This is an original Sega Super Hang-On arcade machine from the 1980s, anyone who frequented arcades at the time of the game’s release will have memories of pumping coins into these things with reckless abandon.
Many of us spent hours playing this game as we attempted to achieve the holy grail – a top ten high score that would ensure your name lived on in 8-bit eighties arcade perpetuity.
For those who have never played Super Hang-On the game is relatively simple, you climb into the saddle of a replica superbike and physically lean it to turn the on-screen motorcycle as you race on simple circuits in Africa, Asia, America, and Europe.
The motorcycle in the game was based on the Rothmans Honda NSR500 ridden by Shinichi Itoh, who competed in the All-Japan 500cc Championship in the 1908s.
Above Video: This short film incudes half an hour of Super Hang-On footage from the arcade version.
Super Hang-On was often installed in arcades next to (or near to) the game Out Run, a similarly iconic Japanese racing game in which the player piloted a Ferrari Testarossa in various situations, always trying to beat the clock and get more time behind the wheel as your friends looked on.
In 1987 Sega Super Hang-On was released in arcade ride-on cabinet form and in PC form for the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, and Commodore 64.
The game enjoyed almost immediate success, the ride-on cabinet went on to become Japan’s second highest-grossing upright/cockpit arcade game of the year, finishing just below Out Run.
In the years that followed, Sega Super Hang-On was released on Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, Macintosh, Sharp X68000, and DOS. Today it can be played on almost any computer thanks to the magic of emulators.
This game was always wildly popular in the arcades, thanks to the fact that it allowed kids (and some adults) to climb not a superbike and live out their racetrack dreams.
The Sega Super Hang-On arcade machine you see here is being offered for sale by Mecum, it was built by Sega Enterprises in Japan and it’s not known if it’s in working condition.
If it’s not functional the good news is that there’s an entire online community of enthusiasts who are dedicated to restoring these 1970s and 1980s arcade games and getting them working.
If you’d like to read more about this arcade cabinet or place a bid you can visit the listing here.
Images courtesy of Mecum
Articles that Ben has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
