Horizon Decades hands you ten cars, but the calendar only threatens two of them. The 1988 Lamborghini Countach LP5000 QV and the 1989 Volkswagen Rallye Golf are locked to the Summer week and disappear when the playlist rotates to Autumn on June 25. Everything else — including the genuine prize, the 1993 Porsche 911 Turbo S Leichtbau — sticks around until July 16, so there is no reason to panic-grind it this week. And the dud you can ignore entirely is the 2006 Dodge Ram SRT-10: a novelty truck that earns a spot in your garage and nothing more.
That is the whole verdict. Below is the full reward list, which cars actually earn the grind and why, and the fastest way to bank the points before the Summer window closes.
Checked against the live Series 2 “Horizon Decades” playlist, opened June 18, 2026 (14:30 UTC), running through July 16. Point costs and car classes can shift with title updates — confirm in-game before you commit a grind session.
The rotation that actually matters
Horizon Decades is one four-week Series split into four themed weeks: Summer (June 18–25), Autumn (June 25–July 2), Winter (July 2–9) and Spring (July 9–16). The confusion that sends players into a needless grind is the difference between seasonal and series rewards.
Seasonal rewards are bolted to a single week. Miss the week, miss the car. Series rewards count points across all four weeks and stay claimable until the Series ends on July 16. So the only cars on a real June 25 deadline are the two Summer seasonal rewards. The Porsche and the Lotus — the two most valuable cars in the set — are series rewards. You have a month for those, not a week.
Every Horizon Decades reward car, ranked by verdict
Ten reward cars across the playlist, plus the four Car Pass unlocks that drip out weekly. The verdict column is the only one that matters: grind now means it expires June 25; worth it (no rush) means chase it before July 16; skip means it is a collection-filler, not a performance pick.
| Car | Decade / week | Class | Cost & rarity | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1988 Lamborghini Countach LP5000 QV | 80s · Summer | A | 40 pts · Epic | Grind now — expires Jun 25 |
| 1989 VW Rallye Golf | 80s · Summer | B/A | 20 pts · Rare | Grind now — expires Jun 25 |
| 1993 Porsche 911 Turbo S Leichtbau | 90s · Series | A | 80 pts · Legendary | Worth it (no rush) — to Jul 16 |
| 2018 Lotus Exige Cup 430 | 10s · Series | S1 | 160 pts · Epic | Worth it (no rush) — to Jul 16 |
| 1993 Schuppan 962CR | 90s · Autumn | S2 | 40 pts · Legendary | Worth it — Autumn (Jun 25+) |
| 2017 Saleen S7 LM | 10s · Spring | S2/X | 40 pts · Epic | Worth it — Spring (Jul 9+) |
| 2017 Mercedes-AMG GT R | 10s · Spring | S1 | 20 pts · Rare | Optional — safe all-rounder |
| 1998 TVR Cerbera Speed 12 | 90s · Autumn | S1 | 20 pts · Epic | Optional — character pick |
| 2003 Ford F-150 SVT Lightning | 00s · Winter | B/A | 40 pts · Rare | Optional — returning car |
| 2006 Dodge Ram SRT-10 | 00s · Winter | B | 20 pts · Common | Skip — novelty truck |
Car classes are quoted from community stat sheets for stock tunes and can move once you tune; treat the band as a starting point, not a fixed value.
The two cars worth a deadline
1988 Lamborghini Countach LP5000 QV — the one to grind first
If you grind one car this week, grind this. The Countach LP5000 QV is the wedge-shaped icon of the decade the playlist is named after, and it carries a naturally aspirated 5.2-litre V12 mounted amidships. In A-class it is not the fastest car in the set, but it is the one with the most identity — the kind of car you actually keep, livery, and bring to a car meet rather than sell for credits.
There is a sharper reason to prioritise it. This is a returning Series 1 reward, and its reappearance has split the community: veterans who ground for it the first time feel it has been devalued, while newer players get a genuine second chance. Read that as a signal, not noise — Playground re-runs popular cars, but you have no way to know whether this rerun is the last one. A 40-point seasonal car costs maybe 20 minutes. The downside of missing it is waiting an unknown number of months for a maybe.
1989 VW Rallye Golf — cheap, rare, and gone Wednesday
At 20 points the Rallye Golf is the cheapest expiring car in the playlist, which makes the skip math brutal: this is the lowest-effort permanent loss in the Series. It is a homologation special — VW built it only to legalise a rally car for competition — with the Syncro all-wheel-drive system and a supercharged 1.7-litre engine. It will not win you S-class races, but rare homologation hatches are exactly the cars that do not come back often. Twenty points is two or three PR Stunts. Bank it.
The series prize you should not rush: Porsche 911 Turbo S Leichtbau
The headline car of Horizon Decades is the 1993 Porsche 911 Turbo S Leichtbau, and it is the most desirable unlock in the set — Porsche built only 86 of them, and “Leichtbau” (lightweight) means roughly 181 kg stripped out of a standard Turbo S. In Forza it lands as an A-class rear-drive car with the twitchy, rewarding handling the 964 platform is known for.
Here is the part the FOMO framing gets wrong: it is a series reward at 80 points, claimable any time before July 16. You do not need to rush it this week. Spread the 80 points across the four weeks, or clear them in a couple of focused sessions once the Summer cars are banked. Grinding the Porsche on June 24 at the expense of the two Summer cars would be the single worst priority call you could make this week.
The 2018 Lotus Exige Cup 430 sits in the same bucket: a 160-point series reward, the highest cost in the playlist, and the most track-capable thing on offer at S1 with 430 hp and a 3.2-second 0–60. It is worth the grind — just not a June 25 grind. If you want a sharper handling pick right now, our best drift cars guide covers what already in your garage does the job.
