Say what you will about Gran Turismo 7‘s monthly drip-feed of new cars, but no one can say the game is lacking in variety. Leaked about a week early is GT7 Update 1.59, consisting of four very different vehicles that are all wholly interesting in their own right: the Ferrari 812 Superfast, a C5 Corvette Z06, a Suzuki kei truck, and a last-generation Honda CR-V—an EX Black Edition hybrid, to be precise.
The Ferrari and the ‘Vette are common racing game fodder, while the Suzuki Carry will surely be a hit with players whose personalities start and end with “quirky” and “Japan,” but the car that stands out to me the most has gotta be that dang CR-V. It may seem like an odd choice for racing game developer Polyphony to spend resources digitally recreating a car this pedestrian, but it isn’t out of character. GT7 has recently made a habit of amassing slightly dated compact Japanese crossovers (see the recently added Mazda CX-30 and Toyota CH-R).
But if you think about it, being able to drive (and modify) the normie car you actually own has always been a core appeal of the Gran Turismo series. And considering the default normie cars of today are indeed compact crossovers like the CR-V, we start to see the rationale behind it and its peers’ inclusion.
I happened to review this very hybrid CR-V when it first came on the scene in 2020 and found it to be a very well-conceived commuter vehicle but, at the time, a bit lagging compared to its chief Toyota rival, the RAV4. The current, subsequent generation CR-V Hybrid, however, leapfrogged it as a basically perfect affordable everyday SUV.
In any case, the latest GT7 update is scheduled to arrive May 15 and update contents are typically only revealed a day before it drops, but it appears somebody at Sony slipped up and posted materials the game’s PS news feed early. This has since been taken down but not before the internet got ahold of basically everything.
Got a tip or question for the author about GT7? You can reach him here: [email protected]
