Beta European Ibishu Pessima + Chinese GAF-Ibishu Vitesse 1.3.1

Japanese branding, British build quality and European design.

Ibishu Pessima for European market (1997 - 2003)
And its Chinese younger sibling...

GAF-Ibishu Vitesse (2003 - 2015)

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This mod requires these following mods for proper configurations display!
Chinese License Plates by lshdrh
European License Plates Compilation by JorgePinto

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Spoiler: Lore (Warning, long wall of text - you have been warned)

Development

During the mid 90s, Ibishu (more specifically, Ibishu of Americas and Ibishu Japan) rolled out the brand new '96 Ibishu Pessima, featuring the new bubble design that was so common in the 90s. However, the British offices (Ibishu of Europe, located in Swindon, U.K.) were tasked with developing a completely new design for the Pessima to compete with other European cars at the time. As the goal was set, a team of designers and engineers began working on a new Ibishu Pessima for the European market. Designers, who were known for designing some German cars prior and some who were designing some of the Japanese cars as well. As for the engineers, both the Japanese and the British came together on creating the European Pessima. Initially, the release date was planned for the year of 1997, however some development issues happened and the development was advanced to 1998, which became the final year of release. Some prototypes were made, some that were tested on the private fields, and some that went on the public roads, the last of which were debadged and blacked-out. The car was officially revealed in the UK in September of 1997 and in December of 1997 everywhere else in Europe through a VHS tape sold in the dealerships, as well as showcasing the car at the Geneva International Motor Show, with the 1998 as the release year. Soon enough, the car would be released in 1998.

1998 - 2000

The car came out in 1998, offering both the 4-door Saloon and exclusive for the European Pessima - a 5-door Liftback. The first year only had three trim packages, DX, LX and SX, and no dual-overhead cam engines being offered. the DX and LX had a diesel, with the DX Diesel being the absolute basic model, and LX offering both naturally-aspirated diesel and turbo-diesel versions. During the late 1998, a concept for a new GTz version was revealed, which offered the new 2.2 litre naturally-aspirated dual-overhead cam engine producing 251 horsepower. In 1999 the GTz trim would finally be offered, in two versions, the Standard-spec, with only 229 horsepower, no factory body-kit and standard equipment, and the Top-spec, which had a GTz body-kit, 251 horsepower as promised and topped out interior equipment, including a satellite navigation system. During the late 90s, the car was featured in rally events in England, which is where a custom 2.0 litre DOHC engine was found in the car, the only engine that isn't found on the 1998 to 2000 models. It was also speculated that Ibishu would soon enter BTCC races in a Pessima.

2000 - 2003

A minor upgrade was done to the car in the year 2000, The upgrade improved the DX and LX models, offering a 1.8 litre engine for the DX and a slightly detuned 2.0 SX engine in the LX trims. Around this time, Ibishu entered the BTCC races in a modified facelifted Pessima, and won twice, which lead to the creation of the special limited edition GTz called "GTz Special 2000", which commemorated the victories of that year, the Special 2000 had a slight bump in horsepower to 268, 17 horsepower more than the Top-spec's 251. A more powerful "GTz Special 2001" would come out, featuring a detuned turbo-charger from the same racing car. It produced 338 horsepower, 87 more than the stock Top-spec, making it the most powerful special edition Pessima ever. During this time, the new GT trim was being offered, which included the same 2.0 DOHC engine found in the earlier rally cars, however the GT only produced 178 horsepower.

The joint venture with the Chinese

As the Swindon factory was nearing the end of production of the Euro Pessima, Ibishu would do a joint venture with a Chinese automobile factory "Guangzhou Automobile Factory" (or "GAF") to produce and sell Ibishu vehicles in China. Several models were included into this joint venture, including the European Pessima. Soon, in early 2002, the factory pushed out test builds of the European Pessima under the internal name "GAF Pessima" using the official materials, equipment and parts to produce them. Soon, the Chinese designers got to work, and redesigned the Pessima to fit the Ibishu's new design language of the early 2000s. Once the production ended in 2003 for the Swindon-built Euro Pessimas, the Chinese factory began producing the Chinese version of the car.

GAF-Ibishu Vitesse, 2003 - 2008

Chinese consumers got their hands on the Euro Pessima with a slightly different look and with a different name - the GAF-Ibishu Vitesse. Compare to the original Swindon-built Pessimas, the Vitesse included numerous changes and upgrades. Design was changed to look more modern (for the early 2000s that is) and it was more focused towards being sporty. The base model would be an equivalent of a LX trim, as it included alloy rims, 6-disc CD player, and fog lights, which were built into the headlights. The sport model meanwhile was a liftback-only, offering a slightly faster 2.0 litre engine, cruise control and a spoiler. The "Lux" model came with all of the optional features as standard, chrome trimming and it was only offered with an automatic.

