These escapades aren’t simply a sidestory to Carmageddon – they inform the entirety of the game’s attitude. How else could you have a game in which the final level was called Beef Curtains? “Curtains for beef, you see, because it was full of cows,” explains Hughes. “One of the names, I’m pretty sure, even ended up on Futurama – Roswell That Ends Well.” But because of this attitude, for every tasteless level name there was an inspired power-up or joke – some of which backfired.

“The team just had ideas they thought were funny and they’d go in,” says Hughes. “Things like the blind pedestrians bonus. I think it got into trouble in Australia because of that – some blind pressure group got up in arms about it. It was just a joke – the people couldn’t see you and you could honk the horn and scare them. Anything we thought was funny went in.”

Of course, the upshot of all these machinations was grimly serious. On release, Carmageddon was refused classification by the BBFC, and would not be rated unless all the gore was removed. The most surprising aspect of this is that the game had never needed to be rated by the BBFC in the first place – SCi had sought the publicity, and “it backfired terribly,” admits Buckland.

The press didn’t mess about: ‘Ban Death Game Now: Pope’ (actually MP Greg Pope and not the pontiff, but why let that get in the way of a headline?), ‘Ban Killer Car Game’, etc. And lots of ridiculous bandwagon-jumping.

“We got an official written complaint from Age Concern because we were running over little old ladies who’d say: ‘I was in the war!’” remembers Buckland. Barnden recalls going up against someone from Road Peace on the radio: “At the time, I didn’t realize his daughter had been run over, so… I was a little bullish in my defense. I thought I came out of it pretty well, but had I had that information I may have been a little less enthusiastic.”

When Princess Diana died, The Daily Mail picked up on Carmageddon’s character Die Anna – despite the fact that the game had been released two months before her fatal crash. This actually saw a change to the startup screen which had flipped between Max Damage and Die Anna: “We were pissed off at having to do that because we were artists,” laughs Buckland. “They wanted Mrs Damage or some shit instead.”

The strangest thing about the entire affair is Stainless’s account of its meeting with the BBFC. “It was very surreal – they sat and played the game hooting with laughter and remonstrating with themselves for enjoying it,” recalls Barnden. “They enjoyed the splatting too much,” adds Matt Edmunds, a programmer on the game. “They said it made them enjoy the experience of running people over.”

Although sanity didn’t win the day on that occasion, no less than George Carman QC was employed to fight the judgment and triumphed – although Stainless’s personal opposition was somewhat more personal. “There’s a picture of me sticking the finger up to their sign in Soho Square,” admits Barnden, “and the only thing I remember about the meeting was that my flies were completely undone. I spent the entire time trying to not look like I was deliberately flaunting my tackle at them. I imagine the BBFC’s used to that sort of thing, though.”

But SCi buffered Stainless from most of the onslaught, and the appeal was successful, with the game receiving a 15 rating. It’s an insight into how different the industry was a decade ago that sitting on the appeals panel were Biddy Baxter (the editor of Blue Peter for over two decades) and Fay Weldon. “However, by ‘passed’ we mean ‘reluctantly allowed it through with a gamut of associated horrified caveats because the high court held a gun to their heads’,” adds Buckland.

There are two sides to the controversy. On the one hand, Stainless was undoubtedly aware that its game would court attention and benefited hugely from the exposure. “We weren’t known, the brand wasn’t known, SCi wasn’t known. The game had to stand on its own two feet and it might not have done that without the violence – though it did get fantastic reviews,” says Buckland. There are no hard figures for the total sales of Carmageddon forthcoming from its makers, although they do go on the record saying that the total series has sold around two million copies. As for any further probing, Buckland simply concludes with: “There are various issues we won’t go into – let’s say none of us are driving Ferraris.”

But the other side is that Carmageddon is remembered for the nonsense around its launch rather than its quality, and what it brought to the racing genre. “At the time it did frustrate us,” says Buckland. “Much as we wanted the sick humor, some of the magazines concentrated just on the violence. But you’re always going to get that, I think – people can’t see beyond headline violence to the game and tech underneath. We did a lot of things games hadn’t done before and it took a long time for other driving games to catch up, even in terms of stuff we did in Carma 2.”

Carmageddon will always be remembered, first and foremost, for the bans and the headlines. But it holds another place in gaming history, not only as a forerunner to the Burnouts and Twisted Metals, but as a manifestation of a development philosophy that is rarer than ever. Do what you want. Muck around with your game. “Sounds fun.” “Let’s try it.” “You can’t do that.” “Why not?”

Stainless Games began as two men and a banger racing demo, but it grew into a remarkably close-knit team that built something special, went through the tabloid wringer and lived to tell the tale. And Lane’s experience almost certainly stands for them all.

“The phrase emitted so often by that old lady as she bounces off the bonnet still makes me chuckle some 11 years on. Having run a gauntlet of projects and adventures, I feel nothing has ever lived up to that time, nor have the new friends and colleagues I have encountered since been able to truly grasp what it was to be there, at Stainless, to build that game. I repeat, in wavering high-pitched cockney: ‘I was in the war!’”