5 special cars which are seriously worth their price!

There are a lot of special cars available but some are really expensive: up to 3+ million! And unfortunately 'expensive' doesn't always result in a good purchase. Now what? Well, maybe this guide can help: a list of my 5 favorite special cars; you can't go wrong with these.

Editorial (intro)

Hi gang!

So we're having some nice double money periods again (at the time of writing!), first double money on special cargo and now the bunker sales give us double money and RP. This means that some of us will have more money to spend, including myself.

This week I bought a special car to store in my Arcade garage because there were only some regular stolen cars there and I wanted something better "just in case". So when R* put a nice discount on a special car I didn't own yet I figured I'd get it, even though I was convinced that I wouldn't be enjoying this car all that much. Which was fine with me because I wasn't planning on using it much anyway.

Yah... and then I discovered that the car was a heck more fun than I had expected! So much for relying on dumb Youtube videos ;-)

And that got me thinking... why not share a list of all my favorites, and why I like them so much? So here ya go, I hope this is useful for some of you out there.

What accounts for a special car?

Back in my PS3 days these were quite special: convertibles!

No worries: we're not going to include these ;) A special car - in my opinion of course - is a vehicle that can actually "do" something besides driving. It could be firing rockets or guns, but also some other tricks. I'm not necessarily talking about armored cars and I'm also excluding military vehicles, for the simple reason that you usually can't shoot anything while driving; you'll either need a gunner or you need to stop and get behind the gun yourself.

Some special cars (like the ones stored under the vehicle warehouse) can be called up using the interaction menu, but that is also not something I'll account for being special. I mean... the Wastelander is a fun car but it can't really 'do' anything special.

So... let's begin. The list goes from 5 ("nice") to 1 ("awesome"), but do keep in mind that this is all my opinion only. Truth be told I could easily imagine that some of you might switch numbers 1 and 2, but... let's not get ahead of ourselves just yet.

#5 => The Phantom Wedge

People who use the import/export business without a cargobob (so: old fashioned driving) will know how annoying the NPC's can be sometimes. They drive into you for whatever dumb reasons, block you so that you'll drive into them and all in all it can be quite an annoying experience.

Ever wanted to "get back" at them? Well, now you can!



The Phantom wedge is basically a Phantom cab which has a huge metal wedge attached in front of it (duh!) and as a result you can easily plow through traffic: instead of colliding with another car that car will now be pushed out of the way, often resulting in them flying off and landing somewhere besides the road.

It's not too special, definitely true, but it can be so much fun. And as a bonus, as shown in my first screenshot, players who have an Mobile Operation Center ("MOC") can remove the default cab and replace that with the Wedge. If you then also bring 2 friends along who can operate the turrets of the MOC then I don't think there's much which can stop you. After all: once an opponent got blown up you don't have to worry about crashing into the wreckage: that will get easily pushed away.

The Wedge can be called up using the interaction menu: the 'request special vehicle' option under the 'Vehicles' section. Nothing too special, but it can be a lot of fun.

Note however that this vehicle cannot be customized, what you see is what you get.

#4 => The weaponized Tampa

This car is most suitable for playing contact missions I think. It has a nice selection of weapons and armor (nothing heavy though!) but it's also not too special. For example: although it has rockets they don't have any homing options, so you'll have to do some manual aiming which isn't exactly easy (most definitely not while driving).

But I think that inconvenience is made up for with the rest of the arsenal... dual miniguns on top, a mortar in the back and you can even equip this thing with proximity mines (if unlocked through bunker research). However, keep in mind that you can only use the vehicle weapons, so nothing of your own (though I can't rule out that this is caused by using the most heavy armor plating).

The Tampa can be customized using either an MOC (if you equipped that with the right bay) or an Avenger. However..., you can also drive it into the Arena workshop (if you have that) and add some custom headlight colors.

All in all the Tampa isn't very expensive and it packs a really nice punch I think. I'm well aware that there's a rather thin line between calling it a "special car" or simply an armored or weaponized vehicle, but the mortar in combination with the proximity mines makes this somewhat special in my opinion. Not too many cars have such a large variety of weapons onboard.

