Earlier I pointed out that the games manual shows a total of 50 cars… and we only discovered 49 of them. There’s a mystery car there, with no details, other than a very dark picture that kind of looks like some sort of futuristic space car, or some sort of then-era CGI render....

What could it be?





I was really curious about it. From what little I could find online, it seems the way to unlock it is to buy ALL the cars.

Now, thankfully there’s a cheat to start the game with a million dollars. With that, I started a new game, smashed through the opening and immediately made my way to Shifty’s.

I then proceed to buy his entire inventory of cars… some 25 odd cars. Turns out you didn't need all 50, just Shifty's cars.








: That’s bad. The car is out of stock now.


: Because customers buy so much. My car is gone.



It seems like we even bought out his personal car. I guess he’s walking home now.


: Don’t have one?


: Well, there are some, but the amazing thing is…


: But, what should I do? Should I stop selling it?


: Uncle! Don't be so stingy, just show me.


: Well, I guess that can't be helped! But it's expensive….



Oooh… what’s it going to be?





… Huh. Well, that is interesting… an Isuzu Como....

I’ve never heard of this thing. The first google search for an Isuzu Como comes up with a van that’s sold in western world as the Nissan Caravan…


Just what even is this thing? It says it has a 3.5 litre V12?!?

At first I thought this must be something made up for the game, but the fact says it is an Isuzu specifically made me think otherwise…

So - I decided to do a little research… and it’s an interesting story.

And to start this story, we need to talk about Formula One, and Formula One engines.





Formula One Engines are crazy feats of super bespoke engineering, designed to be the best of everything and get the most power, most least weight and be reliable enough withstand the crazy speeds and demands of formula one racing. A ton of the modern efficiencies in modern vehicles were born out of Formula One engineering.

Building one of these engines is no mean feat. Some racing teams have the resources to build their own but most buy from the others. For example, many of the teams that are direct competitors to Ferrari and Mercedes Formula One teams, actually use Ferrari and Mercedes engines.

So, the year is 1989 and the Lotus F1 team needs a new engine.

Isuzu, in the middle of the bubble economy where it seemed like Japanese car manufacturers could do just about anything they wanted, figured they could have a crack at it and follow in the steps of Honda.

So they build some prototype V12 Engines, and worked with Lotus to do track testing in their cars.





Alas, it was not meant to be, and they never made it to race. Lotus eventually pulled out and Isuzu lost interest in the project.

But what were they to do with these expensive prototype V12’s that they manufactured?

Well. why not put it in a concept car?

And thus… the Isuzu Como F1 was born…





Gaahhh. What is that? It’s one of the strangest looking cars I’ve ever seen.
The engine is rear mounted, in what looks to be a pickup tray, but without the tray.

The front is a four seater cabin, and about three kilometers behind it, sits the rear wheels.

Oh, and it has scissor doors...





Concept cars often are bizarre, but this one takes the cake.

I can see why Zero4Champ II decided to use the top down view of this thing for the preview, because the side view is so odd.





How on earth did Shifty end up with this thing in his inventory anyway?





: As expected from the customer, this is a great product. You have a good eye. It’s worth buying.


: Well, that’s $225,000. I can’t beat that by a dollar.



Yeesh. Expensive. Let’s see what we get for $225,000...





Wow. She’s a long girl. I struggle to tell which bit is the front and which is the rear.

Let’s take a look at her specs:





556 horsepower 53kg of torque. Damn. I’ll bet this thing is fast…





Oh my, and it appears the interior has been designed by no other than H.R Giger…





Well. In stock form it put out a respectable 10.56 Zero4... but it was speed limited to 180kph, like all Japanese manufactured cars.

We’ve still got plenty of money left over from our cheat. Let’s see what happens when we tune it.





I don't think I ever mentioned this, but the tuning costs varies by car. And tuning this one is very expensive. But then again, a good cheat goes a long way…

With the car fully tuned, we can now slap on some parts. We'll add the three biggest turbos, the intercooler, racing slicks and a shorter transmission.





Phoahh… look at that! 999 horsepower, with 99.9 kg/m torque.

…I think we broke the Leperflesh curve.





In a dry drag race, it did about 8.31 seconds, at 355 kph. Not bad at all...