Bravado Buffalo STX

The Buffalo is a Grand Theft Auto fixture, and the STX is its modern Charger-shaped incarnation. Its confirmation was one of the more popular vehicle spots in the trailer analysis rounds.

Where it comes from

The Buffalo entered the series properly in Grand Theft Auto IV as a four-door muscle sedan modelled on the Dodge Charger of that era, and it has been in every mainline game since. Grand Theft Auto V ran several versions of it, and the STX arrived later as a harder-edged variant with a wide body and a great deal more power.

That lineage is why the reaction to spotting it was what it was. Returning vehicles carry the memory of how they drove, and the Buffalo has spent fifteen years being the car people take when they want something fast that still looks like a normal car from a distance.

The real-world basis

The Dodge Charger it is drawn from occupies a specific place in American road life that suits this game exactly. It is simultaneously the enthusiast's rear-wheel-drive muscle sedan and the single most recognisable police car in the United States. Those two facts sitting on the same body shell is a gift to a game about being chased.

Why it fits Leonida

Florida is flat, hot and full of long straight roads with speed limits nobody observes. A heavy rear-drive sedan with too much power is the natural predator of that environment, and it is a car you see genuinely everywhere in the state.

Under the evidence-based wanted system there is a further wrinkle. A car this common is harder to describe usefully. If the police are matching a vehicle against a description, being in the most ordinary fast car on the road is a tactical position rather than an aesthetic one.

What is not known

Rockstar has not published specifications, and handling in a released trailer tells you nothing reliable about handling in a shipped game. Whether the older Buffalo variants also return has not been shown.