Newest Gran Turismo 7 Update Adds Ioniq 5 N and One Rad Civic

Gran Turismo 7’s last update dropped in November, bringing the beloved Ford Escort RS Cosworth among a diverse group of inclusions. Since then it’s been pretty quiet from Polyphony Digital, but as GT7 nears its third birthday, the developer is keeping the cadence of updates going with four new cars—and once again, there’s little commonality between them.

Coming to Gran Turismo 7 tomorrow is the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N, the fourth-generation Honda Civic Si (in JDM “Extra” trim, for good measure), the Toyota C-HR (yes, really), and, most interestingly of all, the Gran Turismo F3500-A—an unbranded, ’90s-style Formula 1 car that was first revealed during Gran Turismo World Series competitions late last year. The F3500-A follows the mold of the F1500T-A, another generic F1 car that closely matches the Lotus 97T from 1985. The general consensus is that this F3500-A is most similar to an early-’90s Williams chassis, and the community will assuredly deliver a slate of custom liveries to best represent the whole grid from that era of Grand Prix racing.

I’m curious to know how the Ioniq 5 N, this site’s favorite high-performance EV, is represented in the game. See, the Ioniq 5 N offers a choice of drive modes, some of which make the hot hatch-masquerading SUV drive more (and sound more) like an ICE-powered car with a manual transmission. Gran Turismo typically doesn’t give players these options, however, so the Ioniq 5 N is likely to be represented one way. You’d imagine it’ll have all the N-branded gadgets and gimmicks switched on, but we’ll have to wait for the update to drop to get confirmation on that.

And then there’s the “EF” Civic Si from 1987—the first year of that particular generation of Honda’s compact. Our old-school Civic expert Andrew Collins told me that the bulged hood with the scoop is “rare” and “prized in the Honda community,” and I have no reason to question him. Plus, it looks great. We don’t yet have specs for any of the vehicles in this update, but we can make an educated guess with this Civic and expect it to deliver about 120 horsepower from a naturally aspirated, 1.6-liter, dual-overhead-cam inline-four. Not bad for a hatch that weighs just a shade over a ton.

The C-HR, then, is the most traditionally Gran Turismo choice; a vehicle that I can’t imagine anyone will be excited to drive, though it’s here anyway because Polyphony just loves a boring, normal car. Update 1.55 will also include a new Extra Menu book revolving around Group C cars, that appears to ask players to collect the Porsche 962, Sauber-Mercedes C9, and Mazda 787B. All of this will go live at 3 a.m. Eastern on Thursday, following the usual two-hour maintenance period when the game’s servers will be offline.

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