While blurring the line between reality and fantasy has been for decades the standard operating procedure for video-game creators, automakers are just beginning to explore the opportunities the digital realm present. Unconstrained by typical real-world concerns, it gives designers carte blanche to push the design envelope first, and then, if they wish, fold the finished product into a full-scale concept as Mercedes-Benz has done with the AMG Vision Gran Turismo concept. Although the car is destined to live only in the digital world of the Gran Turismo 6 video game, it's no secret that many of its design elements are intended to hint at the pending and very real Mercedes-Benz GT AMG.
Moments after the Vision Gran Turismo concept hit the stage at the 2013 Los Angeles auto show, we spent a few minutes with Hubert Lee, advanced design director at Benz's California design studio, who explained that after the car was fabricated from a steel box frame and shaped with foam and clay—as seen in the video embedded below—Mercedes had fiberglass molds pulled from the clay, which were used to form the bodywork of the show car on the stand. Lee, who claims to be "not much of a gamer aside from racing games," explained that while the virtual car is powered by AMG's 577-hp, 5.5-liter twin-turbo V-8, the real-world concept has only an electric motor for short runs on auto-show catwalks.
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Gran Turismo 6 is slated for a December 6th release date, and the Mercedes-Benz AMG Vision Gran Turismo—as well as Vision Gran Turismo cars from a number of other manufacturers—will be released via free download to owners of GT6 throughout the next year. Kazunori Yamauchi, creator of the Gran Turismo series, told us "at least 28 manufactures in addition to Mercedes-Benz have signed on" for the Vision Gran Tursimo effort.
from Car and Driver Blog http://blog.caranddriver.com
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