When it’s time to buy a new car it can be easy to get bogged down in all of the options available. It can be difficult to figure out what the letters at the end of the car’s name can even mean—especially in imported and German-made cars that have a less descriptive naming system. Though each company has their own rules, having a GT in a car’s name generally means that the car is comfortable to drive over long distances, and you will also be having fun while you are doing it. Let’s take a look at racing history to see where this naming convention came from.
What Does the GT Stand for? Grand Tourers or Gran Turismo
To look at it simply, the GT is an acronym that stands for Gran Turismo (if you are fancy or Italian) or Grand Tourer (for the rest of us). But what a car requires to fully earn the GT title is what’s really important. Back in the day when motorsport started taking off, race cars were simpler affairs that focused on speed, handling, and the connection between the car, the driver, and the road. Though nothing fully compares to these focused and stripped down cars, there is something to be said about at least a few amenities to make you experience behind the wheel a more comfortable one. As long distance and endurance racing racing became more popular, there a push to make cars that were fast, fun to drive, and wouldn’t fully compress a person’s spine every time they hit a bump. This is where the tradition of Grand Tourers first began.
Many of the Original Grand Tourers Were Italian, Of Course
The very first car to be called a GT was the 1929 Alfa Romeo 6C 1750 GT that was designed both with racing and ordinary driving in mind. After WWII was out of the way, a car often cited as the beginning of the GT trend was a Lancia. Introduced in 1951, the Lancia Aurelia B20 GT was one of the first production cars ever to have a V6 engine. But the car didn’t just stop at the engine. Lead designer Vittorio Jano ensured that both the interior and exterior of the Aurelia were comfortable and beautiful, and it quickly showed its value in motorsport by coming in second in the endurance-focused Mille Miglia in 1951—the year it debuted.
Not to be outdone, other illustrious Italians such as Enzo Ferrari and Johnny Lurani decided to pursue the concept of sports cars that were actually comfortable, and a niche was built in the car industry. In the post-war years it was mostly European companies that made the GT style cars, and yet it was was often the Americans who bought them. Celebrities were known to choose these luxurious and fast European styles because at the time, there wasn’t much on the American market that could compare for style, speed, and luxury.
Gran Turismo Means Style, Luxury, Comfort and Speed
Eventually, GT became a title for a car to indicate that it was fast, it was comfortable, and it was luxurious. It couldn’t be one or two of those things—it had to be all three. If you were to take a road trip through the Alps, you wanted a GT. It should hold you, your passenger, and some some luggage comfortably—and still be able to hit the hills and curves with style and assurance. And not only that, but you should actually enjoy the experience. It should be comfortable for the passenger and fun for the driver. It should hug the curves, be able to shoot down the straightaways, and not rattle your teeth when you hit a bump. The GT designation was made to show a car that was the best of all worlds.
The GT Tradition Continues, But Don’t Trust the Badge
Porsche still uses GT as an accurate descriptor with their cars, with GTS for Gran Turismo Sport indicating the highest performing version of a car available. (Though even the cheapest Porsche is still going to be first-class.) Back when fuel injectors were just beginning to replace carburetors GTi (Gran Turismo injector) was a sought after badge because fuel injection made the car that much faster and more responsive. Though a brand new VW Golf GTI is still fuel injected and certainly the type of car that can claim the GT designation, it’s a bit less of an exclusive badge these days. All cars with traditional engines now produced are fuel injected with nary a carburetor to be seen.
Unfortunately, the real meaning of the GT moniker has often been corrupted and lost over the years. It seems like many carmakers have decided that GT is something that sounds fancy and can be slapped on their very nice, but not terribly high performance car. When the average driver thinks of a luxurious high performance vehicle, they are unlikely to think of a Kia. Kia, with their K5 GT, however, thinks that you should. The comfortable yet boring Hyundai Elantra also had a “GT” version that sported a measly 161 hp. That alone makes it unsurprising that this false GT ultimately failed and was removed from the market.
If you are looking for the best that a car company has to offer, it’s not a bad idea to take a look at their GT range. But, ultimately, it’s also not a great idea to trust that a GT model is actually superior to anything else that is on the market. A grand tourer is exactly the type of car a discerning driver would appreciate, but do your research before you trust that tag.
