Serial #20.
So this unusual and, seldom-found (rare?) cabinet came up for free thanks to coinopper in this post. Like any game I've never heard of, I went to google and found... not a whole lot outside of MAME plays. The gameplay looked neat, even played it a few times in MAME. It's not bad! And like a lot of games, it may be more fun when played with the proper controls, and this game sports a 4-gear shifter, nice! More chances to fail and hit things!
I was on the fence for it because it's an empty cabinet, and the only thing I saw on ebay was the steering & shifting assembly for $450. Well, it didn't take long for a few KLOV'ers to chime in and offer up the parts. All of them!
Once that happened I couldn't turn it down. Coinopper offered to drive it down (2.5 hour drive, big thanks for that!), and I started reaching out to the folks for the parts.
Like nearly all 80's Atari games, the side art on this game is gorgeous. Since it hasn't been reproduced, I'll do what I can with some magic erasers and get it cleaned up as best as I can. There is some wood rot on the bottom to address. The biggest problem with the cabinet are the chunks taken out on the very front of the control panel, which I'm guessing happened from the game falling forward somehow. You can see my early work on building this back up with DAP Plastic Wood.
I'm pretty excited with this restore. I've never seen this game in an arcade during my time (and growing up in south jersey, I got to play a lot of what are now seen as rare or low-run games, Freedom Fighter Laserdisc anyone?). The gameplay isn't exactly full of intense action. Four-directional scrolling of a larger map with some weather effects is pretty progressive for 1980, but Sega's Monaco GP predates this with much quicker, intense gameplay and prettier eye candy, albeit in a vertical only setup. Still, it's a driver with a 4-position shifter in a scrolling map, that's enough for my short attention span to enjoy.
Oh yeah, I heard KLOV likes photos of cabinets. If there's an angle desired while I have it stripped down, feel free to ask.
Here's Coinopper's original seller photos for posterity, and two photos of it in my garage after delivery. You can see how much of the front control panel wood is damaged, nearly an inch of it gone at the top!
So this unusual and, seldom-found (rare?) cabinet came up for free thanks to coinopper in this post. Like any game I've never heard of, I went to google and found... not a whole lot outside of MAME plays. The gameplay looked neat, even played it a few times in MAME. It's not bad! And like a lot of games, it may be more fun when played with the proper controls, and this game sports a 4-gear shifter, nice! More chances to fail and hit things!
I was on the fence for it because it's an empty cabinet, and the only thing I saw on ebay was the steering & shifting assembly for $450. Well, it didn't take long for a few KLOV'ers to chime in and offer up the parts. All of them!
Once that happened I couldn't turn it down. Coinopper offered to drive it down (2.5 hour drive, big thanks for that!), and I started reaching out to the folks for the parts.
Like nearly all 80's Atari games, the side art on this game is gorgeous. Since it hasn't been reproduced, I'll do what I can with some magic erasers and get it cleaned up as best as I can. There is some wood rot on the bottom to address. The biggest problem with the cabinet are the chunks taken out on the very front of the control panel, which I'm guessing happened from the game falling forward somehow. You can see my early work on building this back up with DAP Plastic Wood.
I'm pretty excited with this restore. I've never seen this game in an arcade during my time (and growing up in south jersey, I got to play a lot of what are now seen as rare or low-run games, Freedom Fighter Laserdisc anyone?). The gameplay isn't exactly full of intense action. Four-directional scrolling of a larger map with some weather effects is pretty progressive for 1980, but Sega's Monaco GP predates this with much quicker, intense gameplay and prettier eye candy, albeit in a vertical only setup. Still, it's a driver with a 4-position shifter in a scrolling map, that's enough for my short attention span to enjoy.
Oh yeah, I heard KLOV likes photos of cabinets. If there's an angle desired while I have it stripped down, feel free to ask.
Here's Coinopper's original seller photos for posterity, and two photos of it in my garage after delivery. You can see how much of the front control panel wood is damaged, nearly an inch of it gone at the top!
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