Red Bull X2014, Tesla concept unveiled as latest Gran Turismo 6 race cars

Racing video games work best as a form of wish fulfillment; yes, if you get good enough at Gran Turismo, you can compete in the ever-tougher reality of actual race car driving. But who wants to put up with sponsors and the stress of competing? Who wants to put up with rules and physics at all — when you can drive a road-bound spaceship from your couch, designed by the same geniuses who win Formula 1?

Unveiled at the official launch of the Gran Turismo 6 game today, the Red Bull X2014 arrives as an update to the Red Bull X2010, penned in part by Red Bull Racing chief designer Adrian Newey as an exercise in what might be possible if a race team had no rules on its creativity or budget. (In the game world, the X2011 version lapped the Nürburgring nearly twice as fast as the real-world Porsche 918 Spyder.)

In the new GT6, the game will offer three versions of the X2014, including a "junior" edition, and at this point the X2014 looks beyond what's possible on this planet with human drivers. Along with the Red Bull cars, GT chief Kazunori Yamauchi also revealed a few sketches of future entries in the series Vision Gran Turismo sideline for car designers — with entries from Nike, General Motors, Subaru and even Tesla, whose sketch bears a strong resemblance to the McLaren F1, a car Tesla chief Elon Musk has some experience with.