What to skip — and the cars that are merely optional
The 2006 Dodge Ram SRT-10 is the one honest skip. It is a Common-rarity B-class novelty truck — a Viper V10 in a pickup body is a fun fact, not a fast car. You will earn it incidentally while chasing the Winter 40-point reward (the Ford Lightning) and never drive it again. Do not spend a single dedicated event on it.
The optional tier is genuinely optional, not bad. The Schuppan 962CR is the rarest car in the set by real-world numbers — a road-legal Porsche 962 Le Mans car with only seven ever built, around 600 hp, sub-1,000 kg — and at S2 it is a proper hypercar; chase it in Autumn. The Saleen S7 LM (Spring, ~1,300 bhp, near-two-second 0–60) is the raw speed pick. The Mercedes-AMG GT R is a safe S1 all-rounder, and the TVR Cerbera Speed 12 is a character car for people who like a fight. None of those expire this week, so none of them belong in your June 25 plan.
The Car Pass cars (separate from the grind)
Do not confuse the playlist rewards with the Car Pass. If you own the Car Pass, four cars unlock on a fixed weekly schedule regardless of points: the 2023 Audi R8 Coupé V10 GT RWD (June 18 — an S1 611-bhp rear-drive special, 333 units built), the Mazda Mad Mike 808 Wagon (June 25), the 1998 Nissan Skyline GT-R 40th Anniversary (July 2), and the 2023 Toyota GR Corolla (July 9). These cost no playlist points and have no grind attached — they arrive on their date. The Audi R8 is the standout of the four and the best free S1 car of the Series if you have the Pass.
How to bank the Summer points fast
You need 60 points to clear both expiring Summer cars (40 + 20). That is one short session if you target the efficient challenges instead of grinding races blindly.
- PR Stunts first. Most award 2 points and take a couple of minutes each — the best points-per-minute in the playlist. Knock out the speed traps, jumps and drift zones the playlist flags this week.
- Promo Photos. Photo challenges hand over points for parking the right car in the right place — roughly 10 points for almost no driving. Do these early.
- Time Attacks (3 points each) and weekly Forzathon events fill the gap above PR Stunts.
- Drop the difficulty. Race wins still pay points; lowering AI difficulty does not reduce the reward, so there is no honour penalty for clearing a stubborn race on a lower setting.
- Monthly Rivals contribute points across the whole Series, not just one week — a clean way to chip at the Porsche’s 80 without dedicated Summer sessions.
Rallye Golf (20) → Countach (40) first, because they expire. Then bank toward the Porsche (80) at your own pace. Ignore the Dodge Ram entirely. If you are new to the playlist system, start with our Forza Horizon 6 beginner guide.
If your event times are being wrecked by stutter rather than skill, that is a settings problem, not a driving one — our Forza Horizon 6 best PC settings guide fixes the common Japan-map frame drops before you waste a Time Attack on a stutter. For everything else in the game — barn finds, boards, accolades — see the collectibles guide, and the full Forza Horizon 6 hub collects every guide we have.
FAQ
Which Horizon Decades car should I unlock first?
The Lamborghini Countach LP5000 QV, then the VW Rallye Golf. Not because they are the fastest — they are not — but because they are the only two cars that vanish at the June 25 rotation. Everything else can wait, so spending Summer time on a car you can grab in July is a wasted week.
Is the Porsche 911 Turbo S Leichtbau worth grinding before June 25?
It is worth grinding, but not before June 25. It is a series reward claimable until July 16, so rushing it now means risking the two Summer cars that actually expire. Bank the Summer rewards first, then take the Porsche’s 80 points at your own pace.
Will the returning cars come back again later?
Possibly, but there is no schedule. Playground Games re-runs popular cars — the Countach and Ford Lightning in this Series are proof — but they have never committed to when. Treating “it might return” as a reason to skip a 20-minute grind is a bet against an unknown timeline; the cheap seasonal cars are not worth that bet.
Do the Car Pass cars cost playlist points?
No. The Audi R8, Mazda 808 Wagon, Nissan Skyline 40th Anniversary and Toyota GR Corolla unlock on fixed weekly dates if you own the Car Pass — no points, no grind. Keep them mentally separate from the ten playlist reward cars, or you will overestimate how much grinding the Series actually needs.
What is the fastest way to earn the 60 Summer points?
Promo Photos and PR Stunts. Photo challenges pay roughly 10 points for parking a car; PR Stunts pay 2 points for a couple of minutes each. Clear those before touching races, and 60 points is one sitting rather than an evening.
Sources
- Forza.net — Drive Decades of Iconic Cars in Forza Horizon 6 (official Series 2 announcement)
- Traxion.GG — Forza Horizon 6 Series 2 adds 10 new cars, including rare Porsche 911
- TheXboxHub — Festival Playlist Challenges Guide: Series 2 Summer
- Dexerto — 2023 Audi R8 Coupé V10 GT RWD (class and stats)
- EZG — Series 2 update: Horizon Decades, returning rare cars and the FOMO debate
- Athlon — Fastest method to unlock playlist reward cars
- Forza Horizon 6 Car List — Festival Playlist car stats: Porsche 911 Turbo S Leichtbau (A-class, 86 units) and Lotus Exige Cup 430 (S1, 430 hp).
Game screenshots and promotional images are the property of their respective publishers and are used here for editorial and identification purposes.
I've been playing video games for over 20 years, spanning everything from early PC titles to modern open-world games. I started Switchblade Gaming to publish the kind of accurate, well-researched guides I always wanted to find — built on primary sources, tested in-game, and kept up to date after patches. I currently focus on Minecraft and Pokémon GO.