The Grand Theft Auto franchise has a history of reusing the same fictional, unlicensed vehicles. Will GTA 6 finally be the game to buck the trend and use real cars for the first time?
Rockstar Games is unbelievably meticulous with game production—especially GTA. That’s why players are treated to a whole host of vehicles stretching across all variants from boats to bikes. But one thing that GTA doesn’t use is real car manufacturers like Ferrari or Porsche.
Instead, as we saw with GTA 5, Rockstar provides near-flawless imitations unmistakable to the human eye, only without certified branding. GTA 6 returns to the glitz and glamor of the Vice City setting, and we’re taking a look at the city’s cars, and whether or not they’re real.
Does GTA 6 have real cars?
Judging from the first GTA 6 trailer, it would be a safe assumption that Rockstar Games is once again not using real cars in GTA 6.
This is subjective of course, but in my opinion, if the vehicles we see in the trailer were real, then the development team would be making a big deal out of this. I would hazard a guess that the trailer would feature umpteen close-ups of manufacturer logos stamped on the front of cars—which it does not.
Even just using the human eye for example, at 0:32 in the “GTA 6 (Grand Theft Auto VI) Official Reveal Trailer,” you can quite clearly see a license plate with the following on it: “Ch33tah.”
If you’ve dabbled in a GTA game before, then you’ll know that the Cheetah is a supercar that’s existed since GTA 3, and is a Rockstar creation.
Why doesn’t GTA use real cars?
Using common sense, the reason why Grand Theft Auto, and likely GTA 6, don’t use real cars is because it would be very expensive.
Think about this, do you think Mercedes or Lamborghini want their multi-million dollar vehicular beasts to be blown up by rocket launchers? Or have them run over prostitutes and be involved in murders and bank heists? Probably not.
So, to make this even a remote possibility, Rockstar would likely have to stump up an astronomical sum of money. Instead, they settle for pretty accurate depictions of the world’s most famous supercars for the GTA 6 protagonists to ride around in.