Gran Turismo Concept 2001 Tokyo

Concept cars are almost always just display models: never to be mass-produced, never to be driven by the general public. As most car junkies will tell you, that just sucks. But Kazunori Yamauchi and his development group Polyphony Digital have had enough.

Concept Tokyo is the first in what will hopefully be a series of Gran Turismo spinoffs. It's basically a stripped-down GT3--you won't find any simulation mode here--and only consists of around 50 cars as opposed to the couple hundred you'd normally find in this series. The catch is that most of said 50 cars are concept vehicles or entirely new designs of existing models. Considering most of them will never be released anywhere, let alone North America, their inclusion immediately makes this game worth importing for car nuts everywhere.

Concept also reveals a few things that Polyphony probably meant to get into G7j but couldn't. Replays now feature a zoom command, plus a lot of dramatic, panning shots. Old-school Gran Turismo fans will also be happy to know that the classic Autumn Ring track from the first two games in the series makes its PS2 debut on Concept Tokyo.

The bad news is that Sony told us there's no way this game is coming to the U.S. Take heart, however, as they won't deny the possibility of future installments--maybe manufacturer-specific versions--hitting our shores sooner or later.