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Concept
TG's guide to concepts: the GTbyCitroen
Gran Turismo special is one of our favourite Citroen concepts ever
I’ve driven that.
Quite possibly. The ‘GTbyCitroen’ (which from now on we’ll call the GT, because it’s actual name is silly) came before all those “Vision GT” concepts basically every manufacturer is doing nowadays. Like those, this is a car designed solely to exist in Sony’s flagship driving simulator, Gran Turismo. Shown first at the 2008 Paris Motor Show, the GT made its debut in Gran Turismo 5 for the PlayStation 3, and was available to download in its prequel, GT Prologue. So yes, you’ve probably driven it.
Advertisement - Page continues belowHow’d it come about?
It was a collaboration between Polyphony and Citroen, and the brainchild of a chap called Takumi Yamamoto. Along with a mate who worked at Polyphony, he sold the idea to Citroen’s then “Advanced Design Manager” Gilles Vidal (now the boss of Peugeot’s design lab). Gilles said yes and the rest is history.
Well it looks awesome.
Doesn’t it just. The GT’s design takes into account how people play video games, insofar as they’re given the choice of a number of different perspectives from which to drive. So the GT was designed to flatter those angles, even inside. Aero is at its core, hence the dramatic bodywork.
And we’re told though the GT is not and was never intended to exist, Citroen worked out how much power its fictitious powertrain would develop, how the aero and suspension would work and behave and so on, then fed this into Polyphony’s computer. So while we can’t prove otherwise, in-game it handles like something of its size, weight, power and type should. In theory, anyway.
Advertisement - Page continues belowDidn’t they build one?
Yeah, for show mostly. We drove it around London and parked it outside Harrods, because why the hell wouldn’t you? There was talk Citroen would build a limited number, possibly 20, but that was way back in 2009 and we haven’t heard anything since. We assume it was shelved – it was never designed to exist, really, so engineering it to behave like a real car, and meet all the various safety regulations it would require would no doubt prove expensive.
Shame.
Massively. We reckon this is one of the best-looking, most memorable Citroens of the modern era. People loved this thing when it came out, and we reckon it looks every inch as good today as it did almost ten years go.
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