I have been doing a investigation about tamiya racing.
The unreleased n64 prototype now on ebay.
Why is there zero information about this game? Why is it similair like mini racers like the seller said?

My first gues was that this was mini racers for another region like HSV/BEETLE racing.

But after some investigation i have another theory.

the seller says:the game is by intermetrics associated with looking glass studios.
But look at the pictures and zoom...the back of the carts says indeed intermetrics but that logo is from averstar.
1997 intermetrics gets involved with looking glass studios.1998 intermetrics becomes AverStar and the new logo you see on the cart is copyright protected since 6 may 1998.

in 1999 looking glass goes belly up. AverStar emerged with titan corp. in 2000.
Titan corp. could use Averstar for a lot of things but i don't think there interrested in n64 games.
The headquarter is based in california and gues where the seller of these protos is from..california.
But then again most games studios are there.

I don't think titan corp transformed this in tamiya racing n64.
looking glass goes down in 1999...AverStar is still around untill 2000.
So this could be a early version of mini racers a name change version for another region OR  AverStar tried to release mini racers as there own version tamiya racing

Martin wrote on 10. Feb 2012 at 20:30:


hmm you got more info or guesing? The first time i can find the name mini racers in magazines is in 1998 the same year of the new logo.
So that would be strange  if its before they went with mini racers.
Another option is that they tried to rename mini racers to tamiya racers for money$$$$$$

tamiya is a well known brand name in japan for little cars in japan(like hotwheels in usa and europe,but real no toys).
The companies where in financial problems so maybe This was a demo cart for tamiya OR what would make more sense is that they lost the deal with tamiya and they went with the name mini racers.

The lost licence would make the most sense
But the HSV/beetle option is also a very good option now.If you would ask somebody in japan about tamiya they would know what it is,here in europe/usa people would say :WTF?

Or C all of the above^^^^

You Rock! If this really is Mini Racers i am excited!

Martin wrote on 18. Feb 2012 at 23:57:


Didn't mini racers have a make your own track option

Martin wrote on 19. Feb 2012 at 22:50:


you can read it here and there is also a very short piece of that in the video if im correct.