Cyberpunk 2077's only real car is a classic Porsche 911 Turbo and it's perfect
The car belonged to Keanu Reeves' character, the rockerboy Johnny Silverhand.
Because a classic Porsche 911 Turbo (aka 930) is cool even in a dystopian futurescape.
In the forthcoming game Cyberpunk 2077 , the future is a grim, neon-soaked dystopian hellscape where corporations grind regular people up like so much grist in their proverbial mills, but hot damn -- as we've seen in the gameplay footage that's been released already -- the cars sure are cool.
There's one car that stands out above all the rest and it's the only car in the game that's directly based on a vehicle from our world. It's a classic 1977 Porsche 911 Turbo Carrera, and of course, it has to belong to Keanu Reeves' character, Johnny Silverhand. CD Projekt Red shared the genesis for Johnny's neun-elfer with us here at Roadshow, and we have to say, we're impressed.
Johnny Silverhand, according to in-game lore, was an ex-veteran and the head of a band called Samurai until it broke up in 2008. He also grew to prominence as one of the figureheads in the struggle against the mega-corporations that had begun to dominate the cultural, economic and political landscape. His car is meant to be a reflection of all that.
For example, the color scheme uses drab green to represent his military service, a red stripe to call back to Samurai's preferred color scheme and silver because Silverhand, duh. The game's designers left many of the 911's famous features intact but added just enough futuristic greebles to make it fit in believably with the other cars in Night City.
It's all classic 911 inside too -- except for the screens, of course.
The car's door mirrors have been replaced with cameras, the license plates are suitably futuristic, and the game designers even added lidar and interior screens that appear to have been grafted on believably. The rest of the vehicle's interior, including its fantastic green color scheme, is accurate down to the steering wheel and the seats' style and shape. The only thing that's missing is the gear stick, but thanks to CD Projekt Red's Senior Vehicle Artist, Jakub Przybolewski, we know why.
"That's right, the engine in our Cyberpunk 2077 Porsche 911 Turbo has been reproduced practically 1:1. We have added only a few necessary elements to enable this 1977 classic to run on biofuel (CHOOH2) with a custom exhaust system. The gearbox has been automated thanks to a controller that takes the original manual gearbox and allows the gears to fully change automatically. With this solution, the classic can also drive on the streets of Night City in autonomous mode."
Now, in case you're not a certified Porsche fanatic, you might want a bit of a history lesson on the 911 Turbo, or as it's known in enthusiast circles, the 930. The original 930 was released as the Turbo Carrera in the US in 1976 and continued with this designation for one year.
In Turbo Carrera form, the 930 featured a 3.0-liter flat-six engine and no intercooler and produced 256 horsepower. In 1978, the Carrera name was dropped, an intercooler was added along with another 0.3 liters of engine displacement, and output went up to a then-staggering 296 horsepower and 304 pound-feet of torque. The Turbo went on mostly unchanged until 1989 when it got a five-speed gearbox.
Oh, the last thing worth mentioning about Johnny Silverhand's car? It's driveable in-game, and I'm absolutely champing at the bit to get into some hairy, snap-oversteer-type-situations when the game launches on Nov. 19. Be sure to check out more Cyberpunk coverage over at our sister site, GameSpot. Oh, and if you're lucky enough to be in and around Stuttgart, Porsche recreated the car in real life and is going to display it outside the Porsche Museum until Oct. 22.
