Start your journey though our top 20 auto-themed video games by clicking next on the right and give us what you think we missed in the comments below.

Game: Spy Hunter
Creator: Midway
Release Date: 1983
Original Platform: Arcade

Why We Love It: Elegantly designed and incredibly well-balanced, but all we cared about in 1983 is that we had a Z28 with guns on it. Unlimited ammo machine guns. Also oil slicks, smokescreen, anti-air missles, and support infrastructure in the form of the weapons and replacement vans, and what else do you need from life as long as you had access to the sit-down version? Even the Peter Gunn theme never seemed to get old.

Photo: Wikipedia

Game: Pole Position
Creator: Namco
Release Date: 1982
Original Platform: Arcade

Why We Love It: The faux-3D graphics, the inclusion of the more-or-less actual Fuji Racetrack circuit and the qualify-to-race format allowed certain junior car geeks to act aloof and superior to everyone else in the arcades. Hey, we all thought we were going to be nuked at any moment, and we were living for the moment, okay? Pole Position also featured in-game advertising, which seemed cool in those more innocent times.

Photo: Videogamecritic.net

Game: F-Zero
Creator: Nintendo
Release Date: 1991
Original Platform: SNES

Why We Love It: Listen, Mario Kart is great and all, but F-Zero was hardcore stuff. In the 27th century, gigaillionaires race cars which hover a foot over a track lined with damaging walls and festooned with magnets, mines, and slip zones. Unlock the Super Jet boost by putting in a good lap and you're in a for a combination of Pole Position and Sonic the Hedgehog, meaning that it was fun, colorful, and difficult as hell.

Photo: Wikipedia

Game: Newman/Haas Racing Featuring Nigel Mansell
Creator: Acclaim
Release Date: 1994
Original Platform: SNES

Why We Love It: Now YOU can be Nigel Mansell! Er…great? Well, there weren't a lot of licensed games based on actual series for console owners in those days, and Nigel Mansell was pretty much the most complete. In the early '90s Mansell came over to the States from Formula 1, proceeded to trounce everyone on the Indy-series ovals with a combination of talent and stupefying bravery, and then put his intimidating Brit-stache on this perfectly adequate game. Interestingly, you could retire from a race, or a few in a row, with injuries to the driver, which was perhaps a nod to Mansell's 1993 injury at Phoenix, or perhaps just a really silly idea.

Photo: SNESclassics

Game: Daytona USA
Creator: Sega
Release Date: 1995
Original Platform: Arcade

Why We Love It: Hey, you could race against up to eight of your friends! Or most likely the guy in the one other cabinet who has $14 in quarters up there, won't leave, and smells like gerbil bedding. Still, it was cool, and several different oval, road, and street courses were on offer, plus the option of manual transmissions, so you could actually get pretty wrapped up in it. And it ran extremely fast and smooth for the time. Sadly, instead of an evolved version, Buck Hunter and Golden Tee rule today's bowling alleys and bars.

Photo: Softpedia

Game: Twisted Metal
Creator: SingleTrac
Release Date: 1995
Original Platform: PlayStation

Why We Love It: Mario Kart was cute and all, but character-based car games were going away from races and more towards the fighting-game model. Twisted Metal was the car-combat result, and it was a huge success, even though its evil boss character was the already played-out evil clown. More importantly it had surprising tactical depth and a decent variety of stages and vehicles. Plus you could drop the Eiffel Tower on people, always a must for any fantastical demolition derby. Sadly, the series got "darker," supposedly, and less fun as time went on and people got bored by scary clowns.

Photo: SCEA

Game: WipEout series
Creator: Psygnosis/SCE Liverpool
Release Date: 1995
Original Platform: PlayStation, PC

Why We Love It: Rave on, racers! While in many respects these games hew close to the F-Zero hovering rocket-car format, the production design is extremely 90s and the throbbing electronic soundtrack is extremely throbbing. It also happens to be very good arcade racing, if you can tolerate the well-executed if psychedelic atmosphere. Still popular among people who like their racing alternate and futuristic, their music futuristic and throbbing, and their consciousness throbbing and altered.

