Lombard RAC Rally is a rally video game developed by Red Rat Software and published by Mandarin Software. Releasing in 1988 for the Atari ST, Amiga, and MS-DOS the game was based on the real life event of the same name that spanned over five days in the United Kingdom.

The event was known for having different rules, such as the banning of pace notes. Inspiration is said to have come to developers Charles Partington and Harry Nadler at Red Rat Software while they were having lunch and watching coverage of the rally on TV. The developers were fascinated by the onboard footage and decided they wanted to make a game out of it.

The result is a video game centered around the tournament featuring 5 legs and a total of 15 stages to compete on. The developers managed to license the use of Jimmy McRae’s Ford Sierra Cosworth Group A car and decided to replicate the on-board experience by recreating the interior of the car with a view through the windscreen for gameplay.

Interestingly the game comes with an animated interior, from the steering wheel to gear changes. Being a game from the 1980s the graphics and controls are obviously quite basic but it does do a nice job of offering the fundamentals. The car is controlled with gas, brake, steering left or right and changing gears. Being an older game there is no oversteer or understeer and the challenge comes mostly from trying to recognize where the road is at higher speeds. However once you adjust it’s easy to see why this would have been a compelling game to play for any 10 year old kid in the 80s.

The game attempts to recreate certain aspects of being a rally driver beyond competing on stages. There is a workshop that players can use to upgrade or repair their car and the player can conduct TV interviews in the form of a rally trivia quiz that allows you to earn extra money. These kind of career aspects are great in fleshing out any motorsports game experience, so it’s fantastic to see attempts at it in early titles such as this. The game also offers a practice mode which allows drivers to learn the stages with less pressure before attempting the full championship.

If you are wanting to try out this piece of rally video game history for yourself, lucky you can still get the game completely free. If you want to play Lombard RAC Rally yourself we recommend the following:

• Download the game from MyAbandonware
• Download RetroArch emulator

While you can use an MS-DOS emulator like DOSBox, it can require some technical knowledge to use so we recommend RetroArch which comes with DOSBox included. Load the game in RetroArch on their DOSBox Pure core and once in-game press your “Scroll Lock” key on your keyboard to put the game in focus mode and your keybinds will be as follows:

Gas: UP Arrow

Brake: DOWN Arrow

Steer Left: LEFT Arrow

Steer Right: RIGHT Arrow

Gears: ENTER

Continue: Spacebar

If you want those horrible/nostalgic DOS sounds you will have to enable them in the games menu titled “SET UP” on the main menu.

While it’s old, clunky and the graphics by no means hold up – it’s been interesting taking a look back at this game, and it does still hold some arcade charm to it. Let us know in the comments below what you think of this game or if you’re old enough the memories you have of playing it as a kid.