Beating Melissa with her own Eclipse from the intro. (Need for Speed Underground)

I think we all wanted to use that awesome looking tuned Mitsubishi Eclipse that was shown in the intro of Need for Speed Underground and while the parts are there in the game, the vinyl meanwhile is not in the game but luckily Vladi B recreated the design for peeps to use which I'll leave a link below for interested.

When I saw that mod it felt like the perfect opportunity for my childhood to finally achieve that dream of beating the game and Melissa herself with her own car from the intro. So I traded my Miata for this Eclipse and recreated the Eclipse from the intro. It's a near replication of the car except for the rims (wasn't able to choose the Superleggeras as I chose NFSU Livias during my playthrough so I chose NFSU Splits instead since they look close), some accessories, and maybe the color as well but hey I did the best I can in replicating the said car.

The race was kinda close in some parts thanks to the rubberbanding AI and probably the 350Z being superior in some aspects compared to my Eclipse especially in the last lap where Melissa got me on the first corner and she was so quick that I managed to get close to her via a shortcut and then passed her after the last bridge jump for me to win this final race and once again conquering NFS Underground and its rubberbanding AI.

Overall looking back at Underground, I think I still prefer this over Underground 2 only because of its simplicity when it comes to Career Mode and I guess the challenge as well even though its the rubberbanding AI doing the work. Still its an great game to look back and do a playthrough of it.

Enjoy the video! Also just in case this gets taken down, I'll reupload it.

Link to Vladi B's intro vinyl recreation of Melissa's Eclipse:
https://gamebanana.com/mods/243127