2026-09-05 IN THE NEXT BUILD

A CAR FOR EVERY FACE.

We had a garage full of body shapes and a paddock full of personalities. Somehow everyone was still turning up in the same car. Different paint, same silhouette. We finally handed out the keys.

Eight racer portraits beside their previous identical classic car bodies — A surprisingly popular company car scheme.

Gordon gets a sunny yellow bug called Oops Again. Barry brings a bulky red van. Gloria's cream-and-teal GT is the Lab Rat, and Nigel's blue wedge is Probably Safe. Every racer now has an individual combination of body, paint and contrasting trim drawn from their clothes and character.

Eight racers matched with individual cars including Gloria's cream GT, Gordon's yellow bug and Maude's lavender hot rod — The tiny cars underneath are the same drawings at their native size. Recognition has to survive the shrink.

We kept the portrait backgrounds. They help faces and clothes stand out, and turning a red jacket's backdrop red would undo that. A small two-colour strip on each portrait echoes its car instead. The same cars follow their owners through the map paddock, race introductions, showdowns and ambushes.

Gloria's cream GT, Gordon's yellow bug and Nigel's blue wedge racing together on the slot-car track — Now you can spot who is causing trouble before reading the leaderboard.

Gloria needed a fresh start too. We tried four new faces and picked the enthusiastic engineer: teal glasses, a messy blonde ponytail, an oil-stained coat and a spark plug she is extremely pleased about. Her plum backdrop lets the cream and teal stand out, and all four reactions now belong to that same character.

Ricardo has found his look too: swept-back twists, a purple-and-gold jacket and a casual brush of the shoulder. His Smooth Operator speedster wears the same colours. He grins when a rival goes flying, sighs when his own dignity takes a dent, and occasionally forgets to look unflappable.

Slick Ricardo reacting to a spin-out beside his purple-and-gold speedster in the race — Even the smoothest operator has his moments.

This is a wardrobe change for the fleet: handling, speed, collision footprints and the player's garage choices stay as they were.