Photo: consolewars

Game: Formula 1
Creator: Psygnosis
Release Date: 1996
Original Platform: PlayStation

Why We Love It: It may not have been a true simulation, but the first in-depth racing game for the PlayStation was a very good one indeed. Formula 1 featured the entire field and all the tracks from the 1995 season, full practice and qualifying sessions, and commentary by Murray Walker himself. Graphically, and in most other ways, it was a big step beyond anything else commonly available, and was arguably better than any of the next couple follow-ups in the series, which eventually bogged down somewhat in gimcrackery and tacked-on arcade modes.

Photo: rscnet

Game: Streets Of Sim City
Creator: Maxis
Release Date: 1997
Original Platform: PC

Why We Love It: Before anyone figured out that manipulating simulated people were where it's at, simulated civil service and urban planning were a huge genre. Streets allowed you to be a puppet master by day and an automotive vigilante puppet by night; the streets you raced and fought on were the very ones you designed. It seemed like a novelty, but besides the racing and car combat it was remarkably absorbing to just cruise the streets of your very own metropolis, consider raising taxes again, and wonder why all your slums were invariably down by your stadium.

Photo: Gosugamers

Game: Interstate '76
Creator: Activision
Release Date: 1997
Original Platform: PC

Why We Dig It The Most, Baby: It's car combat set against a malaise-era oil crisis with a 'sploitation sensibility, and it is funny and it rocks. You play as "Groove Champion," and you fight to stop OPEC from nuking Texas—for reasons that certainly must have seemed sound at the time—from behind the wheel and trigger of an alternate-universe Plymouth Barracuda. The combat mechanics are surprisingly detailed, the driving engine is consistent if unremarkable, and the soundtrack is huge, bass-heavy and fretless. There were sequels, but they didn't have the same magic. A great reason to own an older PC or to emulate.

Photo: Wikipedia

Game: Grand Prix Legends
Creator: Papyrus
Release Date: 1998
Original Platform: PC

Why We Absolutely Adore It: A gem that slowly evolved into a masterpiece and ten years after its release is verging on a magnum opus. You want to talk cult hits and rabid fans? This little game, which started out as an extremely solid simulation of the 1967 Grand Prix season, still has a dedicated playing and modding community today, and when we say dedicated, we mean they're almost done putting together the entire Targa Florio course-all 45 miles of it. It's a classic example of a looks-okay-but-plays-amazing game, and if you're remotely interested in the game type and want to play alongside a passionate, dedicated group, this is exactly what you've been looking for.

Photo: Softpedia

Game: Gran Turismo series
Creator: Polyphony Digital
Release Date: 1998
Original Platform: PlayStation

Why We Love It: Without this game, would people still crave RHD JDM R34 Skylines, we wonder? Probably, but not with the same intensity. Aside from the 176-car menu, Gran Turismo introduced the joy of simulation, with its emphasis on careful setup and car control (if not damage modeling) to consoles. A great racing-school component, challenging event stages, and tantalizing unlockables kept a new generation of digital gearheads playing all night. It was five years in the making, but it was worth it, as every edition since has been a stunner, and there's every reason to suspect that long-delayed GT5 will be astounding as well. As for developer Polyphony Digital, who changed motoring culture by putting Skylines in their product, they now put their product in the Skyline; they famously do the dash graphics for Nissan's GTR.

Photo: Polyphony Digital

Game: Crazy Taxi
Creator: Sega
Release Date: 1999
Original Platform: Arcade

Why We Love It: It's perhaps the last truly great arcade driver, Crazy Taxi is a roaming mission-based game of fare deliver with an odd but consistent physics engine and a great sense of humor. It was simple, buy there was a lot of depth and plenty to enjoy, including the sights and folks of coastal pseudo-California, the ever-present KFC ads, and the jaunty punk soundtrack. It nibbled away your time in happy 90-second bites, and it only got better when it evolved into The Simpsons Hit And Run.

