Legendary Carmageddon: Max Damage car hits UK auction site
A piece of UK gaming history is about to be sold at auction
Videogames and bomkers motorcars. Is there a more iconic duo? From the high-speed Need for Speed series to the utter madness of titles like Rocket League and Wreckfest, crazy vehicles and reckless driving are a huge part of gaming history. Soon, a part of this history will be up for auction: Stainless Games’ iconic Carmageddon: Max Damage Chevy C10.
Stainless Games shares the same home as OC3D on the Isle of Wight. As such, news of this vehicle’s upcoming sale came to us quickly. Believe it or not, this monstrosity was once road-legal in the US, and there were plans to make it road-legal in the UK. In 2016, this car was used to promote Carmageddon: Max Damage. The car was present in several trade shows in the US before being shipped to the UK. In the UK, the vehicle was brought to several other promotional events and even made its way to Goodwood.
Next week, this vehicle is due to be auctioned by Bonham’s Cars. The vehicle has been given an estimated value of between £20,000 and £50,000.
A car with a long history
This motorised monstrosity wasn’t the work of a single individual. This vehicle started its life as a Chevy C10 pick-up and was rebuilt by several noted enthusiasts to become what it is today. Jim Hall of Iron Customs started the work on this hot rod, and the legendary Bodie Strouf of BS Industries completed this work. Originally, this vehicle was called “Nosferatu.” Years later, it was picked up by Stainless Games and became a part of the Carmageddon franchise.
In 2021, Patrick Buckland, the Founder and CEO of Stainless Games, bought the vehicle from his company. Buckland aimed to make the vehicle road legal in the UK. However, like many pandemic-era projects, this vehicle project never came to fruition. Now, the vehicle is being sold to bring back some much-needed garage space.
This creation started out in life in 1966 as a Chevy C-10 pick-up.
Then it was worked on by Jim Hall, of Iron Customs in Indiana. He chopped the body and then sold the car as an incomplete project to its next owner, an LA hot-rod builder by the name of Brian Davis, who got the build to about 80% completion.
He then handed over the final 20% of the build and customisation to Bodie Stroud, of BS Industries, who is a bona fide rockstar among custom car builders. His work has featured on Jay Leno’s Garage and he’s built cars for stars including Johnny Depp. BS Industries tackled the steering, brakes, fuel system and, well, lots of other stuff.
Once finished, the car was known and liveried as “Nosferatu”.
Shortly afterwards, early in 2016, the car came to the attention of the British co-originator of the legendary Carmageddon gaming brand, who is also the CEO and co-founder of the company behind it – Stainless Games Ltd.
He is Patrick Buckland, creator of Carmageddon, and he saw an opportunity to use the car as a promotional tool for the 2016 launch of Carmageddon: Max Damage.
And that’s why this fire-breathing sinister-looking automotive behemoth is wrapped in the livery you see before you today. You can see two renderings of the in-game model that their artists created for the game, it’s quite impressive.
Amazingly, the car was road legal in the US (which might give you some hope that similar status could be possible here – with a few modifications, of course), and there are photos of Patrick’s wife driving it in rush-hour Los Angeles traffic, an accomplishment for which there really cannot be too much praise.
The car featured at a number of video game trade shows in the US before being shipped back to the UK, where it turned out at a few promotional events and, at one point, made an appearance at Goodwood, where it attracted nearly as many curious onlookers as an Aston Martin Valkyrie parked nearby.
This Carmageddon vehicle is absolutely bonkers
As one should expect from a big chevy, this vehicle is loud. Its exhausts reportedly have “mortar-life” force, and rumour has it that these exhausts once launched a sausage into space. Take that Elon Musk! Regardless of the truth of these rumours, this vehicle is a testament to the spark of madness that makes the worlds of motor vehicles and video games great. Above all, we would love to see this car make it into the hands of an owner that will appreciate it.
It’s undoubted ability to command attention is partly a consequence of its striking appearance, but mostly down to the sound it makes when you fire-up the mahoosive 454 Chevy big-block engine.
That’s 7.4-litres of good ol’ grunt under your right foot and ample proof of the old adage that there’s simply no replacement for displacement.
The sound you hear first is the fuel pump, which sounds more powerful than a small saloon car on its own.
Then you hear the red air intake flaps banging open and shut like privy doors at a curried shellfish festival.
Next, and please make sure you’re standing well back from the eight mortar-like upturned exhausts when this happens, an apocalyptic cacophony of explosions, roars, shrieks, wails, pops and barks erupts like an electrical storm over the Eiger or a too-close-for-comfort supernova.
And when we say the exhausts are mortar-like, Patrick tells us that a carefully placed sausage was launched from one at Goodwood and may now be orbiting Jupiter.
Because of its eye-catching nature, we expect this vehicle to be of great interest to hot rod enthusiasts. Furthermore, we expect its videogame history to spark interest from outside the usual custom car communities. Not only is this car a monument to madness, but it’s also a part of the UK’s video game history.
Despite its age, Carmageddon: Max Damage is as fun today as it was in 2016. Soon, a part of that history will be put up for auction. How much will it sell for? We’ll find out next week.
You can join the discussion on Carmageddon: Max Damage’s iconic promo car on the OC3D Forums.
