Starter Cars

In Need for Speed: Carbon, after you total your BMW M3 GTR, Darius gives Nikki instructions to drive to San Juan, where Darius has organised for you a choice of 3 Starter Cars; a Mazda RX-8, a Chevrolet Camaro SS, or an Alfa Romeo Brera. All of these cars are Tier 1 cars.

Whichever starter car you choose will determine your career path, what cars you unlock, and when you unlock certain parts. Each career also contains one tier 2 car and tier 3 car that can only be unlocked in that specific path.

If you choose the Mazda RX-8, you begin your career in Downtown. The first boss you will face will be Kenji, and the first Tier 2 car you unlock is the Mitsubishi Eclipse GT. The player will unlock the Volkswagen Golf MkV R32 and Nissan Skyline GT-R V-Spec (BNR34) only within this career.

If you choose the Chevrolet Camaro SS, you begin your career in Kempton. The first boss you face will be Angie, and the first Tier 2 car you unlock will be the Ford Mustang GT. The player will unlock the 2006 Dodge Charger SRT-8 (LX) and the 1967 Shelby GT500 only within this career.

If you choose the Alfa Romeo Brera, you begin your career in Fortuna. The first boss you face will be Wolf, and the first Tier 2 you unlock will be the Lotus Elise. The player will unlock the Mercedes-Benz SL65 AMG (R230) and Porsche Carrera GT only within this career.

Modding
The player can use NFS-VLTEd to change the starter cars. The data of the Starter Cars is located in fe_global default.

There are three entries called default_car_exotic, default_car_muscle and default_car_tuner. The player can choose which cars they want by changing the brera, camaro and rx8 values to any car (eg, changing default_car_tuner to lancerevo9 will make the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX MR-edition a Starter car, while changing default_car_muscle to corvettez06 makes the Chevrolet Corvette Z06 (C6) a starter car)

If the player wants to use a Custom/Bonus car as a starter car (eg. changing the default_car_exotic to r8 for the Audi Le Mans Quattro to be a starter car), the player must change the False value in it’s IsCustomizable node in it’s frontend to True first, otherwise, their game will crash.