from The Drive
A Look at Video Game Legend John Carmack’s Sacrilegious Turbo Ferraris
The legendary programmer behind Doom and Quake also had a habit of building turbocharged Ferraris in the 1990s, and the results were incredible.
BY ROB STUMPF
When most people pick up the controller to play their favorite first-person shooter, they’re not thinking of the history surrounding how the gaming industry got to where it is today. Maybe they should, though, because today’s favorites wouldn’t exist without milestones like Doom and Quake in the early- to mid-’90s. What’s more, some of the wildest Ferraris ever wouldn’t exist either if it weren’t for those games’ lead programmer: John Carmack.
Those old enough to remember picking up a copy of Wolfenstein 3D for the first time probably remember the name Id Software (stylized as “id Software”). The indie game studio built the framework for the first FPS games, creating hit after hit, and at the reins was Carmack, making him arguably the father of the entire genre. And during the height of the company’s success, there were two things he seemed to like more than anything else: cars and code.