First look: Porsche finally unveils its Vision GT car, and it's bulbous and gorgeous

After more than two years in the pipeline, months of cryptic teasing, and one unintended mix-up, it's here at last.

Porsche has finally pulled the covers off its Vision GT car entirely, revealing a wide, gorgeously bulbous and lightweight two-seater racer. The car is set to appear in the impending eighth edition of PlayStation's ultra-successful racing simulation franchise, Gran Turismo 7, and marks Weissach's first ever concept car created expressly for virtual racing. With the unveiling, we've now also gotten a complete look at the till now mystery co-headliner in blue of the game's poster.

In case you're not that big on motorsports gaming yourself, the Vision Gran Turismo project provides carmakers with an uninhibited design canvas as they take on the challenge of creating a virtual car to be raced within the game, in collaboration with Polyphony Digital (the Sony-owned studio behind the Gran Turismo franchise).

Free from the emission-regulations as well as physical restrictions of the real world, the project has naturally gifted us both wild and otherworldly designs, including the unbelievably angular Lambo V12 and spaceship-like Aston Martin DP-100. It has, however, also once served as an actual preview for an upcoming production car: The Bugatti Chiron.

Based on looks alone, the Porsche Vision GT car is already lining up visually among the greats with its intentionally futuristic yet faithful design language. It appears the Taycan was quite a significant guiding light, influencing the Vision GT's quad headlights and integrated air intakes in the front. Meanwhile, the slim full-length light bar at the rear also references that of the 911 (and other current members of Porsche's family). Instead of having to duck under the tapered roofline, ingress for the virtual driver is also made easier thanks to a hatch that opens upwards and forwards.

Design aside, the other most notable quality about the Porsche Vision GT is perhaps its drivetrain.

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While the Vision GT platform has been used by some carmakers to pay tribute to their iconic combustion-engines, Porsche has decided to buck the trend and embrace the future wholeheartedly by making the car fully electric. In an exclusive chat with sgCarMart, members of the development team told us that this was in line with how Porsche envisions motorsports will be like in the near future - say, by 2030.

As a serious display of its commitment to nailing down even the finest details on a concept car, the development team has also paid careful attention to making the interior hyper-realistic, roping even Porsche's Head of Interior Design into the process. A mixture of carbon and titanium was also chosen for the car in order to reduce its weight, while only vegan materials were utilised with an eye to sustainability.

Of course, even virtually, the car still can't be driven until Gran Turismo 7 is officially released on March 4, 2022. Till then, we're sure we won't be alone in keeping our excitement bubbling.

This article was first published in sgCarMart.