‘Need for Speed: Heat’ hero Polestar 1 coming to life for SEMA

Video game publisher Electronic Arts fired both barrels of the surprise gun when it tagged the Polestar 1 as the “Need for Speed: Heat” hero car, then had in-house virtual modder Khyzyl Saleem blow out the 600-horsepower Swedish hybrid with a lurid body kit. Topping all of that, Autoevolution picked up on the news that car customizing shop Sekrit Studios is giving the digital Polestar an IRL version and taking the widebody bruiser to SEMA. Polestar isn’t expected to deliver the first production Polestar 1 to a paying customer until the middle of next year, leading us to believe the carmaker is in on the transformation, and to believe Polestar is even cooler than we thought.

Having just started the overhaul a couple of weeks ago, Sekrit will only have about 30 days to get the thing done. Five days ago the studio posted a shot on Instagram of one massively punched-out fender being lined up on a donor car decked in primer gray and mismatched panels, followed the next day by Saleem posting the other side of the donor car looking even less finished. 

We don’t car how things look right now, though — we’re rooting for Sekrit to pull off Saleem’s render in time for Las Vegas. The designer tweaked the real version “with a little more craziness/aggression” compared to the video game car, which will get no complaint from us. The fundamentals from the game are all there, meaning a bulging, vented hood, a triple layer of Time Attack winglets across the front, vented front fenders hulking over turbofan front wheels, a set of Moby Dick rear fenders, and that wacky split rear wing. Saleem did at least add a set of struts for the outboard portions of the wing to up the verisimilitude.      

Saleem’s given up his job at EA to focus on his career, namely the brand and shop Live to Offend that, like Sekrit Studios, will render his extra-wide virtual body kits into sheetmetal and carbon fiber on real cars. We hope to see him at SEMA, where we can ask if he’s got anything in mind for another Volvo in the game, a 242 DL sedan. On top of all that, “Need for Speed: Heat” will debut during SEMA, so it’s great timing for everyone, especially us.