A mystery related to the cars of Car Wars

Peregrin Toker · Post by **Peregrin Toker** » 2004-03-08 12:25pm

There's an inconsistency within the Car Wars "franchise" (if we can use such a term) I've noticed ever since I started playing the card game version of Car Wars.

It regards the vehicle designs, namely following:

Hammer: In Car Wars, the Hammer is a long, low car with a small trunk and a long hood. In the Car Wars Card Game, it's a pickup.

Scrambler: In Car Wars, the Scrambler looks like some sort of insane race car complete with an extraordinarily long hood and Dodge Viper-esque stripes. In the card game version, it still looks like... well, I can best describe it as the bastard offspring of the Piranha car, a dune buggy and some hatchback thingy.

Hotshot: At least there is some similarity between the Hotshot in Car Wars and the card game version, but the card game version looks less chunky and more curvaceous - in fact, the Hotshot's card game incarnation almost looks like a Lamborghini Miura or a Ford GT-40 while the original Hotshot's best modern-day analogue would be some early '70s Detroit muscle car.

Can anybody explain this?

Einhander Sn0m4n · Post by **Einhander Sn0m4n** » 2004-03-08 02:11pm

Pics please?

Slartibartfast · Post by **Slartibartfast** » 2004-03-08 02:31pm

Laziness.

Peregrin Toker · Post by **Peregrin Toker** » 2004-03-09 10:07am

Einhander Sn0m4n wrote:Pics please?

I can't find pics of the card game incarnations of Car Wars vehicles, but here's their "proper" versions:

The purple one is the Hammer (in the card game, the Hammer is a pickup)

The one with the black go-faster stripes is the Scrambler. (in the card game, the Scrambler looks more like the Piranha pictured below)

Hotshot vs. Piranha - the black one is the Piranha and the red one is the Hotshot. (in the card game, the Hotshot basically looks like a heavily armed Ford GT40)

Peregrin Toker · Post by **Peregrin Toker** » 2004-03-12 02:45pm

I've found out that the same thing apparently also happens from edition to edition in the Car Wars game which isn't played with 100% cards - in some earlier version of Car Wars, the Vindicator car was an asymmetrical futuristic sports car which looked something like this:

In more recent printings, the Vindicator looks completely different and bears a vague resemblance to a heavily armoured late-1970s Corvette with a turret on the roof.