Vice City Keeps Leaking Into Miami: A Car Convoy, Federal Beer Labels and a Working Burger Shot

On October 15 and 16, Miami locals started filming a tight convoy of six to eight real cars rebuilt to look like GTA 6 vehicles, every one of them wearing plates from Leonida, the game’s Florida. A Lamborghini Huracan led in full Vice Beach Police livery, a McLaren was kitted out as the Progen Emerus, and Corvettes stood in for the Coquette and the angular Coquette D10, with further builds matching the Cheetah, the Tempesta and the Manana. The local account ONLY in DADE caught the whole line parked at a Shell station, the game’s fiction refuelling on real unleaded.

Who built them is still unconfirmed. Fan reports point at West Coast Customs, the shop Rockstar used in 2013 when it turned a Dodge Viper into a real Bravado Banshee for a GameStop competition, and footage shows a person who appears to be from the shop talking with the drivers. Rockstar has published nothing about the cars, which, given that they are driving past tourists in broad daylight, is its own kind of statement.

From October 20 the convoy stopped being a street sighting and started looking like a production. Clips show stretches of road near Bayside Marketplace and Ocean Drive closed off by police while the cars run in formation, a black camera car rolling alongside and a drone overhead. IGN covered the speculation that Rockstar is shooting an elaborate live-action trailer, while other fan reporting ties the crews to promotional filming for the Miami Heat’s Night in Vice City on November 18.

Nobody involved has confirmed what the footage is for, so both readings remain guesses. What is not a guess is the scale: closed public streets, police escorts, crane vehicles and aerial units are the grammar of a serious shoot, not a fan meet.

Inside the Kaseya Center, where the Heat play, two concession stands have quietly become GTA restaurants. The arena’s burger outlet, previously a Skinny Louie, now trades as Burger Shot, and a Cluckin’ Bell stand has opened alongside it, with staff in branded uniforms, themed packaging and cups, and Macca and Friends and Vice City posters through the venue. Videogames Chronicle notes the food itself is the arena’s existing menu wearing new clothes, which feels appropriate for a franchise built on parody brands.

The pricing is pure arena. Combos reportedly start at $28.50, and Joel Franco, who queued for it on camera, put a burger, fries and a drink at $37. In fairness, the in-game Burger Shot sells a seven-patty item called The Heartstopper, so charging like a cardiologist is arguably canon.

The strangest find of the week came out of a government database. The community account iGrandTheftAuto discovered three approved beer labels in the US Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau registry, all filed by Tripping Animals Brewing of Doral, Florida, a few miles from Miami International. Pißwasser, the series’ Budweiser parody since GTA 4, was approved on September 29; a new 6 per cent lager called No Mames Vice City followed on October 9; and Patriot, the other returning in-game beer, cleared on October 15. The two classics are listed at 4.2 per cent, which PC Gamer points out is exactly Bud Light’s strength.

The labels carry GTA VI branding, which suggests a licensed arrangement rather than a novelty filing, but neither Rockstar nor the brewery has announced anything, and an approved label does not guarantee a product on shelves. Still, a federal agency quietly confirming Pißwasser before Rockstar does is the most GTA way imaginable for this to surface.

Documents from the City of Miami Beach, surfaced by the same community researchers, spell out what the approved takeover is actually meant to include: a giant Vice Beach sign in Lummus Park, a pink makeover for the Muscle Beach outdoor gym, a lifeguard tower repainted with VI branding, a ten-foot VI sculpture on Lincoln Road and the rooftop W sign of the W South Beach hotel turned into a Y, matching the Y Hotel from the game. Every item still needs its own permit, and Gameranx reports none had been issued as of October 15, with the whole package worth close to five million dollars once the four-million-dollar Boucher Brothers beach deal is counted in.

The beach gear is also how one man lost his job. Graham Simmon posted a TikTok on October 14 unboxing the Vice City chairs, umbrellas and cabanas before the campaign was announced, was told to delete it, and said in a follow-up video that he was fired after screenshots spread anyway, a story Kotaku covered under his own summary: GTA 6 cost me my job.

The campaign also reached American television. The first GTA 6 TV commercial aired on October 20 during NBC’s NBA opening-night broadcast of the Knicks against the 76ers, with viewers reporting the same or similar spots in the Pistons and Celtics and Thunder and Spurs games. It is the launch trailer recut for broadcast: the shower kiss and the close-up of Lucia’s ankle monitor are gone, while shots of Raul dancing, Lucia dropping onto a plane’s landing gear and Jason nudging Lucia by the car all run longer. A shorter 60-second version is circulating too.

IGN notes the broadcast cut also ends on a PlayStation logo alone, with no Xbox branding anywhere in the spot, continuing the launch trailer’s habit of pretending the second confirmed platform does not exist. Guns, robberies and explosions survived the standards desk without a scratch; two seconds of shower did not. Television remains television.