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A grand tourer, sometimes initialised GT, is a high-performance automobile designed for long distance driving. Any such car could be considered to be a grand tourer, but the traditional and most common body style is a two door coupe with either a two seat or a 2+2 seat arrangement. Example cars include the BMW 6-Series and the Aston Martin DB9.
Grand tourers differ from sports cars in that they are usually larger, heavier and tend make less compromise in comfort for the sake of driving ability. For this reason they mostly have front-mounted engines that leave more space for the cabin than mid-mounted engines. They also tend to have softer suspension to provide good ride quality. However, grand tourers do have similarities with sports cars, such as the fact they mainly use rear or four wheel drive, and the term sports car may be used to describe a car with grand touring qualities. Very high-performance grand tourers, such as the Ferrari 575M Maranello, may be considered to be supercars.
Gran turismo is Italian for grand tourer.
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