One of the body vinyl options was actually one of the earliest design concepts for what would become the iconic BMW M3 GTR from Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2005).
For years, the city map seen in the PlayStation 2, Xbox Live and E3 preview demos of the game was believed to be a very early version of Palmont City, and that said version of it would have made San Juan a proper city location as opposed of making it just a Disconnected Side Area. This is despite the fact that concept art, development portfolios and the data mining of these demos suggested otherwise. This might have stemmed due to a few factors; the main city race in the demos happen on a course located in San Juan, which was always planned to be used for tutorials, and the track layout was hastily fit into the demo map, and the demo map itself was created for previews in order to give a taste of how the territory mechanic was going to be work in the game. This might have incidentally led some people to believe that Palmont City was far different from what actually was in development.
The Prima Guide states that Nikki is 19 at the time of the player's departure from Palmont and 24 at the time of their return. Emmanuelle Vaugier actually turned 30 during development of the game.
Some characters, especially those who play the player's crew members, have different actors for their cut-scenes and their voice lines during game-play.
-Neville is played by Chris Gauthier during his cut-scenes, while Brian Scolaro voices him during races.
-Sal is played by Elias Toufexis during his cut-scene, while Josh Keaton voices him during races.
-Samson is played by Noah Danby during his cut-scene, while Joseph May voices him during races.
-Yumi is played by Melody during her cut-scene, while Kim Mai Guest voices her during races.
-Kenji is a more extreme example in that Ken Kirby provides his likeliness, but Archie Kao voices him in all his scenes.
The game's shorter story mode (and consequently how its story felt truncated) and slightly smaller city is often attributed to how the game needed to be released as the launch title for the then-new PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii, along with the PC, Xbox 360 and sixth-generation console versions.