What’s a GT, Anyway? Four Different Takes on the Grand Touring Philosophy (Automobile Magazine)
At our 2020 All-Stars competition, we sampled GTs from Bentley, Ford, McLaren, and Mercedes-AMG.
As the fleshed-out concept of what would become known as the Grand Tourer — a sports car designed to go long distances at high speeds, blending performance, comfort, and style — emerged out of Europe in the early '50s, little did anyone know at the time how ubiquitous (and bastardized) the GT moniker would become. Absolutely no one is confusing legends like the Mercedes 300SL and Jaguar XK120, cars that epitomized the early GT form, with the likes of today's Hyundai Elantra GT, for example.
In recent years, slapping a GT badge on a car has become something of a marketing exercise, a way for automakers to say their car is "Sporty." Indeed, at our 2020 All-Stars competition, it struck us that no fewer than four cars, the Bentley Continental GT, Ford Shelby Mustang GT500, McLaren GT, and Mercedes-AMG GT 63 S, had GT as a key part of their naming strategy. So it prompted us to take a closer look at which of our 2020 All-Stars GT cars comes closest to matching the original intent of the grand touring ethos.
