Forza Horizon 5 is here and it looks like it’s going to be the most insane, most incredible, and most fun entry in the franchise yet! A giant playground where you can own your dream car garage, modify them to be uniquely yours, and then jump them all off a cliff or race a friggin’ hovercraft.
The last Horizon Festival featured something like 750 cars. Now, that’s thanks to a boat-load of DLC, so don’t expect the list for Horizon 5 to top that. But the changes made to the cars on release this year have a lot of really good surprises! So, I’m going to run through the list, talk about some of my favorite cars and what’s new, and see just how much it would cost you, in real life, to own every single car in this year’s Horizon Festival.
You’re going to want to stick around until the end because the total cost might just surprise you! First up, though, we made some predictions in the last video about what would be in Horizon 5.
Predictions – We Can See the Future
A lot of our predictions from our last video came true. Take that Nostradamus; Squidd’s crystal ball is working just fine. Now, we were wrong about some things, such as the fact that the Aspark Owl didn’t make it and there aren’t many new racecars. But we did point out that Rimac had a new, impressive hypercar, and that did make it in, along with some other new electrics. If that makes you mad, buy our Save the Pistons t-shirt so that other people can know how you feel.
I also wanted some Pike’s Peak representation in the game. And the automaker Sierra is confirmed to have at least their RX3 playable at launch. They’re a plucky little car company that basically makes cars designed for Forza Horizon, cars that are as good on-road as off in the mud.
The real cherry on top, though, after a bunch of drama and bad press releases, we get to see the return of Toyota at launch, so brace yourselves for the memes.
Toyota Returns – Is That a… Yes, Shut Up Now
There is about $1.25 million worth of Toyotas in Horizon 5, which makes them one of the cheapest brands in the game. But that doesn’t matter because they have a 2000GT. I know what you Zoomers are thinking, What is a 2000GT? Listen up, kids.
It’s pretty much the most beautiful car ever made. People say respect your elders; well, the 2000GT is like the great grandfather of all the JDM cars you love today. It’s got a Yamaha-designed engine and it proved that Japan could build a real sports car. The 2000GT, along with the Nissan 240Z, essentially birthed the whole JDM craze that got you guys voting for anything Japanese in my polls every day.
Other iconic, must-have Toyotas include the Mark IV Supra, the newer, less “Supra” new Supra, and a car I’m probably most excited about: the AE86. If you love the AE86 as I do, check out the video I made about its colorful history.
Along with Toyota, we get their premier luxury counterpart Lexus. Sadly, my old car, the GX470, isn’t in the game yet. And neither is the Honda Fit because no one’s dream car garage contains a subcompact hatchback with 84 horsepower. But I digress…
There will be an SC300 so we can all live out our cheap Supra fantasies. And, of course, to take advantage of the much improved sound, thankfully, there will be an LFA. I’m probably going to spend hours just driving around the LFA with my headphones set to “permanent hearing loss.”
So, we got Toyota. Yay! But, of course, we had to lose something. Sadly, yes, some surprising manufacturers are just gone.
Goodbye Friends – Maybe We’ll See You in the DLC
Volvo, for instance, was just chopped out, which, as a station wagon Stan, I’m a bit butt-hurt. Lancia seems to have gotten the axe, which is sad. I’m going to miss my Stratos for sure, but I’m hoping there will be a huge Group B DLC. Alfa Romeo and Abarth out of the running too it seems. I know there were some big disputes with some manufacturers. Famously, Toyota was on the fence for a long time, but they came around.
I also know that we don’t have the final list. The final list probably won’t really exist until a few weeks after launch when they patch in the broken cars and the last few packs. So, don’t take this as the final word.
Also notably absent and for sure driving the total price down are a ton of the little boutique one-off supercars.
Mainstream Only – I Liked Them Before They Were Cool
I’m like 90% sure we’ll see all the weird stuff trickle in over time. But, at launch, some of the most expensive cars in Forza Horizon 4 are absent from Horizon 5. One-off cars like the Bowler EXR and the Ascari A10 are nowhere to be found. Crazy builds like the Eagle Speedster are absent. And even some lesser-known exotics like Donkervoort are off the list. There are a few boutique cars to replace them, such as the RAESR Tachyon Speed, which made its debut in Horizon 4 only recently in a monthly car pack. And that’s what leads me to believe that those cars are going to trickle in.
Horizon games are always living, changing, evolving. They add cars every month. There’s DLC, there are updates for years. So, I assume most will come back. What’s perhaps a bit more worrisome is that a lot of the classic cars that were worth big money are gone. For instance, the world’s most expensive Ferrari, the 250 GTO, is nowhere to be seen. The $7 million Cobra Daytona didn’t make the cut and neither did the $42 million Mercedes 300SLR.
