Volkswagen Beetle Is The Most Common Car Featured In Video Games

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Video games offer a chance to escape to a virtual reality where anything is possible "" from chasing down bad guys to racing around the world famous Formula One tracks. Which is why it's quite surprising that of all the cars featured in video games, the rather middle-of-the-road Volkswagen Beetle has been found to be the model that is most common on virtual roads.

 

  • Thousands of data points from the Internet Game Cars Database was analysed to reveal the most common cars in video games

  • A delivery van, ambulance and police car all also appear on the top ten list

  • Ford is the car brand that appears the most in video games, followed by Chevrolet and Toyota

  • carwow poll reveals that driving gamers think they are better behind the wheel in real life than others

Curious to discover the vehicles that people are driving in the virtual world, carwow analysed thousands of video games with the help of online resource the Internet Game Cars Database.

 

After crunching the data, it can be revealed that the Volkswagen Beetle tops the list as the most featured car model, which has been spotted in games such as Grand Theft Auto, Grand Turismo and Need for Speed. The American classic Chevrolet Camaro Mk.I is second on the list; first on the roads (in real life) in the mid-60s, this model has been seen in Far Cry, Dead Rising 3 and The Sims.

 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, considering the amount of criminal behaviour that occurs in video games, a model that is often used as a police car is in third place. The Ford Crown Victoria Sedan can be seen in apocalyptic horror games such as The Last of Us and The Walking Dead as well as 177 further games.

 

A more unusual vehicle makes it to fourth place "" the Chevrolet Step Van is a type of truck that has a number of uses from delivery trucks to SWAT vans. The van has been featured in games like Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto and Twisted Metal.

 

Fifth on the list is the supercar 2002 Ferrari Enzo which features in Need for Speed, Gran Turismo and Burnout Revenge. Only 400 were made in real life, so the virtual world is probably your best chance of getting behind the wheel of one.

 

10 Most Common Cars in Video Games:

  1. Volkswagen Beetle "" featured in 337 games

  2. Chevrolet Camaro Mk.I "" featured in 198 games

  3. Ford Crown Victoria Sedan - featured in 179 games

  4. Chevrolet Step Van - featured in 156 games

  5. 2002 Ferrari Enzo - featured in 119 games

  6. Toyota Supra Mk.IV JZA80 - featured in 91 games

  7. Toyota Hilux - featured in 88 games

  8. Ford E-Series Ambulance - featured in 86 games

  9. 1987 Ferrari F40 - featured in 84 games

  10. 1995 Ferrari F50 - featured in 83 games

 

Interestingly, when you look at the car brands that feature the most in video games, it's not a high-speed, supercar brand that tops the list. In fact, the most heavily featured car brand in video games is the somewhat unassuming Ford. Ford's service vehicles are broadly behind the brand taking the title, most of its featured models are those used for police cars, ambulances and taxis in video games. Next on the list is Chevrolet, Toyota and Nissan.

 

10 Most Featured Car Brands in Video Games:

  1. Ford - featured in 8,707 games

  2. Chevrolet - featured in 6,242 games

  3. Toyota - featured in 4,299 games

  4. Nissan - featured in 4,264 games

  5. Honda - featured in 3,141 games

  6. Dodge - featured in 2,933 games             

  7. Mercedes-Benz - featured in 2,739 games

  8. Volkswagen - featured in 2,640 games

  9. BMW - featured in 2,548 games

  10. Ferrari - featured in 2,203 games

 

Driving gamers rate their skills higher in the real world… but are more likely to have driving convictions

 

Along with the data analysis, carwow has also released survey data around how driving gamers rate themselves as drivers. Over 1,200 drivers were surveyed and asked to rank their driving out of 10, interestingly those that regularly play driving video games ranked themselves the highest.

 

The average motorist rated their driving 7.84 out of 10, whereas those who game regularly ranked themselves a whole point higher at 8.7 out of 10. This was despite the fact that the survey revealed video gamers are more likely to have been involved in an accident and caught speeding.

 

26% of gamers admitted to having two or more speeding convictions, compared to 19% of all drivers, and an even lower 17% of those who didn't play driving games at all. Gamers also peaked in terms of accidents, with 37% admitting to two accidents or more and the accident rate per driver of 1.3 compared to an average of 0.6 across all drivers.

 

carwow's Consumer Expert Vix Leyton comments: ‘We like to think we know cars pretty well, but with gamer Brits spending on average 6.76* hours a week playing video games we realised we didn't actually know much about the virtual cars people were behind the wheel of. We had expectations that the most common video game cars would be over-the-top supercars or indestructible 4x4s, so it was quite a surprise to see that it was actually the classic Volkswagen Beetle that was the top model. The good news is that if gamers grow attached to their virtual ‘bug', the VW Beetle is a model that can be snapped up fairly easily in real life "" so gamers could recreate their virtual driving experiences with relative ease.

 

To read the full research and see the full top 50 visit: https://www.carwow.co.uk/blog/the-cars-most-featured-in-video-games