The Concept Approval Meeting pamphlet from April 28, 1994 that was uploaded online reveals numerous differences that occured during the development of San Francisco Rush, or, I Left My Lunch In San Francisco, as the pamphlet calls the game.
- The game was originally meant to play in sections, similar to Outrun or Cruis'n USA. Winning players would move onto the next section for free, otherwise money would need to be inserted to continue.
- The hardware specifications for the game were to feature a Motorola 68020 with a "ZOID20" texture-mapped GPU. Atari would later shift development to a MIPS R5000 with a 3DFX GPU configuration.
- There were plans to do licensing deals with a variety of brands such as Coke, Ferrari, and Michelin. The cars would have been licensed and the billboards would feature advertisements for real brands.
- The arcade machine was going to include up to 8 screens per player, providing a full 360° view. This is similar to Atari's earlier Race Drivin' Panorama which featured 3 screens that provide a 180° view.
- The music radio would have been a fully functional FM tuner, allowing players to provide their own music.
- There was going to be deluxe machines that included motion seats.
- The Golden Gate Bridge would have featured oncoming traffic, which is nowhere to be found in the final game.
- The original plan for console port development was to focus on IBM PCs, the SEGA Saturn, the Atari Jaguar CD, and the Sony PlayStation. The Nintendo 64 (called Project Reality) and the previous generation machines such as the Super Nintendo, Genesis, and SEGA 32x were all counted out for numerous reasons. The final game was ported to the PC, the N64, and the PS.