So, we lost the top two most expensive vehicles. What does that leave? What’s the new king of the price pyramid?
It’s Still Old Ferraris – They Aren’t Even That Fast
Welp, to no one’s surprise, it’s still a bunch of old cars, mostly old Ferraris. While the $48 million 1962 didn’t make the cut, the still very impressive $40 million 1957 Ferrari 250 Testarossa did, taking the number one spot.
Filling out the podium, we have the Car Trek favorite McLaren F1, which is widely considered to be the first hypercar and therefore absolutely deserves its $27 million price tag. New to the podium in the number three spot is a 1956 Jaguar D-Type, since one recently sold for $23 million. That’s a huge amount of money for something that had a Lucas electronic system. Do classic sports cars come with warranties?
The more interesting change, in my opinion, came in at the bottom of the list. With the inclusion of some old Hondas, an obscure Ford, and a boat, your option for cars under $10,000 expanded significantly.
“Ideal” Cars – Under 10 Club
There are even some cars we recommend all the time, such as the Lexus SC300, also known as Toyota Soarer, a 2JZ-powered car that served as the base platform for the Mark IV Supra, and a first-generation Toyota MR2. Just watch out for the snap oversteer. I imagine the assists will be working extra hard on that one.
Rounding out the coolest stuff under $10,000, we have the Mitsubishi Starion, an early attempt by Mitsubishi to make a Supra competitor. We also have the never-not-cool Honda Prelude Si, which is a car we just never really talk about, which is a shame. They are really good cars.
At the very bottom of the price tower, we have a three-way tie. Last time around the Reliant Supervan III could be found for under $3,000. Now? Well, the Reliant is still there, but they’ve gone up in price, so expect to pay $5,000 if you want a good one. That puts in the same class as the aforementioned Prelude, though I suspect not for long. People are rediscovering them right now.
And the new to the scene is the 1996 Chevy Impala Super Sport. I’m going to be honest, I pretty much completely forgot about the mid-90s Chevy sedans. But the Capris and the Impala SS are pretty much the last muscle cars before the Mopar revival in the 2000s. They’re giant, comfortable cars powered by a massive LS V8 and geared to lay down elevens.
Which cheap car would you choose? Actually, which cheap car do you own that you wish was in Horizon? Or which car are you going to immediately purchase in-game just for fun? Let me know in the comments. So, without the boutique one-offs or the super expensive classics, where does that leave us?
The Final Verdict – Are You Sitting Down?
In our last video about Horizon 4, we pointed out that there are real-world collections that are as expensive, or more expensive, than the entire Forza collection if you were to purchase all the cars. Notably, Ralph Lauren, the Prince of Monaco, and the Sultan of Brunei all have car collections that are on par with any Forza collection. And they’d easily be able to afford the Forza Horizon 5 collection.
I find that’s not a very good way of thinking about it, though, because those collections are unfathomable. Instead, picture this: the Gosford Classic Car Museum is the biggest private collection in Australia and it’s owned by an eclectic weirdo named Tony Denny. Tony loves two things more than anything else: communist cars and Ferraris. With more than 35 of the most iconic Ferraris ever built and 25 Soviet cars that are probably all worth less combined than a single cheap Ferrari, his 450-car collection is valued at $70 million.
You would need to quintuple his collection to equal the cost of the cars in Forza Horizon 5. I’m talking about at least 160 Ferraris of the same quality and 125 communist rides. What’s the damage? $362,375,885. Start counting your pennies now. Now, as I said, I don’t think that we have a list of all the cars quite yet. They always hold some for the final launch. Plus, there are some DLC cars I really want.
Future DLC – More Mazdas! More Nissans!
See, there are two big features that are making waves if the rumors are to be believed. And those are better customization and way better car sounds. That has me excited because I could rebuild my favorite car in-game and rip around in a 240SX just like the old times. And, hopefully, it would sound just like it too!
With that said, it’d be cool to see a ton more economy cars. Give us base Civics, old shit-box Neons, and clapped-out Subaru Wagons. Let us old farts relive our glory days. And give us the Need for Speed Underground remake we were all denied.
Also, since the sounds are way better, in theory, give us a touring car pack. Let us race the Mazda 787B against the C5 Corvette and make the Le Mans we were denied due to regulation changes. I bet people would just spend hours recording cars like that driving around and release them as, like, gearhead ASMR. In fact, I would do that.
Let me know if you’d watch. Now, I’ve got Horizon 5 preloaded and I’m going to hit the streets as soon as it launches.
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