It is a description of purpose, not a manufacturer's property. A grand tourer is built for distance: a relaxed, torque-rich engine that does not need working hard to cruise, a cabin comfortable enough to sit in for hours, and usually two seats plus enough luggage space to justify the journey. Many different makers have used the letters over many decades on very different cars, which is exactly why the badge alone tells you little.
The contrast is with a car built for outright pace. A supercar trades comfort away for performance; a grand tourer deliberately does not. That said, the letters have been applied loosely enough for long enough that they now often mean little more than "fast and comfortable", and we have not found an authority that polices the term.
If long-distance driving is the fantasy rather than the lap time, that is a particular kind of picture: open road, good light, somewhere worth arriving at. The collection is built around that sort of scene, and the art is where to start.
Written by Craig Fearn, Petrol & Ink. Last updated .
