Shitzu Squalo in GTA 6: the speedboat from Trailer 2

Trailer 2 ends its action sequence with a fast boat leaving the Keys, and among the watercraft community trackers have identified is the Shitzu Squalo. GTABase confirms it from the second trailer, and the trailer breakdown describes a fast-boat escape with Jason at the helm in that stretch of footage¹²³.

Real-world inspiration

GTABase names the Chris-Craft Stinger 390X, a 1980s American offshore performance boat, which is exactly the right period reference for a Vice City successor². The Squalo has carried that identity since GTA Vice City, so it is a rare case of the in-game model and the setting being from the same decade².

The Stinger name itself came out of a late-1970s turnaround at Chris-Craft, when the company licensed a deep-vee offshore hull from former racer Jean-Claude Simon and rebranded its performance line the Stinger in 1981⁵. A management buyout under Murray Industries followed that same year, and the 390X became the flagship of a run that stretched from 20 to 41 feet before the new ownership went bankrupt in 1988⁵. Its biggest publicity boost came from television: five 390X hulls were built for Miami Vice, including the white boat used in the pilot episode, which is exactly the aesthetic Rockstar is reaching for with a Vice City return¹⁵.

Series history

GTABase traces the Squalo through Vice City, San Andreas, GTA IV and GTA V, making it the most consistently present speedboat in the franchise². Shitzu is the series' boat and motorcycle badge, also responsible for the Tropic and the Hakuchou, and Game Rant lists a Shitzu Tropic among the returning GTA 6 boats²⁴.

GTA Wiki's brand page shows Shitzu is not a one-boat marque. Across GTA V and GTA Online it has also built the Jetmax and Tropic speedboats, the Suntrap bow rider and the Longfin, a faster speedboat added during the Cayo Perico Heist update, which makes the Squalo one entry in a fairly deep in-universe catalogue rather than the brand's only product⁸.

Boats in Leonida

Water is not a side activity in GTA 6. The trailer breakdown places a boat escape at the climax of Trailer 2's action sequence, and the opening shots contain motorboats, dinghies and jet skis before a single car appears¹³. Community trackers have also catalogued yachts, a ferry and multiple airboats⁴. That volume of watercraft points at real water traversal rather than the handful of decorative boats GTA V left around its marinas, although Rockstar has not described any water mechanic¹⁴.

What we do not know

• Whether the boat in the escape scene is a Squalo or another speedboat¹³
• Price, stats and handling. Rockstar has published nothing²
• Whether boat customisation exists in GTA 6²
• Whether boats can be stored at properties or docks⁴
• Whether the docked Ultimate Edition Squalo at Washington Beach is mechanically identical to any Squalo found elsewhere in the world, or a cosmetic variant only⁶
• Whether the heavier handling model Rockstar has described for cars extends to boats⁹

Where it appears, scene by scene

The Trailer 2 sequence that ends with the boat escape sits in the final third of the trailer, after the Vice City skyline shots and before the closing cast beat, with Jason opening the throttle as police lights fall away behind him¹³. Rockstar's August 27, 2026 Extended Look presentation, a roughly 26-minute walkthrough streamed on Netflix and posted to the Newswire, spent part of its runtime on boating through swamp channels and open water rather than repeating the trailer's chase, and outlets covering the stream catalogued jet skis and kayaking alongside it without singling out the Squalo by name¹⁰.

The clearest confirmation, though, is not from either trailer. It comes from the Ultimate Edition of GTA 6, where GTABase and GameSpot both describe a Squalo included as a pre-order bonus: a specific boat finished in a pink-and-blue gradient livery, docked at a location called Washington Beach, fitted with a weapons crate for open-water encounters and geared toward fishing trips in an area referred to as Gambit Bay⁶⁷. That version unlocks progressively as the story advances rather than being available from the first mission, a distinct confirmation route from either trailer sighting⁶.

What earlier GTA games did with the Squalo

GTABase catalogues the Squalo as a two-seat performance speedboat in every game it has appeared in since Vice City, and in GTA Online it sits in the mid-tier of the game's boat economy, priced well below top-end speedboats like the Longfin but comfortably above entry-level runabouts²⁸. That positioning, a fast but attainable boat rather than a showpiece, matches how Rockstar has always framed the model's in-game description, which leans on looks and speed rather than utility².

What we expect in GTA 6

None of this confirms how boats will actually handle in the finished game, but the surrounding coverage gives a reasonable shape to expect. Rockstar has said its vehicle-handling work for GTA 6 involved professional racing drivers and aims for heavier, less arcade-like physics than GTA V, and outlets covering hands-off previews describe cars that can no longer be muscled back onto their wheels with a steering input alone; nothing in that coverage specifically addresses boats, so a comparable jump in weight and feedback is a reasonable expectation rather than a confirmed one⁹. Separately, Rockstar has confirmed that car theft in GTA 6 will vary by make and model instead of a single hotwire animation, which raises the open question of whether taking a docked Squalo involves anything beyond walking up and starting the engine; nothing published so far suggests boats get the same security layer as cars⁹.

Community theories

The open question among trackers is less about the Squalo's existence, which GTABase and the GTA VI Wiki both treat as settled, and more about exactly which boat Jason is driving in the escape shot. Community breakdowns of Trailer 2 have flagged more than one speedboat silhouette in that sequence, and because the shots are only a second or two long, an identification made from a moving trailer frame carries real uncertainty even when multiple outlets converge on the same answer¹³.