Looking for good tunes for the Vintage Racing Icons series

So I hope this is the right place to post this. I am trying to decide which of the cars to buy for the Vintage Racing Icons series, I have test drove them all in stock form and I own the Birdcage but don’t really care for its handling characteristics.

So here is some info that might help you help me:

I use a controller with ABS off, Normal steering, STM off for 90% of the cars I drive, TCS on for the vehicles that obviously need it and right now I am using Automatic shifting. I race with Drivatar Difficulty set to Pro. I tend to like to outbreak entering, release and glide through the apex, then power out.

So far I Like the '62 250 GTO, running a high rpm and cornering with a more even rpm, sorta gliding through the whole corner. This car was the one out of all of them that felt easiest to hop in stock and run decent laps and have reasonable control for maneuvering around opponents or recovering from bumps or missing the ideal line.

The next one I like is the '65 Cobra Daytona Coupe, this car handles stock closest to the way I enjoy driving and I am leaning this way as it felt fastest to me overall. I found this one best at engine breaking going into turns and then powering through and out of them, handling allowed me to shoot through the tight turns near the end of the longest Alpine course, the others did not handle those near as well as I like. I do think that the handling could use some tightening up so passing and changing lines mid corner is less squirrely.

I know that aside from the GT MkII, they all have decent room for upgrades (B600) and tuning. So thats the part I don’t know and being as these are all significant purchases and I just found out we can’t sell cars ( Seriously T10? ) I want to make an informed decision.

Feel free to ask any questions that might help clarify my needs or preferences. I would like some input and maybe some suggested tunes for whichever car you think would better suit me. Also if one of these is outclassing the field I would like to know that also.

Thanks in advance and happy racing!

Well I guess maybe I asked for too much ? :-/

lol you haven’t asked for too much, just pretty specific information. I don’t personally have the three cars mentioned, and I suspect I’m not alone. Hopefully some Daddy Warbucks type will chime in. In the meantime, my suggestion would be the obvious one - go with the car you would most like to have in your garage going forward.

I’ve raced that series and it was for me a hard decision between the Ferrari 250 GTO or the Shelby cobra 427 s/c,Personally i would choose either of these and forget the rest,I cant really help you much with the car setup other than suggesting looking for a build on the setup manager,Names to search for are *Tuned by worm" or “TG Takumi” for a B600 tune on the Ferrari or for the shelby “Tuned by worm” “gtFOOTw” or again “TG Takumi”.If you want more track specific setups then a bit of research and digging will be required.

Another option would be to just ask for help on a specfic car/class and track in this forum,it may take a few hours for a reply but people on here are generally helpful and willing to help but i think you have to be just a little more specific in what you want.

Anyway hope this helps and good luck.

Thanks for the replies you two. I decided to go ahead and get the '65 Cobra Daytona Coupe, I am currently running it with a tune by GT IamHONEYBADGER (great GT btw) and I am enjoying it. It does change the way the car drives significantly from the stock version by tightening it up into more of a point a launch rocket and less of a floater in the turns. I also have a tune for it by GT Clay in LA that has a bit better acceleration and braking at the cost of top speed.

I would recommend either tune as a good place to start if you are looking to run this car.

Happy Racing !

I just started racing this series this weekend, and I’m with Red Stag, I concentrated on the two best that I liked after some test drives;

Ferrari 250 GTO
Shelby Cobra 427 SC

Both cars handle and accelerate pretty well, which is the biggest difference between the two. One thing I noticed that made a big difference was to take off the front aero on both of them, and increase the front tires instead. After that, it’s a matter of personal taste.

If I remember correctly, for class B (PI 600);

Ferrari 250 GTO:
Speed: 6.5
Handling: 5.3
Acceleration: 8.2
Launch: 7.9
Braking: 5.5

Shelby Cobra 427 SC:
Speed: 6.5
Handling: 5.1
Acceleration: 8.5
Launch: 8.2
Braking: 5.3

Again, that is off the top of my head, I know the SHA values for both are correct for sure. If you want to check out the tunes to see if you like driving them, I’ll make them available when I go home for lunch today. Just look up my GT (Geministorm2).

The Cobra seemed to really struggle at Yas Marina, as it couldn’t keep up in the straights with the drivatars, but on Laguna Seca, it came within 0.5 of my PB, so it was a champ. The only thing I’d comment about the Cobra is that I found more success when I’d Heel-Toe the downshift (to prevent weight transfer unbalancing the car) so that I could exit and accelerate cleanly, otherwise I’d often have to come out of the corner a little timid to prevent the car moving around a bit, this kind of thing can be tuned out with a little more effort and once the wheels warmed up (which they won’t on most of those 2 & 3 lap races) the problems went away as well.

The 250 GTO also had some issues with top end speed on the speed tracks, and its gearbox doesn’t like to spend time outside of 3rd gear (have the final set as 4.15 presently), but I’m going to work a bit more on that. I don’t want to upgrade to the Race tranny, but it might be necessary if I can’t get the progression of gears I want for those tracks.

Both drive nicely, and they have distinct engine sounds (the Cobra has that big American robust engine growl, while the Ferrari has the prototypical high RPM trill), so I’d be happy with either. I bought both, so I use whichever one tickles my fancy. The 250 GTO is showing up as a LB car for a couple of tracks, so that one might be the better long term investment if you’re strapped for credits.

Shelby Cobra 427 S/C

Got a few dings, but still drives like she was new…

I absolutely adore the 250 GTO, probably my favorite car in the game. I’ve tried a few tunes by the local tuners here but found the tunes were all geared towards handling rather than acceleration in B class so I ended up tuning it myself for higher acceleration. It does much better on the straights now and still handles like its on rails. It’s pretty much my B class car now as all of my rival times are set in it. If you’re interested it’s posted under my gamertag.