Gran Turismo 7: Why the return of the Used Car Dealership is really exciting

We’re going to have to wait just a little while longer for the release of Gran Turismo 7.

The next installment of the highly popular racing series has been put on hold until 2022, which means the only way to get our GT7 fix right now is through the brilliant trailer that was released last year.

While very little is known about the kind of features GT7 will have, the trailer has provided some insight (and stirred up speculation) into some of things we can expect.

Will used cars be available in Gran Turismo 7?

Eagle-eyed fans of the series have been trawling through the trailer since it was first released, in a hope to find out as much about the upcoming game as possible.

One thing many of us noticed in a brief scene was the return of the classic Gran Turismo map. Here, we could feast our eyes upon some of the various different areas, modes and features that will likely be available in the game - with perhaps the most interesting of those being the apparent return of used cars.

As you can see near the top of the map of the ‘GT Town’, the used car dealership will feature in GT7 - having been absent from the series in both GT6 and GT Sport.

Nissans and nostalgia

Very little is known about how the used car dealership will actually work here. Will it simply be filled with older 'regular' cars, like how it was in GT2? Would we occasionally see the odd hidden gem in there, like the rare black high-performance cars you could come across every so often in GT4? Or, might it even be an auction house style setup, similar to the Forza series?

Either way, we’re excited.

In previous Gran Turismo titles where used cars could be bought, the actual cars varied in both type and age, with their mileage affecting things like engine performance and body rigidity. Little could match the thrill of loading up the used car dealership in GT2, for example, to find a brilliant bargain that required a quick oil change and a car wash before a serious tune up.

Single-player focus returns

Our excitement for the potential inclusion of used cars in GT7 runs much deeper than just a simple bargain hunt.

In a way, it solidifies Gran Turismo series creator Kazunori Yamauchi’s recent claims that GT7 will be more geared towards players who are nostalgic for the previous games - and particularly those who enjoy the series' single-player aspects.

It’s probably fair to say that GT Sport was a controversial departure from the familiarity of the series and many fans bemoaned its lack of single-player content from the offset. Therefore, the inclusion of used cars in GT7 surely backs up the idea that single-player content will be much stronger here, simply because the main purpose of used cars in the Gran Turismo series has been to help players get up and running in the game’s ‘career’ mode.

Starting out with just a handful of credits and a limited choice of cars to buy made the used car dealership in the game a sort of lottery. While buying or winning cars in GT Sport was still fun, it was quite as satisfying as we found it in older editions of Gran Turismo.

We’re sure that GT7 will be packed full of fun and interesting features that will make this the best edition of the series yet. But mostly, we just want to get behind the wheel of our next second-hand gem!

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