed at the launch of the new Gran Turismo Sport game in London on its first appearance outside of China, the Infiniti Concept Vision GT was designed to showcase the potential direction that Infiniti's future vehicles could take. The Beijing car was selected as the winner from a global competition put forward by Infiniti Design, and intends to portray a racing language largely absent from its current range.
Many concept cars are little more than an aesthetic design exercise, but this project went as far as including design calculations on aerodynamics and powertrain details. The proposed layout includes a front-mid mounted, naturally-aspirated V8 engine powering a rear transaxle (already featured on the mighty GT-R), so it's not as far removed from production capability as most concepts. Also, the performance-orientated shape just happens to be absolutely beautiful.
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Gran Turismo Sport itself is slated for release later this year, and initial reports suggest that gameplay and sound is much improved over previous versions, which is good news for avid gamers. This is apt for a franchise which prides itself on delivering a realistic driving experience, so it will be interesting to see how the final version looks and plays. It's out on November 18th (in the UK at least), just in time for Christmas. Hint hint...