In 2008, the Nissan brand launched a project called GT Academy. It was an annual program that prepared the best players of the video game Gran Turismo to make the leap to professional driving in the real world. At that point, the game developed for the Playstation in 1997 by Kazunori Yamauchi (Kashiwa, Japan, 56 years old) was already a phenomenon, having sold more than 80 million copies. Its hyper-realistic approach, both in the design and performance of the vehicles and in the extremely sophisticated reproductions of the race tracks they competed on, made you think that if a child in their living room dutifully spun a pixelated Porsche at full speed at the Nürburgring, they could also be with a real car. It was a success in the years it lasted until it disappeared in 2016 due to overbooking of aspiring pilots. The first winner of the GT Academy, Lucas Ordóñez from Madrid, made the leap into professional competition and took second place at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Eight years later, the relationship between the real and virtual world has changed significantly. E-sports are already a global, professionalized and attractive phenomenon for brands looking for new sponsorship opportunities and creative collaborations. And above all, the virtual world is no longer so much version B of the real world, but rather a consolidated space with its own peculiarity. All this will become more than clear during the Gran Turismo World Series, which will take place in Barcelona from December 1st to 3rd and in which we will take part with the help of Bulgari, a company owned by LVMH. The event, where all tickets have been sold, is the venue chosen by the century-old brand to showcase its Aluminum ).
A scene from the GT World Series finale in Barcelona. Vicens Gimenez
The watch is a tribute to speed and features a tachymeter. It is powered by the automatic caliber B381 with chronograph. In addition, anyone who pays the 5,200 euros that the device costs will have the opportunity to unlock an exclusive car in the GT7, which bears the same name as the chronograph and whose design is inspired by the Italian sports prototypes of the late 20th century and their aesthetics is codes of the same watch that Yamauchi took part in.
The Japanese is a key figure in the development of the universe of video games, but also of enormous importance in the automotive industry and even in tourism promotion, as evidenced by the fact that the city of Ronda, in Málaga, thanked him for incorporating its streets in the GT6 one Name a walk in the city with your name. And now also relevant in the luxury business. When this last point is mentioned to him on the morning of the competition final, he smiles. “All these years we have collaborated with the industry, we have common users, we have developed together. GT is educational and the industry knows that. We all learn together,” says the motor freak, who even took part as a racing driver in the 24 Hours of the Nürburgring, perhaps the most dangerous race track in the world. “When I was three years old, I could name all the cars that drove past my house,” he remembers.
The Fira area was divided into two parts. At the entrance there is a large exhibition room with vehicle models between fascination and bizarreness in the context of Gran Turismo. There are also a few dozen simulators where participants play GT7. It is primarily parents who take over the available flyers with their prepubescent children. It seems that before teaching them to ride a bike, they showed them how to drive a GT. “If you want to see a lot of women playing, you have to go to the Middle East,” Yamauchi says.
The prototype was exhibited in front of the stands of Hall 2 of the Fira de Barcelona.Vicens Gimenez
“I have spent many hours of my life at full speed in GT,” says Fabrizio Buonamassa (Naples, 52 years old), managing director of product development at Bulgari and the driving force behind this alliance between the transalpine house and GT. The official story tells of Buonamassa and Yamauchi's fascination with automobile designer Fabio Filippini's book Curve, an ode to aerodynamics that exudes passion for the beauty of the car. It was Filippini himself who made the contact and today he came to the presentation in Barcelona. He wanders around the room with Buonamassa. They stop together in front of several of the models on display. When Filippini disappears, Buonamassa is sitting in a simulator playing a game of GT. His face lights up.
Meanwhile, backstage, the riders from the 12 countries who will take part in the final (three riders per team) sit on sofas. There are cans of energy drinks and bags of snacks on the tables. In the background a single ham and a dejected tailor. All my life I've gone to luxury brand events and almost had to use force to get a piece of ham, and today instead… “Take a piece, please,” the lone tailor tells us. “I can't leave until it's over,” he concludes, as the loudspeaker announces that the Bulgari car will be unveiled.
The participants of the final of the GT World Series play in one of the simulators.Vicens Gimenez
The brand has created a reproduction of the actual size of the vehicle, which is unlocked when purchasing the watch. It is covered with a tarpaulin and is located in the middle of the room where the competition will take place, at the foot of the stands. The audience goes crazy when the tarp is lifted and the car is visible. They also go crazy when the Spanish team, the favorites and eventual winners, show up, and many of them even stand up in complete patriotic catharsis when the Spanish anthem plays.
When the GT Academy ended, Coque López (Villena, 24 years old) had just given up his career as a motorcycle racer. To satisfy his thirst for adrenaline, he began competing two years later when the GT World Series was born. Contrary to what was proposed at the academy, he went from the real world to the virtual world.
Yamauchi after unveiling the car he co-designed with Bulgari. Vicens Gimenez
On December 3, he won the World Series for the second year in a row. “It's not the same, but I like it a lot. And well, I can't hurt myself here, so my mother is calmer.” López lives from it, but doesn't rule out the possibility that he'll be able to drive on asphalt again in the near future if he gets a sponsor. He is a veteran and already used to the presence of brands like Bulgari in a world, that of esports, which reached a business volume of almost 1.4 billion dollars in 2022. “I did a video for Dior and last year I was at Bulgari. They gave me a watch. “I looked for it in the store in Madrid.”
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