No plastic wheel matches the familiarity of a real car. That's why these Finnish geeks plugged a PC directly into this VW Scirocco's on-board computer and, with some clever coding and a projector, created an incredibly immersive gaming experience.
The steering wheel controls, pedals and shifter on the Scirocco all communicate with the vehicle's systems electronically instead of mechanically. It's giving Toyota nightmares but this full-sized controller wouldn't work otherwise.
By hacking into the car's CANbus with an OBD-II connector the driver uses the vehicle's major control functions to control the car in the game. The OBD-II hooks up to a PC and the data from the car (steering angle, pedal travel, gear selection) is translated to the game as if it were a joystick. In this case, the Scirocco plays the game Rally Trophy as if it were actually in the game.
The car itself is unmodified — unless you count the projector and better speakers as a modification — so this could theoretically be duplicated on any vehicle with electronic controls fairly easily. (Hat tip to Kstokes!)
[Hackaday]