Name that Car #1: Driver (PS1, 1999)

Welcome to the "Name that Car" feature, where I attempt to provide a solid identification of an interesting or well-known car in film, video games, or other visual media.

It's 1999. If you're a cool kid, you have a PlayStation. I wasn't a cool kid and I had a Nintendo 64. Just between Goldeneye and Ocarina of Time, I probably had more fun than the cool kids. But that's a subject left for another article.

Driver was a very popular PS-1 game released in 1999. I got to play just a bit of it on my brother's PlayStation. The general idea is that you were a getaway driver for various criminals and you had to start off by proving your driving skills. The rest of the game seemed to involve escaping from cops, keeping your "felony level" down, not wrecking your ride too much, meeting time deadlines, and blah blah blah... Grand Theft Auto III would become so enormously popular two years later that we already fully know how this kind of game operates.

But unlike in GTA, you couldn't pick your ride. Oh no, that would be too easy. It's not about the car, it's about the driver! So to show how awesome you are, you get to tool around in what looks like a lousy Malaise-mobile. Let's take a few looks at it.

Based on the general order of the back end I'm going to start with 70s Buick. If the front end didn't have dual headlights, I would say it's a perfect 1975-1979 Buick Skylark coupe. The side profile is simple, just a straight line running across with a curved roofline going backwards to a fairly stubby trunk. This points me in the direction of the GM X-body from the mid-to-late 1970s, something shared with the Chevy Nova, Pontiac Ventura, and Oldsmobile Omega. Only the Buick has that characteristic slatted grill treatment. Still, the dual headlights are quite clearly present, which disqualifies that prediction. We have to find a closest match!

The Buick Regals from 1973-1977 also have the grill treatment we're looking for, while they do have the vestigial inside lights that match the square shape of the Driver car. From the front it's a dead ringer. The back end is not quite as pinched with the bumper not quite as high, but let's chalk it up to artistic exaggeration on the part of the game designers. From the side, it looks like the Driver car is too stubby to be a longer pre-1977 Buick, but this isn't carried over to other views of the car which incorporate a partial angle. With few polygons to play with, the swoopy profile of the Regal might have been mashed a bit for that side view. I'm going with a 1975 Buick Regal black coupe, final answer.

It really helps to see these two images, for comparison. Got a better idea than me? Feel free to mention it in the comments.