Photo: Loot Ninja

Game: Midnight Club
Creator: Angel Studios
Release Date: 2000
Original Platform: PlayStation2

Why We Love It: The PS2's debut was a revelation, and aptly-named publisher Rockstar Games was there to capitalize with an open-world off-road free-for-all called Smuggler's Run and this free-roaming street racer. The setting was Manhattan, a semi-open world which seemed huge at the time and provided great choose-your-own-course point-to-point racing. The series continues to evolve and has become even more challenging; it may be the arcade racer with the steepest difficulty curve.

Photo: Gamespy

Game: Colin McRae Rally/ DiRT
Creator: Codemasters
Release Date: 2000
Original Platform: PlayStation, PC

Why We Love It: As indescribably cool as rallying is, there aren't many rally games to choose from. Therefore it's fortunate that the McRae games are very good indeed. Although they trend towards the arcadey side in later editions, all of them are fun, challenging , and smooth, and a fitting pop-culture tribute to one of the greatest drivers of all time. They're also some of the best-looking car games out there regardless of genre, and the sound must be heard to be believed; motorsport, and rallying in particular, is not a quiet activity, and this title does a better job than any other game s of bringing it home to the vicarious driver.

Photo: Gamespot

Game: Grand Theft Auto III-IV
Creator: Rockstar
Release Date: 2001
Original Platform: PlayStation2

Why We Love It: Okay, so it isn't purely or even primarily a car game, despite its title. Yet the driving aspects of these satirical mayhem simulators are so much evil-hearted cinematic fun that it can't be left off this list. Much thought has been put into the cars that populate GTA's hilariously mean-tempered cities, and every model is meticulously detailed and clearly inspired by some real-world counterpart. They all blow up real good, too. And the latest installment finally looks good enough to make the first-person view worth using during police chases, which adds an almost frightening level of immediacy to your inevitable brutal demise.

Photo: IGNl

Game: Burnout series
Creator: Criterion
Release Date: 2002
Original Platform: PlayStation2, Xbox, GameCube

Why We Love It: The problem with many racing games, even the less realistic ones, is that one little crash can render the entire race a moot point. Burnout's genius solution was to make crashing just as important as racing, and just as skill-intensive. All the titles were fun, and though the most recent edition, Burnout Paradise, lost the bowling-for-cars Crash Mode, it added a free-roaming component that more than made up for it. One of the great Neanderthal time-wasters of the videogame world.

Photo: Wikipedia

Game: Need for Speed Most Wanted
Creator: Electronic Arts Canada
Release Date: 2005
Original Platform: PlayStation2, Xbox

Why We Love It: The Need For Speed series has been around just about forever, but frankly not all its editions have been worthwhile. Of the many good ones, we prefer Most Wanted, because if you're going to have a glossy, unrealistic, over-the-top street racer, you should really try to outrun the cops as well. The police pursuits are the best part of this game, which is set in a world where the entire focus of the United States government is apparently dedicated to preventing you from speeding, which results in some wonderfully fun and over-the-top chases, all of them treated with deadly serious attitude. Oooh, those street racers and their pesky nitrouses!

Photo: NFSAddons

Game: Forza Motorsport series
Creator: Forza Motorsport series
Release Date: 2005
Original Platform: Xbox

Why We Love It: While the Xbox had a very pretty and enjoyable arcade racer in Project Gotham, it badly needed a sim-based game. It got a great one in Forza, which had hundreds of cars, very deep graphic customization, extended replays, the Nürburgring Nordschleife, and damage modeling. Finally, a gorgeous, deep console racer where you couldn't just berm off other racers without consequences! Happily, the series continues to evolve in a positive direction, and we have high hopes for the debut of Forza 3 in a couple months.

