Wheel Saint rolls on and I thought I’d share some more “behind the scenes” goodies.
I wanted the cars in Wheel Saint to be interesting and not the normal stuff you might see in a series like this. I especially wanted Sam's car to be unique. After a lot of research I settled on the 1989 Ford Taurus SHO for a couple of reasons. First of all this car it’s what’s known as a “sleeper” in the world of racing because it looks like a basic sedan but secretly packs a ton of power. SHO stands for "Super High Output" and they were not joking. Back in 1989 Car and Driver had this to say about the Taurus SHO:
“Welcome to the latest automotive breakthrough: the 1989 Ford Taurus SHO. The Taurus SHO earns its spot in the breakthrough brigade for one reason: it turns the high-performance four-door-sedan class on its head. If that sounds like an overstatement, consider the SHO's qualifications. It has a 24-valve V-6 engine that produces 220 hp. From a standing start, it can reach 60 mph in 6.7 seconds. Its top speed is a hair-straightening 143 mph. It has room for five adults and a healthy allotment of luggage. And it can be purchased for less than $20,000.”
The Taurus had a brand new engine designed and built by Yamaha called the “shogun” and a 5 speed manual transmission built by Mazda. They didn’t even offer an Automatic.
This also felt like a car that a teenager in 1989 would reasonably have access to and might use to street race. While doing research I actually found one of these cars for sale (you can own the Wheel Saint car!) and when I saw the photo I thought “that’s Sam’s car”.
As far as I can tell the 1989 model never appeared in any video games. There is a 1999 Taurus SHO in Gran Turismo 2 but the more rounded body style makes it a much different looking car. Other games have featured even more recent versions of the SHO which Ford was making up until 2019 when they discontinued the Taurus line.
In order to help me with drawing the car from different angles I picked up a little plastic model.
I used this thing all the time while drawing the series.
Taking reference photos of a little plastic model I bought for Wheel Saint. pic.twitter.com/8I2Msg7jap
— Gabe (@cwgabriel) June 20, 2023
Now the Devil's car or “the Beast” is another story. This one was recommended to me by the Penny Arcade iRacing League. These guys know a lot about cars and when they suggested the 1987 Buick Grand National I actually could not picture it. A quick google search told me they were exactly right though. A black “GNX” was absolutely the Beast of prophecy.
You can actually get this car in tons of games and it’s much more famous than the SHO. From Fast and Furious to Pixar’s Cars the Grand National gets around. I’ve been playing a ton of Need for Speed Unbound lately and grabbed a beautiful version of the car for my garage.
It’s an incredibly menacing car and I’m very excited for you all to see how it appears in upcoming pages of Wheel Saint.
That’s all I’ve got for now. Wheel Saint will continue through Friday of next week!
-Gabe out