Racing games range from crazy kart racers to hyper-realistic simulators, and the cars players can drive vary just as much. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, quite a few racing games added secret unlockable cars that were totally off the map of what is commonly considered a race car.
Some of these cars were based on futuristic concepts, while others must have been designed when the developers were extremely hungry or just ran out of ideas. Hot dogs, tanks, and T-Rexes were all unlikely to appear in video games, and the ridiculous secret cars need a comeback in today’s generation of racing games. They are crazy, fun and just what the racing genre needs to make it more exciting.
10 If the shoe fits, ride the NIKE One 2022
In front of Gran Turismo 4Polyphony Digital collaborated with Phil Frank, a designer with NIKE, to create a hypothetical car that can be included in the game. The result was the NIKE One 2022. Not surprisingly, it loosely resembles a shoe, albeit a very strange one.
It looks sporty and aerodynamic and sports that trademark NIKE sigh. Gran Turismo 4 used to bereleased in 2004, and it seems Frank predicted his hypothetical car to be released in 2022. However, racing and car fans have yet to see the fully realized vehicle and it remains only in the virtual world of GT4.
9 Enter this car in the mileage log
‘s Log Car Need For Speed II is exactly what it sounds like. No wheels, no driver, no logic. If one of the logs that fell from the trailer in that scene from… Final destination got a will of his own and started driving himself, this would be the result.
There’s also an Outhouse car and various boxes and crates, but those are a little more believable than ridiculous cars. slightly. Players who want to fulfill their lumberjack racing dreams only need to enter the cheat code “logme” to make them come true.
8 Drive the iconic “N” in Top Gear Overdrive
Top Gear Overdrive had a few unlockable cars that really go off the absurdity spectrum when it comes to what makes a car a car. The car with the Nintendo 64 logo is probably the weirdest, but somehow one of the coolest things to drive in the game. The 3D “N” for Nintendo’s console floats above the ground with four wheels magically attached to the corners.
The wheels float by themselves, but common sense goes out the door with a moving logo. The developers haven’t even bothered to try and make sense with a windshield or driver somewhere, but it gets full marks for sheer ridiculous quirkiness.
7 Taco Tuesday Meets Race Day
Top Gear Overdrive shifts from a 3D letter to a delicious dinner choice with the Taco Car. The car consists of a hard shell taco, some kind of dark meat, black beans and is topped with some shredded lettuce. It actually looks like a pretty tasty taco, and the sliced tomato wheels are a nice garnish.
While the car isn’t the best handler in the game, it looks pretty good for flying down the highway, but how the toppings stay in a taco that goes 100mph is something players will have to forgive, knowing it’s free. it’s hard not to make a mess just take a bite of a typical hard shell taco.
6 This car is a hot dog!
The Wiener Car in Top Gear Overdrive is possibly the most realistic of its strange unlockable vehicles, but only because the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile is a thing. It’s safe to assume that when the developers thought of what the next crazy car would be, they ate a hot dog and thought of that trademark tube steak on wheels.
The sausage car definitely looks like it, but the added touch of sliced pickles for wheels sets it apart and makes clear the idea that players are actually driving with food. If race after race doesn’t start working, this vehicle should at least whet the player’s appetite.
5 Gran Turismo 6 landed on the moon
Gran Turismo’s tagline is “The Real Driving Simulator.” In Gran Turismo 6, they took it a step further and added space riding to their repertoire. Although the game always takes place on Earth, on real race tracks with real cars, sometimes including concept cars, GT6 added a Lunar Roving mission where players get behind the wheel of the Lunar Roving Vehicle.
It is a replica of the real lunar rover that landed on the moon during the Apollo 15 mission in 1971. Players can only drive the car in this mission. It’s an odd addition to a game aimed at the most realistic racing, but controlling a piece of human history is quite a feat.
4 Take a Tank in TOCA Touring Car Championship
The TOCA Touring Car Championship game set its foundation in a realistic racing world with licensed cars and lifelike tracks. They added more cars, tracks and realistic damage for the sequel. But as they increased their realism, they also increased their fantasy by adding the Daimler Ferret Scout Car: a tank.
The treads are swapped out for wheels to keep the racing fair. However, the cannon still works and can push opponents out of the way. Ridiculous as it is, being a post-WWII armored vehicle, the Daimler Ferret Scout Car is a fun addition to the game, especially if players are dealing with road rage.
3 Ridge Racer 4 pulled a page from Wipeout’s Playbook
The Assoluto Volcano in Ridge Racer 4 looks like a futuristic tank that was crushed by a bigger tank. Canonically, the Vulcano is a prototype of a futuristic racing vehicle soaring above the road.
It looks like an armored tank because there is no discernible cockpit or windshield, so the driver controls it remotely or uses screens and cameras to see outside. The vehicles in the Ridge Racer series can sometimes look futuristic, but the volcano looks like something borrowed from the erase series, in an unintended crossover gamers didn’t know they needed.
2 Take the Victory with UPS in 2006 NASCAR: Total Team Control
The NASCAR series of games are pretty standard because they always race on an oval track, go left, and all the cars look almost identical except for the liveries. However, in NASCAR 2006: Total Team Controlplayers saw something different on the oval track.
By using the cheat code “Race Thetruck”, players can unlock the highly recognizable large, brown, boxy UPS truck to race around the track. It has pretty decent stats but looks absolutely ridiculous, racing against the rest of the cars. It doesn’t belong, but maybe that’s why the developers added it; a touch of whimsy.
1 Need For Speed II Visited Jurassic Park
An iconic scene in Jurassic Park where a T-Rex chases one of the park’s jeeps. But as iconic as that is, the developers of Need For Speed II thought, “What if the car and the T-Rex merged!” And so the T-Rex car was born.
Players can enter the cheat code “trexme” to unlock the prehistoric vehicle, which is literally just a T-Rex model that slides down the road and towers over all other vehicles in the race. It’s completely insane, hilarious and something that needs to be tried.
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