Photo: Kotaku

Game: Test Drive Unlimited
Creator: Eden Games
Release Date: 2006
Original Platform: PC, Xbox360, PlayStation2, PSP

Why We Love It: The Test Drive series began in 1987-1987!-and like NFS, has varied widely in quality. But it's always featured exotic hardware raced in traffic on public roads, and Unlimited does that wonderfully. The developers took a map of Oahu, simplified it down to a mere thousand miles of road, and modeled it for free roaming. The MOOR system, or Massively Open Online Racing, allowed players to race against friends or just cruise with them, which was much more popular than you might think. Your customizable character was visible to other players at the car clubs, although they couldn't come hang out at your mansion and check out your ever-growing collection of undamagable exotics. There was even an in-game photography mode that allowed players to live out their buff-book fantasies. It was really an automotive lifestyle game as much as a racer, and a pretty decent piece of escapism to zone out with.

There's a lot of good games out there, and it was tough to keep this one to just twenty titles. Think we missed big? Know something we should try? Enraged at the omission of Big Rig Racing? Let us know in the comments.

Photo: Gamerhell

Special thanks to: Garage419!

The Muscle Car Wars have gone from cold to hot and it looks like Ford wants to send Chevy to the scrap yard. On the way, both would like to send more Challengers to a crusher demise.

[Source: The10Unleashed.com]

We've brought you a lot of "firsts" along this long, dark path we've traveled from concept to the new Chevy Camaro including the EPA fuel economy numbers, the Camaro SS 0-to-60 time and the Nurburgring lap numbers this morning. But none gives us greater delight than this — the first tire-smoking burnout provided for us by none other than GM's Al Oppenheiser. He's the Chief Vehicle Engineer of the new Camaro.

We kind of wish we'd had the time necessary to add the almost-a-prerequisite waving 'merican flag fading in and out of the video and "America, Fuck Yeah!" playing in the background.

References say that Hoon stood for "man living off immoral earnings (i.e. a pimp)" at the turn of the 20th century. The term has evolved to encompass drivers of either sex "who drives any vehicle dangerously and/or fast." The term hoon is typically only used in Australia or New Zealand, but we're doing our damnedest to bring it front and center into the vocab of American gearheads everwhere.

This t-shirt worn at Summer Nats, an Aussie-flavored SEMA, wraps up the definition of hoon in a succinct, efficient manner. We're hoping this hoon-shirted bloke launched out of the parking lot after a smoky, tire-shredding burnout, gained enough speed to nail the perfect Rockford, thereby instantly attaining hoon-god status among his peers. A man's outfit says a lot.

Also, as an FYI to the world's laziest journalist, you don't need to name your post "photo for Ray at Jalopnik" to get our attention. Just wanted ya to know that.

[WorldsLaziestJournalist and Reference.com]

Recently, ROUSH gave us a shot behind the wheel of an F-150 converted with the first ever propane kit system —a new complete plug-and-play propane conversion kit for 2007.5 and 2008 model years equipped with the 5.4-liter V8 engine. The installation kit includes a fuel pump, fuel injectors with matching fuel rail, a reprogrammed ROUSH ECU, all of the proper fluid lines and wiring and either an under-bed 25-gallon tank or the one pictured here that sits in the bed and holds 59-gallons. Installation can be accomplished at home with a reasonable set of tools in about eight hours.

So how does driving the propane-powered F-150 differ from the gasoline or diesel-powered model? It doesn’t. ROUSH's earth-friendly Ford drives, stops and steers exactly like its conventional cousin. Since this truck runs off liquid propane, starting the engine is as simple as turning the key. This is vital, as models from other manufacturers burn gaseous propane, resulting in issues with turning over in the cold; that wouldn't cut it up here in the Dirty Glove (Michigan, for the uninitiated) with our freeze-your-ass-off winters. Horsepower and torque numbers are supposedly identical to the gasoline-fed model, but we noticed a bit more pep. Cargo loading and tow ratings remain unchanged.

