What Does The GT In A Car's Name Mean?

With hundreds of car models gracing the streets, it's unsurprising that carmakers need to find ways to differentiate themselves. To do this, they sometimes add special terms to signal certain values. One common abbreviation you'll find on high-performing luxury vehicles is the letters "GT." But what does GT mean?

The term "GT" means "Grand Touring," or in its original Italian, "Gran Turismo." Although we don't know who first coined it, the term "Grand Tour" has roots in an aristocratic tradition, according to England's Royal Museums Greenwich. A rite of passage among elite young men in the 18th century, the Grand Tour consisted of traveling through Europe and stopping at major cities as part of a cultural education. Hundreds of years later, while the real meaning of the term has been lost, the essence of wanting to be well-traveled and worldly remains.

For cars, the term "GT" was first used by Alfa Romeo almost a century ago with its 1930 Alfa Romeo 6C 1750 Gran Turismo, signifying a difference between the GT and Alfa Romeo's sportier lineup. Since then, GT models are meant to be cars that blend performance and all the comforts necessary for long-distance driving, such as space, comfort, and storage. 

That said, this isn't necessarily what GT means today. After all, language is a living thing, and meanings evolve with time. So what else does GT stand for?

In the past, we've talked about what makes GT models different from sports cars. However, the reality is that the lines between them are no longer as straightforward as they once were. For example, Ford named the iconic race car it used to beat Ferrari in the 1966 Le Mans road race the GT40. Until its MK III variant, Ford's GT40 wasn't even street-legal, so it was hardly going to be anyone's first choice for "touring" around Europe.

In 2024, vehicles are usually labeled GT to differentiate higher-performance variants of car models. Since there's no single governing body that determines whether a car should be considered GT or not, it's really up to manufacturers how they use the term to their advantage. And if you add an "I" to the mix, as Volkswagen does, GTI takes on a slightly different meaning: "Grand Touring Injection," or "Gran Turismo Iniezione."

Lastly, for gamers, the term "Gran Turismo" rings a bell in other ways. Initially released almost 30 years ago, "Gran Turismo" is a beloved driving-simulation franchise exclusive to PlayStation consoles that had sold over 90 million copies by 2022. In fact, the "Gran Turismo" gaming franchise is so successful that "Gran Turismo 7" tops our list of the best racing games on PlayStation 5. But in a sign of the ambiguity of the term "GT," out of over 400 cars that "Gran Turismo" players could race with, not all are "grand touring" models.