CANBERRA: This thing of beauty that’s on your screen is the Mazda LM55 Vision Gran Turismo – a virtual Le Mans prototype racer designed for the PlayStation 3’s Gran Turismo 6 video game. It’s not quite as real as the Furai Concept, but wow isn’t it a looker.
Mazda says the LM55 “blends agility and elegance with its dynamic silhouette,” whatever that may mean. The front face is a futuristic iteration of the current KODO design language, with a familiar grille flanked by slim headlights.
Another way of looking at it is as a futuristic interpretation of Mazda’s legendary 787B, which beat the odds (not to mention Porsches, Mercedes-Benzes and Jaguars) to win the 1991 24 Hours of Le Mans. The LM55 shares the same menacing cab-forward stance.
To the uninitiated, this is the latest addition to the Vision Gran Turismo project, which has given us wild concepts from Toyota, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Infiniti and Chevrolet.
