A pre-release screenshot of the game shows that the buses that appear in the European tracks were originally designed with a different livery that resembles the livery used by buses owned by Stagecoach Group in the United Kingdom. This design was changed for the final release of Burnout, most likely to avoid copyright issues with Stagecoach Group.

Early press releases show that there were a lot of traffic vehicles cut from the final game, such as motorbikes, scooters and police cars for US tracks, as well as European tracks and Oriental tracks. This proves that Burnout had a lot of influence from the arcade game Thrill Drive, which also had bikes and police cars for all the 3 tracks, and also contained US, European and Oriental tracks.

The original working title for the game was 'Shiny Red Car', and the game itself was mostly influenced by the arcade game Thrill Drive.

During development, many of the tracks looked to have more detail, and had more scenery, when compared to the final version.

Many cars went through cosmetic changes during development. The Muscle car originally looked more like a Mustang, the Roadster looked like a Porsche Boxter, and the Saloon also looked different.

Early pictures and trailers of the game suggest that the first car they made was the Venom SX, which was later named Sports Coupe.