Mad Shark Car Query

[Under Horizon]

Hey all! Longtime shooter fan since my Uncle bought me Xevious for NES in the late 80s. It says my last log-in visit to this site was 2009. HA! I definitely had a more active account in the 2010''s but this is the only one I can get going again.

Recently I've been playing a good amount of Mad Shark on Switch. Got a 1 life clear today! I'm considering working on the second loop as I've never accomplished an arcade 2 loop clear. Though I question whether it's worth the time investment when I could move onto my back-log.

Does anybody know how to trigger the 50,000 point bonus car(s) to appear in stage 1 and 3? Is it random? It's driving me Mad.

[AGermanArtist]

Might be of some help?

viewtopic.php?t=71775

[Under Horizon]

Thank you, it is an excellent write up on the game. It does mention the bonus cars but doesn't say how they are triggered.

[Under Horizon]

The facebook groups unsurprisingly had no responses on this so I thought I could rely on the community here. Strange that nobody seems to know. Where's Perikles??

[Kyper]

Perikles mentioned reading somewhere that it could be based on kill count:
viewtopic.php?p=1292472#p1292472

I've read that it depends on the number of enemies you've destroyed before getting to the point where a car can potentially spawn (there is one in stage 1 and up to three in stage 3). Purportedly, if you have killed an amount of enemies that is divisible by four, the car will appear in stage 1. However, not every enemy is counted towards that, apparently.

I don't have any clue whether there is any veracity in this or not, but I do know that I consistently get two cars to spawn in stage 3 - it's extremely rare for me to see the car in stage 1 and the third one in stage 3, so there might be some factor that determines this, after all. The two stars are in fixed locations and will always be there, on the other hand.

[Under Horizon]

Ah! Never seen that thread. Ok, sounds random or not something I will worry about. Thank you!