There’s An Arcade Machine On Bring A Trailer That’s Currently Bid Higher Than A Celica Convertible But Less Than An Old Porsche Toolkit

Like any metabolizing mammal, I enjoy looking at car auction sites and pretending like I actually had the money to spend on some of these things. Like this little orange Ford Courier truck that sold for $5,100; that would make a really charming and useful daily. Wouldn’t it? I think so. Or even this remarkable Pontiac Aztek that’s being auctioned for charity by what seem to be some really charming and sexy people who don’t smell bad at all, despite what that guy on the elevator said. Recently, I noticed something on Bring A Trailer that caught my attention because it’s a very familiar and enjoyable driving experience, despite the fact that it’s not a car, and isn’t even self-propelled at all. In fact, it’s very stationary, and yet it has a steering wheel, throttle, brake, and gearshift.

It’s a Pole Position machine! Yes, what looks like a fantastic example of Atari’s iconic first-person driving game is currently being auctioned, with about 20 hours left, and it’s already bid up to $3,400, which actually isn’t too bad, really. Most decent-condition stand-up arcade games tend to sell for around $1,500 or so, and this one is one of the much larger sit-down/cockpit-style cabinets, which tend to go for more.

Pole Position was an incredibly important game in the history of first-person driving video games, which, incidentally, I have traced the history of back to a Volkswagen driving simulator from 1972. I wrote about it on the Old Site, and here’s a little timeline, so you can see where Pole Position fits:

Pole Position was a milestone in a number of ways; it was the first driving video game to feature an actual track, Japan’s Fuji Speedway:

The game was also the first to include a qualifying lap to start, and used some advanced-for-the-time sprite scaling techniques (It had two Zilog Z8002 16-bit co-processors just to help with this stuff) to give a pretty good 3D illusion, and the graphics were very colorful and detailed, including billboards with real ads for Atari and Namco games and car parts like Champion spark plugs, and Mount Fuju itself looming on the horizon.

This was the highest-grossing arcade game of 1982 and 1983! Pole Position was a big deal! Here’s a good video of the gameplay to help get you nice and nostalgic:

The cockpit-style cabinet is what really makes this, though, and the one up for auction seems in fantastic shape.

It has some expected wear and tear around the base and rear panel art, but that’s to be expected. These things were made of particle board with formica or similar veneers and generally didn’t age all that well. But the artwork looks bright and intact, and there’s even new plexiglass for the rear window there.

There’s a replaced CRT monitor in there, and the control panel looks in great shape as well:

I’m really curious how high this will go; it’s at $3,400 now, and just for perspective, that’s still less than a Porsche 356 toolkit sold for a couple days ago, at $3,700.

It’s also already going for more than this 1993 Toyota Celica GT convertible went for, at $3,000, and that Toyota is significantly faster, though if you drive that one drunk, you’ve got problems, which is not the case with the Pole Position machine.

The Pole Position machine is also significantly more expensive than this charming Trojan bubble car project at $2,600, and may be almost as fast:

This arcade machine may end up being significantly more valuable than many real cars on Bring a Trailer! But can it beat an old Porsche toolkit? I’m eager to find out.

Also, just because it’s not mobile or drivable now doesn’t mean it has to stay that way; my friend Garnet Hertz once converted an Outrun cockpit-style cabinet into a drivable vehicle. so I don’t see why that can’t happen again:

I’m glad Bring a Trailer is allowing car-adjacent lots like this one to be on the site; arcade driving games are part of automotive culture, after all, and people need to be able to fantasize about buying those with money they don’t have, just like we do with cars.