FH5, Acceleration Car Pack

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I got the update for FH5 this morning, but had to leave my laptop going because I needed to head off. [Feel free to skip the next bit.] Came home at lunchtime. Thought it was a good idea to reboot the laptop. Restarted the xbox app. There was the new car pack listed on the FH5 page. Unusual. The new car packs normally appear in the game first and only get listed later in the xbox app. I tried to buy said car pack, but kept getting an error message. I ran the game and tried to buy the car pack, but was thwarted again. When I tried to do the daily, the inputs from my keyboard were all haywire because the machine had switched to Chinese without asking me first. I rebooted the laptop again, but still the language bar was in Chinese. That made me suspect there was an update for W11, and I was right.

Got home, restarted the laptop, and… No, no car pack for you. Took a guess that I needed to run my VPN and was right. W11 seems be doing a Clippy. “I see you’re in a highly censorious dictatorship. You must want to share in their blinkered, paranoid worldview.” What sodding genius at Microsoft thought this was a good idea?

Anyway, onto the Acceleration Car Pack. A brief review of the contents.

The Ford Supervan 4 is S2 953, 1,878hp, 1,989kg, front 56%. Tuning is 8/9. max speed after adjusting the gears, 411.3kmh. The car has a 200% XP bonus, speed skills, and a 2x skills multiplier. Limited range of upgrades. It has AWD and Drift modes. The latter makes the car undriveable without further tuning unless you like spinning round in circles. In spite of the combination of weight and speed, it was surprisingly manoeuvrable. Two gears. Don’t know how to tune them. If 50 ~ 50, 2nd is very long.

The Ginetta G10 RM is A769, 450hp, 950kg, front 51%. Tuning 4/9 (see me after class). Nothing interesting in the car mastery section. Bicycle tyres stock, feels floaty, and has very sensitive acceleration. I installed handling upgrades (semi-slick tyres to begin with), but left it RWD. The back end was constantly trying to step out, and even slick tyres and aero didn’t help. Switched to AWD, but that made things a little less bad. Raced round Tierra Próspera, but won by a fairly narrow margin, and most of the time the drivatars were visible on the mini map. Could be a tuning issue. The ride height is oddly high (22.5cm) and can only be lowered by 5cm. Would this car make a better dirt racer?

The McLaren Sabre is S1 887 (lower than I expected), 824hp, 1,478kg, front 41%. Tuning is 6/9. The car masteries include an SWS as well as a drag racing bonus. Huh? No engine swaps, and the wing is a lip added to the existing wing. Phew! Limited range of engine upgrades. Needs a gearbox, but is otherwise not too bad to drive stock.

The 1967 Shelby GT 500 is C577, 355hp, 1,721kg, front 56%. Tuning 1/9 (detention; not good enough). Has car masteries for dirt and drag racing, but otherwise nothing of any real interest. Needs a new gearbox, and the gear change animation is a bit silly.

Yes? No? Maybe? I’m inclining to Yes. I prefer the Supervan 3 to this podgy EV barge; the retro-style Ginetta is a puzzle at the moment; the Sabre seems all right; the GT 500 is fine if you like old bangers.

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