GAF-Ibishu Vitesse, 2008 - 2015

Another upgrade was made to the Vitesse in 2008 and it would be the final one and to make it the great final, this time it was a major upgrade, so major, it was unofficially refered as "the second generation Vitesse". The changes included major design improvements, which was made to look like the new Ibishu CrossSport at the time. Under the hood, all of the engines were replaced with the newer ones from the Ibishu CrossSport, the 2.0 and 2.3 litre units as well as the Japanese 1.5 litre unit. However these engines were still bolted onto the same gearbox offered in the older variants. The only safety improvement was making ESC & TC as standard in all trim packages, the cabin and the crumple zones remained the same. It would be the best sold model ever in China until it was finally discontinued in 2015 as newer Ibishu vehicles sold out better and were overall safer.

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Mod features
-A European-styled second generation Ibishu Pessima with a 4-door saloon or 5-door liftback body styles.
-A Chinese CKD production version called "GAF-Ibishu Vitesse", produced from 2003 to 2015.
-70+ configurations
-20+ skins
-10 Engines - 8 petrol engines and 2 diesel engines (3 of which are from Ibishu CrossSport)
-9 OEM Rims for sizes 15, 16, 17 and 18, some from the Ibishu CrossSport. (25 rims in total)
-4 hubcaps for sizes 14 and 15. (8 hubcaps in total)
-Damaged or worn parts, which include: Crankshaft, ECU, Engine Block, Fuel Filter, Head Gasket, Piston Rings, Piston Rods, Starter, Transmission condition, Brakes, Suspension Struts and Radiator.
-Lots of customization parts, including some for a super-low stance.
-Parts for both Left-hand-drive and right-hand-drive conversions.
-A door warning beeper.
-Police and Taxi parts.
-Interactable interior with working dome lights.
-Support for Dynamic textures. (Decal editor)
-Support for Universal Dummy/Stuntman Driver & Passengers mod. (Agent_Y)
-Support for European License Plates Compilation mod. (JorgePinto)
-Support for Chinese License Plates mod. (lskdrh)

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Known Issues
-Liftback tailgate still needs improvements.
-In some places the UV is weird.
-Skin UV isn't great, especially on the front and rear bumpers, Be aware of this when making skins.
-Shading on some parts of the model aren't the best either.
-Some JBEAMs might not be properly made or could cause the model to spike.
-When using Replay app, the door warning beeping can be heard even if the camera was outside of the interior. You can however mute it manually in the audio settings and muting "Other" volume.
-Some configurations do not have a selected head gasket, this will be fixed later. This doesn't affect anything however.

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Author's words
This project began it's development in mid August however i put it on hold due to the development of another mod project i was making at the time, Ibishu Miramar "Modernized". After i published that on repository, i resumed the work on the mod in October and started working on it even more than i would before, and once i ported the model to the game, i created this thread for the mod, which then i tried to keep it updated until i would finish it.

The mod itself may seem as a lazy job but it took me long enough to remodel things out while also trying to avoid shading issues and horrible UV garbage. Because the model was completely remodelled, i had to also redo skin UV from scratch, which is how i also discovered how to do the skin templates. I do apologize for some skin UV issues, but the only reasoning is just because i'm not experienced with making one. literally my first time making one from scratch. And since i tried to base it on a Honda Accord MK6 from Europe, i tried all my best to put the most recognizable parts of that Accord into this mod, which includes the front, rear, and the gauge cluster.

As of late August 2025, i remastered this mod to feature improved models, add new features, new body style and model, and more. This mod needed this much love an attention and i'm glad to say i did it rather well. I spent a year on the remaster of this and i am proud of how it turned out.

Anyways, hope you'll enjoy it, and if you found some bugs with the mod, please send them kindly to this thread. Please don't use reviews to report bugs, and keep it as it is. Thanks, and once again, hope you'll enjoy it.

Alternatively, you can join this Discord server to find me and the progress on this mod's updates
Discord Server

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Pictures

Videos

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Skin Template
This mod has a different skin template compare to vanilla Pessima MK2 due to a different model. Please use this template when creating skins for this mod.

You can find this same template inside the mod's files under the file name "eumidsize_UV.png"

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