Hot Rod Rebels is an unreleased sequel to San Francisco Rush 2049. Originally slated to release in 2001 before the shuttering of Atari Games, it was going to revolve around hot rods and muscle cars in a modern day setting as opposed to 2049's futuristic setting.
The only known machine is in a black colored Rush 2049 machine. A few differences between the normal 2049 cabinet and this one include:
- The Team Rush instruction sheet was replaced with a Christmas tree drag race light column used at the start of the race. Each race started with a quarter-mile drag race.
- The transmission shifter knob was replaced by a mini-8 ball
- The gas pedal was shaped like a foot instead of a regular pedal.
Rather than run on the same hardware as 2049, the game had been moved over to an x86 compatible PC featuring an Intel Pentium III CPU and nVidia Geforce 2 GPU. There is a USB based security dongle that is required for the game to start.
The game was only in development for about a year before being cancelled, with only three of the eight tracks being completed. Three of the others are have a finished layout, but the rest are unplayable.