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Eight of the most iconic cars from the Grand Theft Auto games

Well, since we have a bit of time until GTA 6 arrives…

Grand Theft Auto
  • Grand Theft Auto

    The clue’s always been in the title. Without the autos, gaming’s grandest theft simulator would be a tediously pedestrian crime endeavour. Imagine jogging six blocks to go and rough up some Cartel members and then legging it home again - unthinkable. The sprees of mindless destruction and Scorsese-grade criminal underworld narratives are vital parts of GTA’s winning, industry-dominating formula, but deep down it’s always been about the cars.

    While Rockstar Games is deep into the painstaking process of assembling GTA 6 pixel by pixel, the studio allows us a chance to reflect back on a legacy of fictional automobiles. We’ve all done wicked, unspeakable things in these cars, but let’s not judge, or look too closely under the wheel arches. Let’s just enjoy the cars that made gaming’s biggest series what it is today.

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  • Grand Theft Auto (1997) - Cossie

    Grand Theft Auto (1997) - Cossie

    Some of the vehicles that featured in these early forays from DMA Design became constants which survived numerous transitions between console generations. The Cossie is not one of them.

    You’ll only find this barely disguised nod to the Ford Escort RS Cosworth in the original top-down crime caper, but that only adds to its allure. As soon as Rockstar took the helm, GTA’s voice would become staunchly American English, but there’s something about including a sporty hatchback with bonnet vents that feels so brilliantly British. The Cossie speaks to the game’s origins, in a tiny studio space above a fish and chip shop in Dundee. It’s a visiting ambassador of hot hatch culture, in a world of hot rods and yellow cabs.

    Goes like an absolute bullet, too. It’s not the quickest car in the game – it’s easily outpaced on in a straight line by the Counthash, another vehicle that can just barely be bothered to obscure its real-world inspiration – but somehow, it’s simply the coolest.

  • GTA II (1999) - Stinger

    GTA II (1999) - Stinger

    We’re using the oft-forgotten top-down sequel as a vessel for celebrating the Stinger, but in truth this car’s just as much a constant in the entire GTA series as cop chases, shock jock DJs and moral outrages in the tabloids.

    Making its debut in ‘97, the Stinger re-appeared in GTA II with lines that seemed to be inspired by a Chevrolet Corvette Stingray. Over the years it’d see more makeovers than Gok Wan, transforming into a Ferrari 365 GTB4 Daytona for Vice City and taking on more of a Dino aspect by numbers IV and V. What’s always been true of the Stinger, though, is that it’ll get you clear of a three-star police chase if you treat it right, and can be found in improbable quantities among the everyday traffic of Liberty City et al.

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  • GTA III (2001) - Mafia Sentinel

    GTA III (2001) - Mafia Sentinel

    Every gamer of a certain age had one of these permanently stashed in their garage in GTA III. Say what you like about the organised crime network of Liberty City, but they know how to customise a family saloon.

    Star of the Leone storyline which sees you chauffeuring a maniacal and completely legitimate businessman around town, it’s an ideal combination of nippy and sturdy against incoming gunfire. The latter not being something we generally factor into our critical thinking, admittedly.

    The blackout look and menacing front radiator grille seal the deal. There are quicker, more exotic models out there on the streets, but the Sentinel is the petty criminal’s workhorse.

  • GTA Vice City (2002) - Infernus

    GTA Vice City (2002) - Infernus

    It’s between this one and the Cheetah, truthfully. Either of them are worthy emblems of what Vice City was about. This was one of the medium’s first moments to show its capacity for walk-in pastiche, building a heightened and absurdist caricature of ‘80s culture, where Don Johnson and Tony Montana are the be-all and end-all of masculine existence, and where every car that passes you is either a Countach or a Testarossa. Sorry, we mean an Infernus or a Cheetah.

