The original Opal GT was a quirky piece of design. When it was presented at the 1965 Frankfurt Motor Show it was the manifestation of a real tangent for a European company.

There were low front-end with pop-up headlights, flared arches at the front, a pinched middle section and bulbous arches to the aft — just like its American cousin the Corvette, of course.

Over 100,000 GTs were produced between 1968 and 1973 — when in the UK the Vanden Plas Allegro was the height of domestic sophistication.

The GT/W Geneve was a one-off experiment, a pretty fastback which was specially constructed for Opel’s stand at the 1975 Geneva salon; and would have spotlighted rotary engined aspirations for the German company. It appeals to us for that lovely Joe 90–ish futurism. The extreme rake of the rear three-quarters makes is sight, and the inspired wires and gold flake job sets it off perfectly.

Pity it never made it out to the roads…

We’re always amazed, here at Influx towers, how creative photography can tease out unexpected perspectives for cars that we believe we know intimately.

Take the shot of the GT40 MK 11, for example, taken by the very talented Boyd Jaynes.

We never realised that the ultimate fast Ford could be rendered with so much sensitivity: and that despite its fabled speed, power and GT dominnce, that the car could look so pretty from the rear three quarters.

It seems that Caroll Shelby new a thing or two about design as well as engineering.

And if there was a purely beautiful bit of Shelby engineered racing loveliness, it had to be the Shelby Daytona (below). The Daytona was based upon the AC Cobra’s chassis, but featured an incredibly pretty and slippery looking body that took it to a number of GT class wins in the mid-to-late-sixties.

There’s something about the American attack on European GT racing at the end of the sixties that was brash, heroic and worth delving deep into the archive for…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Whichever way the Ford GT has been copied, replica-ed, reproduced, slathered over, argued about, loved, fetishised and lionised, it remains one of the most intriguing sports cars ever produced.

It’s one of the those designs that seems to morph according to angle, light and graphic. But everything about it screams stripped-down menace and North American speed.

And here’s Mr Shelby himself adding his own perspective on the legend. You can’t help but dig the brawny Texan’s accent and his simple, straightforward competitiveness, especially against ‘those red Ferraris’.

Makes me want to go out and buy a Cosworth Sierra to plug in to that burly Ford tradition.

Citroen came to London last week to show off their GT concept which had been designed for the new Grand Turismo ‘street circuit’ featured in Gran Turismo 5 – the new PLAYSTATION 3 driving game.

The virtual-turned-reality supercar ‘swapped pixels for Piccadilly’ as put lovingly by the Citroen Press Office, as it swept through the world famous circus, toured Regent Street, rounded Trafalgar Square and cruised down the Mall past Buckingham Palace.

The result of a partnership between Citroën and Sony Computer Entertainment, the GT by CITROËN concept measures nearly five metres long and just over a metre high with a wire-frame design featuring rear air-diffuser, horizontal LED headlamps, gull wing doors and diamond-effect 21s.

The cabin offers “a refined racing experience” with copper, steel and black leather finishes combined with hi-tech racing controls.

Now, according to reports in the mainstream motoring press Citroen has decided to put the GT supercar concept into limited production.

The project was believed to have been given the green light last week by the company’s product boss Vincent Besson. Only six Citroen GTs will be made, and rumour has it that the car will cost around £1.1 million pounds.

Virtual reality has begun to play more and more into the hands of the real-time engineers of existence.

Shame the stratospheric price tag makes it about as likely that you will drive the GT as you will upload yourself into the Playstation and win Gran Turismo in a 512 BB.