#3 => The Scramjet

This car managed to seriously surprise me, it turned out to be a lot more fun than I gave it credit for!

The Scramjet is a car with two rocket boosters which can seriously enhance its top speed, but... they do have a noticeable recharge time (nothing too excessive though). The car is armed with both (homing!) rockets and a pair of guns. The guns are... fair, but they don't do too much damage. The missiles on the other hand are very good, they can lock onto a target from a nice distance, they fire upwards initially (which prevents them from slamming into other cars) and they hardly miss their target.



What makes this car special is that it can hop into the air. And if you combine that with the booster rockets then you got yourselves a car which can even do a small bit of flying. Sometimes this can be a seriously useful option. For example if you're chased by the cops and you're speeding towards a roadblock. Just jump over them. Add a boost and you might even be able to jump / fly over a block of houses.

And don't underestimate the height this thing can reach either!

Up, up and away! ... omg, that livery! :P

Of course on the downside all this flying does often result in the car becoming quite hard to handle (if not downright impossible), so you may want to check your insurance options because you'll definitely slam into some stuff every once in a while.

On the positive side this also means that you'll have a good chance to reach enough height to actually lock onto a helicopter with your missiles! That'll teach those LSPD flying mosquito's!



The Scramjet can be customized in either an MOC (with the right bay) or an Avenger. And on top of that you can also drive it into the Arena workshop and apply special headlight colors. And as you can see you can also apply some specific liveries to it. In my opinion the 'Princess Robot Bubblegum' livery shown here actually rivals the one which is available for the Karin Sultan when you customize it in Benny's workshop.

#2 => The Stromberg

The name's Bond... Jane Bond :P

The Stromberg is modelled after the Lotus Esprit as it was used in the James Bond movie "The spy who loved me". This is also why I added this outfit to my collection because I think it's fun to wear while driving it. The name of the car comes from the main villain in previously mentioned movie.

As is common for weaponized cars it can be modified in either an MOC or Avenger and as a bonus you can also drive it into the Arena workshop to add special headlight colors. The weapons are quite similar to some of the other cars in this list: homing missiles and a pair of machine guns.



However... the machine guns on the Stromberg are unlike any other car in this list, far more powerful. Cars don't ignite into flames but simply explode if you keep shooting at them with these. Then there's the missiles: they home in on their target and do an excellent job too. However, the lock on range isn't as extensive as that of some of the other cars, but still good enough.

And finally the car also comes equipped with a load of torpedoes. "What good are torpedoes in a car", you might be wondering, but trust me: there's a very good reason because this car:



... can transform into a submarine. Which can make it an ideal getaway vehicle; not too many enemies (and hostile players alike) can follow you below water. Basically all wheels retract into the car and a pair of wings slide out which gives the car more steering options whilst underwater.

One of the main reasons I enjoy this car so much is because it's an ideal way to reach my yacht:



Of course I can well imagine that if you don't have anything useful to do in the water then the whole submarine mode can become pretty useless. Still... there's always the heavily powered machine guns and the homing rockets...

#1 => The Vigilante

And my #1 pick, the special car which I use the most, is the Vigilante. Also known as the Batmobile.

This thing is fast and on top of that its handling is also pretty good. It can take corners without having to come to a complete stop, but even if you do have to stop then you'll also be back up to speed in a few moments because this car....



... has a turbo boost ;)

The car has a giant rocket on the back which has a very short recharge time, this allows you to boost very often so that you can easily zip through traffic at a seriously high speed. This car is faster than the new F1 cars, how about that? Then again... not too sure if that's because of the speed of the Vigilante or the lack thereof of those F1 cars.

Anyway, as with most cars in this list the Vigilante can be customized in either an MOC and / or an Avenger and you can also take it into the Arena workshop to apply custom colored headlights, which I think is a very nice touch (I seem to recall that this wasn't possible before, but I could be wrong there...).



