Port Gellhorn

Footage leaked in September 2022 showed substantial parts of Port Gellhorn’s commercial and industrial areas, its surrounding terrain, and an overhead view of Gellhorn International Raceway. That material also included a debug-menu list of world events which named locations not shown in those clips, including a police station, a train station, a trailer park, a soccer field, and a basketball court.

Rockstar first officially showed the city in Grand Theft Auto VI’s first trailer. The footage included a pawn shop and a liquor store, both of which had previously appeared in the leaked event list. Port Gellhorn returned near the end of the second trailer, where Crossroad Park Minimall and the Bocamar Bridge were visible. No trailer timestamps are provided for these appearances.

Rockstar’s promotional website gave Port Gellhorn its own dedicated material, including official screenshots and a postcard. These items highlighted Delights, a strip club, and the city’s seaport area.

Other named places associated with the city include Hank’s Waffles, Port Gellhorn Pawn & Gun, Quickshop Grocery Store, Starlet Motel, a car wash, an abandoned motel without a stated name, an unnamed church, and an unnamed train station. The available material identifies these places but does not give prices, services, missions, vehicle information, or gameplay functions for them.

Draper Island and Gellhorn International Raceway are listed as districts of Port Gellhorn. The raceway is the location seen from above in the September 2022 leaked material.

Interstate 404, Leonida State Route 9, and U.S. Route 2 serve the city. Its named road crossing is the Bocamar Bridge, while a second bridge is identified only as a rail bridge. Law enforcement is represented by the Port Gellhorn Police Department, and the leaked event list also referred to a police station.

Port Gellhorn’s buildings and layout draw chiefly from Panama City, Florida, along with Bay County communities near it: Parker, Callaway, and Springfield. The comparison is based on the city’s combination of built-up commercial and industrial sites with wooded land, fields, and hills.

Its seaport appears to reinterpret Port Tampa Bay in Tampa. The city’s position by a bay west of Lake Leonida is also compared with Port Charlotte and nearby Punta Gorda. These are stated influences rather than confirmed one-for-one copies of individual streets or buildings.

The name Gellhorn appears to reference Martha Gellhorn, the American writer and journalist who reported on the 1989 United States invasion of Panama. She later went to Panama City to cover civilian casualties from that invasion.

The Panama connection also fits the Florida influence: both Panama City, Florida, and Panama City in Panama take their names from the country associated with the Panama Canal. The “Port” element is linked to Port Charlotte, whose coastal setting is compared with Port Gellhorn’s place beside Leonida’s lake.