F-Zero GX looked stunning back when it came out, and it still looks stunning today especially due to the insane sense of speed: This video doesn't even do it justice. The game runs at locked 60FPS with zero slow-down even when 30 cars are on the screen. It's also basically the greatest arcade racer ever made so it can back up the looks. As that video attests people STILL play it to this day.
1NSANE was a fine off-road racing game, it wasn't a looker though. Three games of three different genres that blew my mind in 1998: Unreal, Motorhead and Jane's WWII Fighters.
I'd have to say Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit, from 1998. Or I could go 1993, with Test Drive: Off Road
Yes, a C64 version of Street Rod, which looked and felt pretty much the same but sported an awesome music and sound effects compared to its PC counterpart .
Street Racing Syndicate is quite good looking for it's age imho. Low requirements for that graphics too!
FlatOut 1 & 2, Crysis (yea this one really had outstanding graphics for its year), Battlefield Bad Company 2 (not much worse graphics than BF 3), Just Cause 2 NFS Underground 1 (those headlights...)
bad company 2 is not that old - - - Updated - - - since this was bumped..Another game with good graphics is Microsoft Flight simulator 1998 and Microsoft Fs2000 and Microsoft flight simulator 1995
NFS Hot Pursuit from 2010 was really fun AND had awesome graphics. I wish though I had the Steam key and not the CD rom.