The weapons on this thing are pretty standard in comparison to the other cars: rockets which can home in on their target and a pair of machine guns. The locking range is pretty decent, but the guns are quite bad. It takes quite a while before you'll get a car to burst into flames, and even longer to have it explode (if that actually happens at all).



But despite their weak impact the guns can be useful, as shown above.

If you need to get from A to B using the road fast then this is your car :)

Special mentions...

Blazer Aqua

The Blazer Aqua is a quad which can retract its wheels so that you can use it as a sea shark. It's armed with a machine gun which can do some decent damage but it's not very convincing. And unfortunately you can't select any of your own weapons. But what this special vehicle lacks in firepower is made up for with its top speed. And of course the ability to pass water.

The Nightclub delivery vehicle(s)

From left to right: Pounder custom, Mule custom & Speedo custom

Although I mention all of them it's actually the Speedo which I occasionally use in freeroam. The advantage of these cars is that they are decently armored, have a good selection of weapons and most of all: if they get destroyed then they'll get replaced "just like that". The weapons and armor depend on your personal preferences though. In my case the Speedo is equipped with a dual minigun (which is quite effective), a pair of machineguns (which are decent) and proximity mines.

The main advantage which these cars have over the other special vehicles (as mentioned in the interaction menu) is that they don't use the same cooldown as those other cars (the ones below your vehicle warehouse). So if I just lost my Ruiner then I can't call in my Blazer Aqua but I can immediately request the Speedo custom.

And speaking of the Ruiner....

The Ruiner 2000; not worth the money!

The best thing which can be said about the Ruiner 2000 is that it has some very good missiles, these can even lock onto choppers from time to time while you're still on the ground. But that's also where it ends because you only have 8 of them while other vehicles easily carry 30. And to add insult to injury the machineguns on this car are plain out pathetic:

After shooting a car for quite a while it first starts smoking....

That's right: cars don't even burst into flames as is the case with the Vigilante, Scramjet and the Tampa but they start smoking at first. Then you'll have to shoot them a little while longer and eventually you may see some flames. It also doesn't help that these are the only weapons at your disposal.

Some of my friends only have this car because of the associated VIP work: when started it gives you a better armored Ruiner 2000 with an endless supply of missiles for the duration of the mission (= approx. 20 minutes). So basically for 20 or so minutes you can pretty much dominate a freeroam session if that's your thing.

But since I prefer PVE over PVP I'm passing up on this one. Considering the price of this car and the things it can do it's simply a bad purchase I think. In fact, I almost forgot that I had one ;)

In conclusion...

That cab is quite big if you stand close to it....

And there you have it... Some of my favorite (and one least favored) special cars.

Although I think that they're all worth the full price I'd seriously advice you to have some patience and wait for R* to apply some good discounts, which they do from time to time. For example, the only reason I got myself a Scramjet this week was because of the discount (and the double money on gunrunning (bunker) sales).

I just noticed that I didn't mention that the Phantom Wedge also unlocks a VIP mission ("Plowed"), but although it is a fun mission (you have to go to three locations where you need to smash up 3 piles of cargo) it also doesn't have a great payout.

Thanks for reading and I hope this was useful for some of you!

[evilintent]

as much as i like the phantom wedge, i like the ramp buggy more

[kartik]

cool, thanks!

[TurbojetChicken]

Good and extensive guide, could you add actual bay names to (with the right bay)?

[Ryuukami 龍]

bad guide

[ceylon]

good

[『BAYSIDE BOOGEYMAN』]

Don't forget the futo I mean come on don't leave out the legends

[Sakirarose]

I think #1 should have been Deluxo. I mean... Come on. It can fly and it looks like a Delorean!!

[ShelLuser]

@Murukk: how is that a car? ;)

[𝐸𝓂𝓅𝓇𝑒𝓈𝓈]

#1 should've been oppressor mk 2 but ok

[GazZappa]

Sorry, forgot to say, good guide, nice work.