The '95 Grotti Cheetah: Rockstar's Most Documented GTA 6 Car

The '95 Grotti Cheetah is the most thoroughly documented vehicle in Grand Theft Auto VI, and it got that way because Rockstar had to sell it. It is Ultimate Edition content, which meant writing a product description - and that description contains more concrete vehicle information than every trailer combined.

What that sentence establishes

Grotti and the Ferrari lineage

Grotti has been Grand Theft Auto's Ferrari analogue since GTA III, and the Cheetah nameplate has appeared in the series since the original Vice City. A mid-nineties Cheetah in a Vice City game is therefore a double reference: to the manufacturer's own history in the series, and to the era the setting keeps gesturing at.

The design in the screenshots - pop-up headlamps, side strakes, a wedge profile, triple tail lights - reads as a Testarossa-era shape rather than a nineties one, which is consistent with how the series has always handled the marque.

Pegassi appears in the background

Rockstar's own alt text for the first Cheetah image says it is "parked in front of Pegassi" - naming a second manufacturer, and implying a physical dealership building in Vice City with that name on it.

That is a small detail with a real implication. Manufacturer showrooms have appeared in GTA before, and a named one in the background of a press shot is the closest thing to evidence that vehicle retail exists as a physical location in Leonida.

The interior frame is the useful one

One of the four published images is shot through the open driver's door, showing a red leather cabin, a three-spoke wheel and the dashboard. Interior detail at that resolution tells you something the exteriors do not.

• Modelled interiors at this fidelity are expensive, and studios build them when players will see them.
• It is consistent with a first-person or close-follow driving camera existing, though neither has been mentioned.
• Rockstar's Rideout Customs copy separately mentions 'detailed interiors' as something you can modify.
• GTA V's PC and current-gen releases had a first-person driving view. GTA VI's has never been discussed.

What is still unknown

• Whether the Cheetah is obtainable without the Ultimate Edition, in a different livery.
• What 'later-stage action' means in terms of when it becomes available.
• Whether Pegassi is an enterable dealership or a facade.
• Whether the car has performance characteristics that differ from a standard variant.
• How many vehicles are in the game in total.

Reading 'later-stage action'

Rockstar describes the Cheetah as "available to punctuate later-stage action", and that phrase is doing something no other edition item description does. It attaches a piece of bonus content to a point in the story.

The first reading matters most for buyers, and Rockstar's own edition copy supports it. The GTA VI site says Ultimate Edition bonuses are "threaded across all aspects of Jason and Lucia's story, with new items uncovered behind each chapter". So the package arrives progressively rather than all at once, and its practical value depends on how far into the game you get - which is not how most edition bonuses work.

The Cheetah's history in the series

This nameplate has more history than almost any vehicle in Grand Theft Auto, and its appearance in a Vice City game is deliberate.

Returning to the wedge silhouette for a Vice City game is a callback to the 2002 original rather than a continuation of GTA V's design. The model year and the styling are both pointed backwards.

What four images of one car tells you

Rockstar allocated four frames to a single vehicle - the same number it gave to most named supporting characters, and two-thirds of what it gave the entire Grassrivers region.

• A hero shot parked outside a named building at dusk.
• A three-quarter front with the pop-up headlamps raised.
• A rear detail showing tail lights, badging and the plate.
• An interior through the open driver's door.

That is a product photography set, shot the way a manufacturer photographs a car. It is the clearest indication in the entire press library that Rockstar expects vehicles to be looked at closely rather than simply driven.