First car game I remember using a soft body type system for collisions

I doubt it used Jbeams but the deformation did make me eager to see it in other racing games. Maybe there was others before Viper, this is just the first one where I saw a car could be bent indefinably.

Viper Racing for PC Review and Crashes - YouTube

 

Are you thinking of a game by the name of Rigs of Rods which came out in 2005 10 years before BeamNG Drive.

 

i know 1nsane used an "atom and sticks" technology similar to beamng's node and beam system.
altho its far simpler as 1nsane was released in 2000.

 

First game i played with a more in-depht kind of 'crashing physics' was Burnout 3 i believe, then Prostreet pc version and later SLRR, ik they're not node-beam system and shit but still kinda a lot of damage model for what they were

 

I went to the game engines home page BeamNG uses and it said Tribes was the first game to use the engine. Not a game I played, think it was a 3rd person shooter. Doubt it used any deformation for anything. Burnout series was pretty impressive for what it was. Forget the one I played. I also looked up 1nsane, looks like it had a pretty impressive suspension system going on. Bet for its time it was pretty fun game back then but one I never tried.

 

Been playing all the above since im old BUT one game i really enjoyed was CRC or Cross Racing Championship 2005, even released an old Volvo 740 for it, bet its on some old harddrive somewhere. Good deformation for its time.

 

Cross Racing Championship looks like something I would have liked a lot. Loved the Dirt games, with exception to Dirt 5. I went years without a PC and only had ps3, ps4-pro, but started on a c=64 then later an Amiga 500. Atari 2600 was first ever console. Pretty old too 47.