Hovercraft

The Hovercraft is the vehicle that Nitros Oxide frequently drives in most of his appearances in the Crash Bandicoot series. It first appears in Crash Team Racing, along with Nitros Oxide himself, as the vehicle he uses in his race against Earth. It reappears in Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled as both Nitros Oxide's vehicle of choice and as a kart set that any character can drive.

Description
The Hovercraft is a vehicle that resembles a, with elements from motor vehicles incorporated, such as headlights, a windshield, and three pairs of exhaust pipes. The Hovercraft has a control panel as in popular depictions of spacecraft in media, and is steered with a pair of control sticks in games predating Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled. Although the Hovercraft is named for its capability to hover on the ground, it is also commonly seen as being capable of air and space flight.

As of Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled, the Hovercraft includes a grille on the front and a trunk and taillights on its back, as well as a steering wheel replacing its two control sticks. The Hovercraft also now has a visible repulsor beam, which it uses to hover on the ground, and an underlight. Its exhaust pipes also reach the underside of the vehicle, which is similar to concept art for the vehicle in Crash Team Racing. The seat is also remodeled and is colored purple instead of brown, which gets reverted in later games. In Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time, two Hovercrafts can be seen, both of which have retractable cockpits on top of the windshields.

Crash Team Racing
The Hovercraft first appears in Crash Team Racing as the vehicle Nitros Oxide uses in his boss races, as well as the cutscenes that precede them. The Hovercraft is also used by Oxide to fly down to Earth from his spaceship. As Nitros Oxide is not a playable character in the game, the Hovercraft is also not drivable by extension.

Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled
The Hovercraft reappears in Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled as the vehicle Nitros Oxide uses in Adventure mode and as a kart set that any playable character can use. It was unnamed prior to this game. Its design was updated to incorporate more elements from automobiles, such as a grille, trunk, and taillights. The Hovercraft also has a steering wheel in place of its pair of control sticks from previous games as a measure to save on development costs from allowing every character to be able to drive it. The Hovercraft is a floating kart and does not come with wheels unlike wheeled kart sets. Like other kart sets in the game, it can be recolored with any paint job; the green color of the body corresponds to the primary color of a paint job, the interior of the kart uses the secondary color, and both the frame of the headlights and the exhaust pipes use the tertiary color. The Hovercraft Green paint job features the original primary, secondary, and tertiary colors of the Hovercraft, and its decal color is purple.

The Hovercraft kart set is unlocked by achieving 100% completion in the Adventure mode. It is one of the few kart sets that aren't unlocked in the Pit Stop. Extra kart body decals for the Hovercraft can be found in the Pit Stop.

Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time
Two Hovercrafts appear in Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time, in the Bermugula's Orbit world. The first one encountered is Nitros Oxide's own Hovercraft, at the end of the level Out for Launch, where Crash Bandicoot and Coco Bandicoot were looking to exit Oxide's spaceship. After it ends up being taken away by the alternate Tawna, they eventually find an orange Hovercraft with white stripes after the Stowing Away level, which they use to arrive to Bermugula in the Crash Landed level.

Nitros Oxide is seen riding the Hovercraft from the Nitros Oxide Edition of Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled in the 100% ending of Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time.

Crash Bandicoot: On the Run!
The Hovercraft appears along Nitros Oxide in the The Return of Nitros Oxide! and Survival of the Fastest seasons. It appears in the boss fights of the multiverse variants of Nitros Oxide during the latter season, where it is used to directly attack Crash Bandicoot or Coco Bandicoot instead of being used for a driving competition. In the boss fights, the Hovercraft can create fireballs from four of its exhaust pipes, which are blue with snowflake particles and purple for the Frosty and Oxide variants respectively, and can cause earthquakes on one of the three lanes of the level the boss fight is in. It is also used to ram Crash or Coco, from which fire trails appear in the Inferno variant of the boss fight.

Other appearances
The Hovercraft is seen in the opening animatic of Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex as Nitros Oxide drives through space. It is also seen in Crash Twinsanity with Oxide as he attends Crash Bandicoot's "birthday party". It is seen at the very end of the Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled Digital Comic as Oxide prepares to leave for Earth.

While the Hovercraft doesn't appear in Crash Bash, a similar-looking vehicle can be seen in the minigame Oxide Ride. Similarly, the Hovercraft also doesn't appear in Crash Nitro Kart, but the kart that Team Oxide drives draws elements from it.

Trivia

 * The orange Hovercraft in Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time has white stripes similar to how some kart bodies in Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled can include colored stripes through decals. However, there is no decal for the Hovercraft that gives it stripes.