Dark Future - Copycat American Style

So, with Dark Future suddenly being all the rage, I thought I'd follow the crowd and gin up an entry in the growing army of shooty cars.  For defensive driving purposes, of course.

That said, I'm a yank, and so my touchstone for battling cars of the future is actually Steve Jackson's Car Wars games.  Back in the early '80's I spent quite a few Saturday afternoons driving little cardboard cars and motorcycles around paper roads and shooting whoever got in my way.  For defensive driving purposes, of course.

We always talked about getting some Hot Wheels or Matchbox cars and making them all shooty, or even buying some minis, but never actually did it.  UNTIL NOW!

From the pages of Autoduel Quarterly, this advert for the Katana 2034 showed the height of luxury - and safety.  I figured this would a good model to replicate.  Note the laser turret, ram plate, flaming oil jets (non-flaming oil jets are for wimps!) and wheel guards.  Perfection!

This old Hot Wheels seemed to fit the part relatively well.

Undercarriage.  I probably bought this 10 years ago - I used to promise my (then) two year old a Hot Wheels if he behaved while we were out shopping.  Best $0.79 spent on the day.  Those old cars haven't seen much use as of late - but that's about to change!

I started making the turret with a short cut off of a large styrene tube, glued to a small piece of plasticard, and then trimmed to fit.

Small styrene rod, with a short piece of a larger rod on the end.  Then drilled a hole in the turret (by spinning my exacto knife slowly) and then glued it in. 

Filed down the top of the car with a file, to give the turret a flat place to stick.

I also cut a rectagonal rod of styrene for a battering ram, and filed out the existing bumper for it to fit.

A few small pieces of plasticard over the wheels, and BOOM.

Another small styrene rod, with a very small disc cut from a smaller rod, made the flaming oil jet.   

Flat black primer.  I rushed the paint job, and wound up getting some wrinkly bits in the finish.  Oh well, the hazards of indoor spraying . . . 

Finished paint job.  

The windows were the most fun of all, actually. 

An above shot, for scale purposes.

Can't wait to take this baby out for a spin and cause some: