Autoduel

Autoduel is a 1985 computer role-playing game (CRPG) published by Origin Systems for the Atari 400 and Atari 800 (and other Atari 8-bits with OS "Transformer"), Commodore 64, Apple II series, Mac, and DOS. It was released in 1987 for the Atari ST and in 1988 for the Amiga. It was based on the Steve Jackson Games series Car Wars.

Autoduel is based on events in the future in the Northeast part of the U.S.. In this future, cars are a primary means of protection and defense and the highways are dangerous stretches of land ruled by gangs and vigilantes with armed vehicles. The player's character starts without a car and has to enter amateur night in which they are provided a vehicle in order to raise enough capital to finance the creation of their own vehicle.
With their own vehicle, a character can begin performing courier missions between the various towns along the Atlantic seaboard—including Syracuse, Boston, Manchester (Origin's headquarters at the time, which could be visited in the game) and Atlantic City among a few. The character may also enter more distinguished Arena events to earn money as well as take to the highways to fight the other cars and salvage their parts. In this sense, the game was very open-ended in what the player could do. The game also had a storyline, involving certain critical courier tasks, such as carrying important criminal evidence through the dangerous terrain between cities.
The main feature of the game was combat involving customized vehicles. The vehicle construction portion of the game allowed a variety of power plants, guns, ammunition, mine-layers, smokescreens, oil slicks and rockets to be arranged onto an even larger selection of body and chassis types.
The game was developed using a top-down perspective and featured two distinct setting areas: the arena or highway style area and the city area. The highway and arenas allowed acceleration and driving skills to be used in a scrolling screen format, while the city area was a single screen in which stores and other attractions of a city could be visited.
description from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoduel

Source: Wikipedia, Autoduel , available under the CC-BY-SA License.

Catchphrase: "Where the right of way goes to the biggest guns."