Video game study reveals the all-time most used cars

Video game study reveals the all-time most used cars

The Nissan Skyline is the most popular car used in video games, totalling 1,271 appearances across different gaming genres. That’s according to the latest research from Confused.com (Q2 2022), which analysed The Internet Game Cars Database [1] to reveal gaming’s most popular cars. After estimating insurance prices through Confused Car Insurance quotes, they determined the real-life cost of owning the most popular cars in video games.

The most popular cars from video games

Data on all cars can be found here.

The Nissan Skyline is the most popular car from video games, appearing 1,271 times in total. The Skyline appears almost 3 times more than the second-most popular Nissan model: the GT-R (462 appearances). First produced in 1957, the Nissan Skyline remains popular six decades later, and is a regular in franchises like Gran Turismo. The Skyline can also be driven in industry cornerstones like Mario Kart and Grand Theft Auto V.

The Chevrolet Corvette is the second most popular, with 1,270 appearances, just one less than the Nissan Skyline (1,271). Popular among the Forza and Gran Turismo franchises, this classic car features 20 percent more than the Chevrolet Camaro in fourth (1,058). Despite being almost 70 years old, the 1953 Corvette appears in 21st century titles like Forza Horizon 2, due to an immediately recognisable design.

The iconic Ford Mustang features 1,263 times, placing third overall. Represented in fan-favourites like Rocket League and Need for Speed, it’s more popular than the Ford GT (394 appearances) and the Model A (196). At € 20,866.91, the Mustang costs only slightly more than the Subaru Impreza (952), but has almost a third (32 percent) more appearances.

The most expensive cars of the top 10

The Toyota Supra is the most expensive of gaming’s most popular cars, Confused.com can reveal. With a total cost of € 33,033.31, the Toyota sports car is 11 percent more expensive than the second most expensive car, the Chevrolet Corvette (€ 29,697.77). The Supra costs € 635.25 a year to insure: 28 percent less than the Mitsubishi Lancer (€ 878.24), the most expensive car to insure. At a total cost of € 26,927.52, the Lancer is still only 81 percent the price of the Toyota Supra.

How does my car affect my insurance costs?

Alex Kindred, car insurance expert at Confused.com, comments: “As you’d expect, the kind of car you drive can have a large bearing on how much you pay for insurance. There are a few things to keep in mind when looking at buying a new car …

• Value: The more expensive your car, the more it will cost to repair, or replace if it’s written off in an accident or stolen.
  
  
• Power: The faster and more powerful the car, the more likely it is to be involved in an expensive accident. The larger your engine, the more likely insurers will see a risk of an expensive accident. Generally, this means the more powerful your car is, the more expensive it will be to insure.
  
  
• Modifications: Modifying your car is likely to increase your premium costs, and you should tell your insurer right away. If not, you risk invalidating your insurance in an accident.
  
  
• Desirability: Insurers may consider a more desirable car to be more at risk of theft. Improving the safety of your vehicle should help to decrease a desirable car’s premiums, but a less popular vehicle will almost always be cheaper to insure.”

Methodology

1. Confused.com sought to discover the most popular cars featured in video games, and their real-life costs.
   
   
2. The number of video game appearances for the 100 most common vehicles was accessed from the Internet Games Cars Database [1].
   
   
3. Multiple appearances of the same vehicle model (racing variations, different generations, etc) were combined, including multiple appearances in the same video game.
   
   
4. Each vehicle model was then individually investigated to include any variations that were not included in the top 100, with any model included fewer than 5 times excluded to avoid game-specific variants.
   
   
5. This list was further refined, removing military vehicles, non-legal road cars and HGVs.
   
   
6. For each car, an example model was chosen from Autotrader(3) listings to be chosen as the specific vehicle. Listings were for base vehicles with no modifications, with accumulated mileage between 10,000 to 50,000 miles. However, some mileage exceptions were made as a result of limited listings. For the Pontiac Firebird, an eBay listing(4)  was chosen as an exception due to no available Autotrader listing.
   
   
7. An estimated insurance cost for each vehicle was accessed through Confused.com’s car insurance calculator [2] using specific details from each respective Autotrader listing. Each quote was made for a 24 year-old male with 5 year no claims for social use only, with all other factors remaining constant between quotes.
   
   
8. Final insurance quotes are the lowest available cost with breakdown cover included. The presence or absence of a black box had no influence on the final quote.
   
   
9. Vehicles were excluded where confused.com could not provide a quote for the respective vehicle.
   
   
10. Data was sourced in May 2022 and is subject to change.

1.) https://www.igcd.net/

2.) https://www.confused.com/car-insurance/guides/how-car-insurance-is-calculated

3.) http://autotrader.co.uk

4.) https://www.ebay.co.uk/

* According to Google Trends as of 08/08/22

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