Burnout (working title Shiny Red Car) is a racing game developed by Criterion Games and published by Acclaim on the PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube and Xbox in 2001. 11 years later, information regarding Burnout beta cars has been revealed. It wasn’t exactly hidden, but neither was it put out there to the public. Firstly, the vehicles have names tied to them. A slight hint to this is the fact that the Saloon GT has the bolded words “TENRAI” on the back. Nobody understood what this meant (other than it’s just a manufacturer name), but this latest discovery puts all of the theories to rest and finally puts a meaning to all of this.
On top of this, there was officially one cut vehicle from the game. This would be the Fire Engine, most likely to be assumed a Fire truck. No files for this vehicle remain in the game, only references to its name.
To start, here is the list of vehicle names taken directly from the inner-workings of Burnout on the PS2:
- Frente GL
- Venom SX
- Sabre
- Thunderbolt GT
- Longbow EXC 300
- Tenrai VII
- Grizzly
- Hudson 418
- UT500 Jackhammer
- Fire Engine
One will have to assume which vehicle name is tied to what, but a good way to figure that out is to try and associate each name with each car based on what it is. For example, the UT500 Jackhammer sounds like the Tow Truck, and the Sabre could be the Muscle (which resembles a Dodge Viper).
There were also many cut traffic cars. In the final game, only 8 traffic cars appear in each city, but the full list of traffic cars may come as a surprise to some…here they are!
- Europe Bus
- Oriental Bus
- USA Bus
- Long cab
- Cab over
- Compact
- Old compact
- Container
- Flatbed
- Minibus
- Payload
- Europe police
- Oriental police
- USA police
- Sedan
- Tanker
- Europe taxi
- Oriental taxi
- USA taxi
- Van
- Europe truck
- Oriental truck
- USA truck
- Europe van
You may be thinking:
COP CARS!
It would seem that cop cars were originally planned, but later cut! What a shame!
The above names were actual string names assigned to each model in-game, but the following names are the names used for each model. This could provide an insight into what kind of cars were planned for the game. Since these are model names, they are all capitals, and most likely, abbreviated as much as possible. About 80% of the traffic cars would be cut from the game!
- MOTORBIKE
- SCOOTER
- MODCOMPACT
- OLDCOMPACT
- SEDAN
- EUROTAXI
- USTAXI
- ORIENTTAXI
- EUROPOLICE
- USPOLICE
- ORIENTPOLICE
- BASICPICKUP
- JACKEDPICKUP
- THAIPICKUP
- FARMTRUCK
- VAN
- MINIBUS
- LUTON1
- LUTON2
- PEOPLECARRIER
- USBUS
- EUROBUS
- ORIENTBUS
- WINNEBAGO
- USNON
- EURONON
- ORIENTNON
- LONGNOSE
- CABOVER
- FLATBEDTARP
- FLATBEDPAYLOAD
- CONTAINER
- TANKER
You may be thinking:
MOTORBIKES AND A SCOOTER!
Yes, a motorbike and a scooter. It was going to happen. You heard it here first on Unseen64!
All of the information seen here was found inside of the SLUS_203.07 file that can be found inside of the Burnout [PS2] disc. The information provided above has not be altered in any way, shape, or form, and is guaranteed to be 100% correct based upon the developer.
And to think, it only took 11 years to find this out. It was worth it!
Article by Red
