Very early on in the SEGA Rally project it was decided that we wanted vehicles in the game that were just that little bit more extreme in appearance than the usual saloon based rally car.  The Baja Dune Buggy was a fairly obvious design choice as it is a very popular type of all terrain racing vehicle.

Like the previously mentioned Icelandic Racer I studied a lot reference imagery of off-road racing buggies and trucks, and using these as inspiration I came up with the design you see here.  The beauty of these kinds of unlicensed vehicles is that you have free rein over how they look, so the placement of lights, aerials, the engine and pretty much everything else is completely up to the artist creating it.

Obviously it needs to look realistic so you always try and use shapes and designs that look realistic.  Look at the suspension design for example, I was careful to mimic the external damping chambers and multi spring setups you might see on real off-road racers.  The interior is also built to look like something that could be feasible in the real world with the switches and buttons placed only where you would expect to find them.  The engine design was one of my favourite area’s, I wanted to build an engine type that was familiar yet not going to take me weeks to complete, so I chose an iconic V8 set up which also sounds sweet in the game.

I think we got it just right with the design and layout of this vehicle, its fun and purposeful looking, and out performs many of the less agile cars in the game due to its softer and greater travelling suspension setup.  That V8 motor hanging out the back packs a mighty punch as well!

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