    Why does the former edge it? Possibly because the Cheetah’s evolved form in GTA V is so easy on the eye. Maybe it’s because the angular, trapezoid lines of Vice City’s not-Lamborghini seem so at home on the driveway of Tommy Vercetti’s estate. And honestly, we had to make a decision because we were starting to deliberate including the scooter in this entry.

  • GTA San Andreas (2004) - the green Sabre

    GTA San Andreas (2004) - the green Sabre

    San Andreas was a tale about West coast gangs, steeped in ‘90s hip hop culture, so it makes sense that the vehicles which come most readily to mind from it are of the lowrider variety.

    The infamous Sabre, though, in a Grove St green wrap, is the game’s prevailing icon. It’s central to the narrative’s most biting moment, when you realise Big Smoke doesn’t have your back after all, and is in fact selling you out to become the king pin of the whole county. And having heard the man’s takeaway order, this all-or-nothing approach to power certainly tracks.

    Does it drive nicely? Not really. The Sabres of San Andreas navigate turns like a washing machine and lose traction if you exhale too sharply or turn the air conditioning on. Their top speed doesn’t feel all that different to spamming the sprint button on a BMX. And yet here it is. If San Andreas taught us anything, it’s that life’s not fair.

  • GTA IV (2008) - Roman’s Albany Esperanto

    GTA IV (2008) - Roman’s Albany Esperanto

    My cousin! Welcome to America! Land of opportunity. Now let’s seize those opportunities by driving endlessly between my apartment and various bowling alleys and bars in this bang average hatchback.

    Roman’s Esperanto taxi is a cunning narrative device in itself. He promised you, his cousin Nico, that he was living the life out here in Liberty City, and yet when you arrive you find Roman’s living a rather more prosaic life. Absent of fame, fortune and a supermodel entourage, he’s working long shifts as an illegal cabbie before crashing in an apartment that even a student would want to crack a window in and give it a quick Febreeze.

    Rockstar’s got a knack for telling its stories like this. Not just grabbing you by the hand and having its NPCs talk you through hours of plotting, but showing you what life’s like here through elements like their clothing, the incidental conversations they have, the places they live. The car they drive.

    What’s that now? The handling? It’s fine.

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  • GTA V (2012) - Grotti Cheetah

    GTA V (2012) - Grotti Cheetah

    It’s the return of the Cheetah, the car that nearly won the nod in Vice City. Its lines once resembled a Testarossa, squared off at neat angles at the front and sporting shark’s gill-like strakes doors with air intakes mimicking the transcendent Ferrari. But by the time of GTA V’s arrival, the Cheetah had gone all LaFerrari.

    Supercars are an oddly common sight in Blaine County, but there’s a different prickle of excitement to seeing a Cheetah on the street. It speaks to the series’ long history and reveals how far not just the games, but the medium, have come. Once it was enough to chuck in a 2D sprite that looked like a Micro Machine version of the Modena factory’s output. Now there’s a whole backstory to the in-universe manufacturer Grotti. You see their ads on billboards and on your phone. You can have one delivered to your house and then customise everything from the horn sound to the window tint. How far we’ve come.

  • GTA VI (2025) - Banshee

    GTA VI (2025) - Banshee

    Finally, let’s use the upcoming GTA VI to celebrate arguably the series’ most recognisable vehicle of all: it’s screamed along highways since 2002, the bane of every traffic cop ever to be called out to the scene of a reported bazooka spree. It’s available in ready supply on every highway. It looks like the product of an indiscrete encounter between a Dodge Viper and a Fiat Barchetta, and it’s already been spotted in the GTA VI trailer. 

    It’s been the whip of choice for characters such as GTA III’s Miguel, who owned a unique grey variant, and wanted crime boss Shon Kikuchi in IV. Perhaps it’s the sweet spot along the axis of performance and ruggedness, fast enough to get a job done and then flee before the wanted rating creeps up into deadly four-star territory, but not so special that you’re overly worried about scuffing the Alcantara while you launch its previous owner out of the bucket seat.

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