Sim Racing

You should definitely get the original AC. I know it looks a bit dated, and is pretty limited on PS without the mods, but it's usually pretty cheap and feels great to drive. Even if you do nothing else, it's great for hot lapping the Nordschleife, although you'll probably have some fun with online Mx-5 racing too. I'm not a huge fan of ACC personally, FFB feels pretty numb to me, but the AI racing is good, and the championship options can be interesting. It helps if you are a fan of SRO.

I absolutely adore ACC and have been racing exlusively in this sim for several months now. That being said though, I've been racing online only and on PC.

I have heard several times from different sources that ACC has its problems on consoles, being it crashes, weird updates etc.. The AI and the career mode is okay-ish I guess, but the real value is in its multiplayer, if you ask me.

AC on the other hand is an offline content fest (again: only speaking for PC). I have only ever played it fully modded though. The unmodded graphics speak for themselves? :)

If you only want to drive offline, having a nice career mode, challenges, etc., I would wait for AC Evo.

I watched a few videos about AC Evo and I think your last comment about graphics might be the decider here. I personally think GT7 has much better graphics than a lot of the competition. I also have been playing GT7, mostly offline, since I got a PS5 a couple of years ago. I've tried AC and it felt dated, to me personally. I have downloaded ACC and haven't played it yet but from what I've seen of Evo (and I know it's an early access thing at the mo), the lighting is flat, the AI isn't brilliant, and the driving apparently feels a bit weird in a few of the available cars.