Evolution of Grand Valley Speedway in Gran Turismo (1997 - 2023 / GT1 - GT7)

The first big update of 2023 has been released for Gran Turismo 7 and it brings back one of the most iconic original tracks from the previous GT games with Grand Valley Speedway, now set in a completely new environment based on the famous California Highway 1, also known as Pacific Coast Highway. Here you can see a fast lap on Grand Valley with the Toyota Castrol Supra in every major GT game that included the track, showing the evolution of the track and the car throughout the history of the franchise.

Timeline:
0:00 Gran Turismo 1
1:40 Gran Turismo 2
3:28 Gran Turismo 3
5:22 Gran Turismo 4
7:16 Gran Turismo 5
9:12 Gran Turismo 6
11:07 Gran Turismo 7

After this update Grand Valley has now been included in every numbered Gran Turismo game. It is one of only 4 tracks that appeared in 7 of the 8 major GT games, along with Trial Mountain, Deep Forest and Laguna Seca.

Even though the track was placed in completely new surroundings for GT7 the layout of the track is still remarkably similar to that of the old versions, with the main difference being that the slow chicane was moved closer to the corner tunnel. Even my lap time is almost identical in GT5/6 and GT7!

In previous games the real world location of completely fictional tracks was not specified but in GT7 Grand Valley is now set at the famous California Highway 1 / Pacific Coast Highway, which can also be driven in The Crew 1-2, Grid 2, Grid Autosport and Project Cars 1-3.

As you can see in the video GT1 and GT2 have pretty similar graphics, while GT5 and GT6 are very similar in both graphics and physics. GT7 looks pretty similar to GT Sport, although Grand Valley was not included in that game. However, the PS2 games GT3 and GT4 look completely different from each other, with GT3 probably being the most unique Gran Turismo game in terms of both graphics and physics.

In each game I am using the featured version of the Castrol Supra, which is the '96 version in GT1, the championship-winning '97 version in GT5-GT7, the '99 version in GT2 and the '00 version in GT3 and GT4.

I am using the softest race tires that are available in each game, no further upgrades or setup changes, no assists besides the standard ABS and automatic transmission.

GT 1-4 were played on emulator, GT 5-6 on PS3 and GT7 on PS5. The units are set to miles in each game, since the NTSC versions of GT1-GT3 don't have a km setting and I want to keep the units consistent throughout the video.

I have spent a lot of time on the track in each game to record the fastest and cleanest laps possible for this video, as you can probably tell from some of the lap counters. Hopefully people will appreciate the effort that I put into this video to make it as good as possible. :)

What are your thoughts about Grand Valley Speedway and its brand new Highway 1 Edition in Gran Turismo 7? Feel free to share your feelings in the comments.

I have also made the same type of video for several other tracks already. You can check out the other ones here:
   • Evolution of Trial Mountain in Gran T...   (Trial Mountain)
   • Evolution of Deep Forest in Gran Turi...   (Deep Forest)
   • Evolution of High Speed Ring in Gran ...   (High Speed Ring)
   • Evolution of Laguna Seca in Gran Turi...   (Laguna Seca)
   • Evolution of Fuji Speedway in Gran Tu...   (Fuji Speedway)