The First Cult Cars of GTA Online: Meet the OGs From 2013

When GTA Online launched on 1 October 2013, two weeks after Grand Theft Auto V itself, it did not arrive with a separate garage of multiplayer-only vehicles. It shared the exact same roster GTA V shipped with, and that base-game lineup is where the whole car culture of GTA Online started. No Ill-Gotten Gains supercars, no Cunning Stunts hypercars, no HSW upgrades - just the cars Rockstar built into the disc, sold through in-game dealerships like Legendary Motorsport and Southern San Andreas Super Autos.

More than a decade later, a handful of those launch vehicles are still parked in showrooms today, and among longtime players they carry a status the newer, flashier additions never quite match. Here is a look at the cars that built that reputation, why they mattered in 2013, and what they are still worth to a returning or new player.

The essentials

• GTA Online launched with the same vehicle catalog as GTA V's story mode, released two weeks earlier on 17 September 2013.
• The fastest car in the game at launch was the Truffade Adder, styled after the Bugatti Veyron and priced at $1,000,000 from Legendary Motorsport.
• The Annis Elegy RH8, a Nissan GT-R tribute, could be unlocked for free just by linking a Rockstar Social Club account - one of the earliest examples of a "loyalty" reward car.
• Muscle cars like the Vapid Dominator, Declasse Sabre Turbo and Declasse Vigero built the earliest Los Santos street-racing scene, months before any paid or free DLC vehicles existed.
• Everything covered here is a legitimate in-game purchase through Rockstar's own dealerships - no mods, no third-party tools, no real-money marketplaces required.

Why the 2013 roster still matters

GTA Online's vehicle list has grown from roughly 200 vehicles at launch to well over 800 today, spread across a decade of free updates. With that much choice, it would be easy for the original cars to get lost in the crowd. Instead, several of them turned into reference points the community still uses to judge everything that came after: the Banshee is still the benchmark budget sports car, the Adder is still the car people mean when they say "hypercar" in a 2013 context, and the Elegy RH8 is still one of the only free performance cars in the entire game.

Part of that comes down to timing. These cars carried the entire economy of GTA Online for its first year, before heists, before the Executives and Other Criminals update, before the Cayo Perico Heist made tens of millions of GTA dollars a weekly routine. Getting a Bravado Banshee or an Elegy RH8 in 2013 meant something, because there was nothing else to compare it to yet.

Truffade Adder: the car every heist crew saved for

The Truffade Adder was the fastest car in GTA Online at launch and the clearest status symbol the base game offered. Modeled after the Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Super Sport, right down to the horseshoe grille and the stepped roofline, it cost $1,000,000 from Legendary Motorsport - a price that took most players their first several weeks of missions and heists to save up for.

Because GTA Online in 2013 had no Cayo Perico Heist, no VIP work, and no easy money glitches yet (those exploits arrived later, and Rockstar eventually wiped the results, as covered in our guide to the 2013-2014 GTA Online money glitch era), actually owning an Adder was a genuine milestone. It has since been overtaken by dozens of faster hypercars, but it remains the car most players associate with "making it" in the earliest days of the game.

Bravado Banshee: the Viper that never left

The Bravado Banshee, GTA Online's take on the Dodge Viper, has appeared in some form in every 3D and HD-era Grand Theft Auto game, and the version that launched with GTA Online in 2013 is still purchasable today. It sits in the mid-tier sports class: fast enough to hold its own, cheap enough that new players could realistically save for one within their first few in-game days, and distinctive enough that its long hood and wide rear haunches are instantly recognizable on the street.

Its staying power is part of why Rockstar eventually added a modernized variant, the Banshee GTS, more than a decade later - but the original launch Banshee is still the car most associated with GTA Online's earliest street-racing crews.

Annis Elegy RH8: the free GT-R for early adopters

The Annis Elegy RH8 is one of the more unusual cars on this list because it was not something players had to grind for. Modeled on the Nissan GT-R (R35), it could be claimed for free simply by linking a Rockstar Social Club account to the game - Rockstar's way of rewarding players who created an account early on. Anyone who missed that window could still buy it later for a comparatively low $95,000.

That combination of Japanese-tuner styling and a genuinely competitive sports-class performance made the Elegy RH8 one of the most common cars on Los Santos roads throughout 2013 and 2014, and it is still one of the few performance vehicles in GTA Online that a huge share of the player base owns for free.

The muscle car trio: Dominator, Sabre Turbo and Vigero

Before Rockstar added a single muscle car through DLC, the base game already had a proper American muscle scene built around three launch vehicles:

• Vapid Dominator - styled after the Dodge Challenger, and still one of the most recognizable muscle cars in the game.
• Declasse Sabre Turbo - drawing from the Oldsmobile 442 and Buick GSX, with the boxy, low-slung silhouette of a late-70s American coupe.
• Declasse Vigero - based on the first-generation Chevrolet Camaro, closely echoing the 1968 Camaro Sport Coupe's grille and rear bumper.

These three defined what "muscle" meant in GTA Online for its entire first year, and all three are still relevant today as budget options for players who want classic American styling without paying supercar prices.

Invetero Coquette and Grotti Carbonizzare: the sports car staples

Two more launch cars rounded out the early sports-class lineup. The Invetero Coquette, GTA Online's version of the Chevrolet Corvette, blended C7 Corvette styling with touches borrowed from the Camaro and the Jaguar F-Type. The Grotti Carbonizzare, meanwhile, brought Italian exotic styling modeled on the Ferrari 458 Italia into a price range far below the Adder, making it the entry point for players who wanted a supercar silhouette without a supercar bill.

Both cars are still sold through Legendary Motorsport and Southern San Andreas Super Autos today, essentially unchanged from their 2013 debut.

What happened after launch

The Beach Bum Update arrived in November 2013, just weeks after GTA Online went live, and began the steady stream of free vehicle additions that has continued ever since. Business Update brought the Grotti Turismo R in 2014. Later updates introduced entire new tiers - Ill-Gotten Gains added rocket-boosted vehicles, and more recent updates brought HSW performance upgrades exclusive to PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. Compared to what is on sale now, the original 2013 roster looks almost quaint. But none of it would have taken off without those first cars giving players something worth grinding for from day one.

If you want more on what the earliest version of GTA Online actually felt like to play, our retrospective on what GTA Online was actually like in 2013 covers the missions, the economy and the bugs alongside the cars. For the story of how some players tried to shortcut their way to an Adder or a Banshee, see our breakdown of the 2013 car duplication glitch, and our wider look at GTA 5 in 2013 versus today for how far the whole game has come. Players who want a cheaper way to relive the era without saving up in-game cash can also check our guide to the GTA 5 Comet cheat code, which spawns another of the base game's original sports cars instantly.

Frequently asked questions

Are these cars still available in GTA Online today? Yes. All of the vehicles covered here - the Adder, Banshee, Elegy RH8, Dominator, Sabre Turbo, Vigero, Coquette and Carbonizzare - remain purchasable through in-game dealerships and have not been removed from the game.

Do I need real money to buy them? No. Every car listed here is available for in-game GTA dollars through Legendary Motorsport or Southern San Andreas Super Autos, the same dealerships that sold them in 2013.

Is the Elegy RH8 still free? The free unlock was tied to linking a Rockstar Social Club account in the game's early years. Players who never claimed it can still buy the Elegy RH8 outright for $95,000.