Mother Earth is all "Hell Yeah" about this truck as much as Hank Hill would be if he got his hands on one. Propane touts a much lower carbon footprint than gasoline, diesel, heavy fuel oil and even ethanol; the exhaust contains virtually no toxic compounds. Safety actually improves over the gas-fed truck: The propane storage tank is tested at six times the usual pressure to ensure you don't turn into a mushroom cloud on your way back from Best Buy. Try saying that about the fuel tank in your Camry.

All this namby-pamby greenwashing is fine and all, but let's talk economy. With propane producing fewer BTUs per gallon than gasoline, it's only logical to expect a hit in fuel mileage. After 615 miles of mixed driving, our truck returned a calculated 9.6 MPG, albeit with significant and prolonged hoonage practiced. Reports from other drivers agree highway mileage sits around 12-14 MPG when driven gingerly. Fuel is astonishingly easy to come by on the open road as every U-Haul, Airgas and the like all have the proper nozzle to dispense some clean burnin' goodness.

So, if it eats a bit more fuel than its conventional brother per mile, where are they hiding the savings? The cost of the complete kit starts at a suggested retail price of $8,595.00. Obviously, nobody's saving a buck there. Well, propane must be mighty cheap, right? Not quite: We paid $2.11 a gallon from the local U-Haul, which offered the most competitive pricing in the Detroit area. The simple fact is that, just like voting Republican, this truck doesn't make sense for Joe the Plumber and it isn't supposed to. If you take a look at the math from a fleet perspective, the numbers start lining up in attractive little rows. First, propane rings in at about $1.00 a gallon once you start purchasing at the wholesale level. Then, factor in the $0.50 per gallon tax credit offered by the Fed for using propane as a fuel in a road-going vehicle. The cherry on top of that financially-delicious sundae is the whopping $2,500 maximum tax credit allowed for each ROUSH Propane-fueled F-150 purchased. Suddenly, this mathematically-approved messiah brings the promise of flipping your bottom line from red to black while Joe gets to keep his job fixin' the pipes. [viaROUSH]

Photo Credit: Alex C. Conley

For this example, we'll be using the 2008 Dodge Challenger SRT8, but the essential procedure can be applied to any number of slushbox-equipped RWD vehicles. Once you've mastered the technique, feel free to make your own video to show us all what you've learned. If you'd like some examples, check out our Corvette ZR1 burnout video, or this slow-motion Ford Mustang burnout video.

Photo Credit: Alex C. Conley

Photo Credit: Alex C. Conley

The winner? That sweet Dodge Coronet.

They won't be placing ads in random video games either, the three targeted games are Need for Speed: Carbon, Project Gotham Racing and Pro Evolution Soccer 2008. The two racing games make perfect sense, but soccer? I guess one stereotype does associate Scots with being drunk soccer hooligans that may or may not have tendencies to drive.

Let's just hope the in-game advertising doesn't come by way of vanity license plates — SBRDRVR. Getting drunk with your friends and playing Burnout is still acceptable, though, just hands off the keys. [Kotaku]

Related:
Billetproof 2007: Hot Rod Like it's 1959 [internal]

Hoon of the Day: Skyline Driftamino![internal]

We once heard "with great power comes great responsibilities." We kind of believe that's total BS — and subscribe more weight to the phrase "with great power comes great ability to do burnouts." It looks like this Camaro and it's owner subscribe to the same anti-Uncle Ben belief system. Plus, it's kind of like a magic trick — "and the Camaro has disappeared!"

Related;
More hoonage [internal]

Some burnouts are just a matter of parking-lot grandstanding, in which the driver lets up just about when the show's getting started. Other burnouts are hardcore, all-or-nothing affairs that result in thermodynamic changes to the materials involved. Still others involve V8-powered Jeeps. Yeah.

Kick Ass Burnout [Dumpalink.com via Motorpulse]

Related:
Smoky Burnout of the Day: Pro Mod Holden Ute [internal]