Slow Roads How To Change Car — Vehicle Menu and Drivetrain Options

How to Change Your Car in Slow Roads

The direct answer: reveal the bottom-left tabs, open Vehicle, and choose both a vehicle and a drivetrain. There is no garage, no purchase and no unlock requirement — the drifted.com guide is explicit that the game has no money system or unlockable upgrades and that everything is available from the start, so "changing car" is a menu action rather than a progression step.

Version	Where you change it	What the sources document
Free web version	Vehicle tab in the bottom-left corner of the screen	Three tabs — World, Style and Vehicle — with the Vehicle tab holding your ride and drivetrain choice
Free web version (embedded portals)	Setup screen before or during play	The igre.games entry describes selecting your vehicle and environment settings as step two of starting the game
Steam release	Vehicle tab, plus the in-game tuning UI	Full controller support, configurable traffic and a vehicle tuning interface accessed with the spanner while in the Vehicle dashboard

A practical sequence if this is your first time in the menu:

• Move the mouse to the bottom-left corner of the screen so the three tabs appear.
• Open Vehicle and pick a body — car, bus or bike in the free version, with the hatch and sports car added on Steam.
• Choose a drivetrain: all-wheel drive for grip, front-wheel drive for a safer understeer bias, rear-wheel drive for a tail-happy rear end.
• Close the menu and give it a few corners before deciding, because the handling difference between vehicles is larger than any single setting.
• On Steam, click the spanner in the Vehicle dashboard if you want to change the engine type or reach the visual customisation options.

Every Vehicle in the Game

The roster is deliberately small, and each vehicle is a different experience rather than a stat upgrade.

Vehicle	Availability	How it drives
Car (default electric car)	Web version and Steam	The default minimalist EV; the drifted.com guide calls it clean, simple and well suited to most situations
Bus / coach	Web version and Steam	Tall, wide and heavy, making narrow lanes and tight roads challenging — and rewarding — to thread
Motorbike	Web version and Steam	Slim, aerodynamic and fast, with handling that is quite different from the others; cannot be set to rear-wheel drive
Hatch (rally hatchback)	Steam	Listed among the Steam-exclusive vehicles; the store page frames it as the rallying option
Sports car	Steam	Listed among the Steam-exclusive vehicles; the store page describes kissing each apex with it

Two details worth knowing before you pick: the 2.4.0 web update added functional dashboards and improved interiors to all vehicles and gave different vehicles slightly different motor sounds, so the cockpit view is now vehicle-specific; and the 1.0.1 patch notes removed unused or duplicated vehicles from the profile display, which is a display cleanup rather than a roster change.

Drivetrains, Engines and Customisation

Drivetrain is chosen in the same Vehicle tab as the body, and it changes handling more than any cosmetic option.

Drivetrain	Documented behaviour	When to pick it
AWD	Best overall grip and stability, ideal when you are struggling for traction in snow or on off-road terrain	Winter, Off-world, or any narrow road where you just want to arrive
FWD	A safer understeer bias that enthusiasts tend to find less exciting	Learning a new road type, or when you want the car to feel predictable
RWD	A tail-happy rear end that is much more fun but harder and somewhat unpredictable on slippery surfaces	Drifting and deliberately difficult runs; unavailable on the motorbike

A few things are worth knowing before you commit to a choice:

• Switching costs nothing, so the fastest way to learn the roster is to run the same road in each vehicle and compare.
• The motorbike's drivetrain menu is shorter than the others, because rear-wheel drive is not available on it.
• On low-grip surfaces the drivetrain matters more than the body, which is why winter and Off-world favour all-wheel drive.
• Engine and transmission choice exist on Steam only; the free web version stays electric.
• The developer's roadmap lists new vehicles as a continuing goal, so treat the current roster as a snapshot rather than the finished list.

Engine and appearance sit behind the same menu on the paid release. The Steam page lists vehicle customisation with controls over colours, wheels, plates, engines and handling, and states that any vehicle's engine can be electric or combustion, with the latter offering manual or automatic transmission. The official site lists combustion engines and manual transmission as Steam-exclusive features, so the free web version stays electric-only.

That combination is why the honest answer to "can you change cars" is yes, but with a version caveat: the free web build gives you three vehicles and three drivetrains, while the Steam build gives you five vehicles, engine swaps, transmission choice and a tuning interface — and per the developer's roadmap, more vehicles are still planned for future updates.