Turbo was produced by Sega in 1981.

Legacy

The racing genre is foremost based in simulation and the game changed the way these games games were designed moving forward including a critical game design choice utilizing perspective. Turbo was a seminal early racer along with Monaco GP.

Innovations included:

first racing gaming with a 3rd person perspective
variety of environments (city,
weather conditions

Let’s take a walk through the early years of racing gameplay.

Here’s Sega’s Grand Prix (1969), an electromechanical game utilizing projection technology.

Here is Atari Steeplechase (1975), a horse-racing game with support for up to 6 simultaneous players.

Here you can see Atari Stunt Race’s gameplay (1976).

Here is Monoco GP (1980)

Here’s a list of seminal racing arcade games:

1976 – Stunt Cycle
1979 – Head On
1980 – Monaco GP
1981 – Turbo
1982 – Pole Position
1983 – Spy Hunter
1985 – Hang On
1986 – OutRun
1994 – Daytona USA
1999 – Crazy Taxi

It came out 1 year before Atari’s Pole Position; a title which has enjoyed a resurgence in popularity for its concise, fun gameplay. Turbo however is more primitive; innovative but poorly aged.

Pickup

I picked up the mini version of Turbo in rural MN in July 2016.It was functional but with a lot of potential for cosmetic improvement. This ws be a fun project to break down, clean, and paint. Below you can see it’s a bit rough e.g. the shift knob is missing.

Here’s everything problematic when I bought the cabinet:

The Good:

Working Monitor + board.
Original T-Molding
Original Steering wheel
Start button lights up
Free-play button wired (Game does not have freeplay via software).

The Bad:

Steering Wheel spins like a rusty door knob
Missing wood Shift knob
Marquee lights don’t
Odometers don’t light up
Coin Door Lights don’t light up
Only 50% side art remaining and rough
No sub/lower cabinet sound
Missing Manual
Pedal works but is old/rusty, sometimes glitchy.

The Ugly

Generally scratchy and scuffed everywhere
Super Dusty + Dirty throughout
Plastic marquee has a gouge in the front.
Someone unnecessary screwed tinted glass in. Scratching marquee.
Glass piece below bezel was screwed in with wood screws cracking the glass
Electrical tape holding wheel together
Tons of dings/dents in Cabinet body
rusty Control panel plastic
Wheel Metal part rusty
rusty speaker grill
rusty brake pedal

Pedal has seen better days. This was originally All black.

Marquee scoring LEDs work, not the lights in the marquee however.

Game is wired with a free play button

At one point this thing was owned by a vendor in my home state Waupaca, WI.

Cleaning/Repair

After some testing and a handful of turbo games I began the process of breaking it down & cleaning which includes:

Remove PCB housing parts + PCB
Remove monitor
Remove Control Panel
Remove Marquee plastic cover
Remove bezel
Remove Monitor
Remove metal parts

Monitor is in good condition with new caps and no burn in.

Missing Sound

The bottom speaker was simply disconnected and I confirmed I could get lower engine sounds and adjust it with the internal controls.

Going to replace these with quick disconnect terminals instead of a weak solder.

Prepping

As usually happens the corners are destroyed with rust + swelling at the bottom of the cabinet.

This game has normal wear and tear for 80s arcade video games.

50% of the side art is missing and what I have is torn + light bleached. I started the process of removing the vinyl siding with a scraper and heat gun.

While originally vinyl, I’m going to sand and paint the sides to get a smooth new arcade look if I can.