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Post by Red Two on Apr 4, 2008 14:25:54 GMT -5
NOTE: This thread has morphed some over time as my ideas have changed. I liked The Prisoner's Caterham. That was followed by some thinking of Veritechs. The design has now come back home to Road Squadron's roots (and my first Car Fighter design), Star Wars. Over this time, my handle has changed from Macross and Roy Fokker's 'Skull Leader' designation to Number 6, back to Skull Leader, then to Star Wars's Blue Leader and now to fit my car, Red Two. All according to my vehicle at the time. Same Tom throughout. Original post follows. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Watching an episode of a particular show last night, I got a very good idea of what my car's next paint job would be. Simple. Elegant. Unique. It's sci-fi, but it's not a space ship. What is it?  The Caterham 7, formerly of Lotus, for the british show, The Prisoner. Buying the car itself would be cool, but it is sold only as a kit and all the parts add up to $30k+! And then I'd have to build it... So this is the next best thing.  Getting the license plate number KAR120C is key! The concept falls apart without that. More later. Be seeing you! Tom
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Post by uscgocox on Apr 4, 2008 22:24:35 GMT -5
Ah...tiburon...such a girl's car. What's the theme going to be? I'm telling ya...need to do the Pontiac Aztek and build a Republic Gunship. You'd get much respect from this community!
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Post by Darth Marmalade on Apr 5, 2008 2:37:16 GMT -5
I like it!
Who is Number One?
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Post by Red Two on Jul 3, 2008 7:19:23 GMT -5
Turns out that as Caterham's only outlet in the US is here in Cali, they own the KAR 120C plate.
For the paint job, I will be saving up to have the base green done professionally. I don't know if I will have them paint the yellow nose or not yet. And my interior is gray/black whereas Number Six's is red. A red leather dye could work for that, but that is the last touch if it is done at all. The green is going to set me back a chunk as is, so until that is done I'm not worrying about the rest.
On the other hand, considering that 3 of 3 of my concept vehicles have been smashed to oblivion, do I really want to paint this one and thus make it a target? On the other-other hand, four is my lucky number...
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Post by Darth Marmalade on Jul 9, 2008 15:35:07 GMT -5
That's the way it's done! It's very cool that you can get the license plate. A friend of mine has had a couple of replica Bluesmobiles over the years. For his first one, he managed to get the same license plate number (BDR 529) as the one in the movie. He takes credit for the fact that a few years later, the law was changed in Massachusetts, and now no one can get a personalized license plate that mimics an ordinary license plate. His current Bluesmobile has a plate with something appropriate but innocuous, like "BLUES" (I can't remember exactly). I guess KAR120T is different enough from the standard California pattern of 1ABC123 -- but I wouldn't be surprised if it confuses a police officer or two. Keep us posted on your progress, and... be seeing you! EDIT: Here are my friend's Bluesmobiles! The car photos are down at the bottom of the page. Kind of a major digression over license plates, oh well: www.flickr.com/photos/bismo/sets/ |
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Post by Red Two on Sept 7, 2008 20:28:25 GMT -5
The problem? Sunday night I came across this old idea:  I was contemplating this design for my last bike but passed as the bike I bought was a base silver, not blue. I had missed the blue one I'd seen on the showroom floor by two weeks. Looking at my car: it is a base blue (convenient) and it has all the angles and bad-ass-edness to pull off a veritech... But my new plates are still so new.    Let's weigh things. KAR120CPROS:-I love the Caterham 7 -I love the show -I have the license plate close enough CONS:-Full 2-tone body paint = BIG money -C7 interior is red, mine is dark gray: full interior dye job. -Not being a Caterham, the Tib might not pull off the effect -While The Prisoner is utterly sci-fi, the C-7 is not a carfighter Veritech PROS:-Base blue is done. -Great car angles -Minimal painting. I might even be able to get vinyl cut for all the stripes and such, eliminating the paint job. -Excellent carfighter CONS:-Instantly kills resale value (if painted) -Custom license plate already bought. -I'd hate to mix genre's Could work, but I think the logic and cost, time and cool analysis above says it all. |
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Post by Darth Marmalade on Nov 13, 2008 3:43:32 GMT -5
I like it a lot. I like The Prisoner's car a lot, too, but that Veritech is sharp.
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Post by Red Two on Nov 14, 2008 1:15:19 GMT -5
1. Staring at my car in the work lot the other day, I envisioned a SW design...
2. I am of the mind to build an astromech.
So Star Wars is it.
Originally, there was no Red Squadron, it was Blue.
Trivia: The blue screen keying tech of 1975 couldn't handle blue objects. So the XWings were repainted to the red we came to know. The TIE's were also blue-ish and went to white/gray because of this as well. If you have an original SW vid, you'll note that R2 was painted black for the trench scenes.
So, the apocryphal Blue Leader is the design.
I've gotta get some photos under the proper light to show the angles off. There are many in there the photos above don't show off that will be the basis of the new 'paint job'.
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Post by Red Two on Nov 15, 2008 4:11:25 GMT -5
 The real Blue Leader piloted an XWing. This craft is a Light Scout. Built for speed, Blue One drops heavy armament, relying on an astromech for high precision flight and evasion. While strong shields trump the light laser canon under the bow, both are essentail additions to safer flight operations. Capable of FTL, onboard storage allows for full planetary support gear and long term supplies for extended missions. |
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Post by Darth Marmalade on Nov 16, 2008 18:35:34 GMT -5
Your designs keep getting better and better!
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Post by Red Two on Jan 12, 2009 0:26:54 GMT -5
 This disappointment happened back in November. My carport has a concrete post on one side and I cut the angle too steep one night. Flattened everything up to the wheel well. SoCal finally had a nice 70° weekend so I got some primer and sand paper. I also have to get one of those ding-king things to pull the panel back out. There's no easy way to get behind the panel and massage the dent out. I have doubts about the freezing/heating technique to pop dents, but will give it a go just in case. I plugged some 220 grit into the orbital sander and took down the worst of it. I followed that w/ a couple 400 grit passes. After washing and drying, I taped most of the car off and laid down two passes of dupli-color's self-etching primer, followed by two passes of their filler-primer and topped off w/ 4 passes of an off-white. It's too bright for what I'm going for. The gray filler primer was actually much closer, about 10 points darker. For an idea of what I've done, refer to the concept pic above. From the door jam at the gills all the way back to the tail light is now 'white'. I'll have pix for next time. Mainly, I wanted to bandage up the wound before more foul weather hit us. I will have a yard available to me for painting sometime in March. From what I've seen so far, I think the basic duo-tone of blue and gray is going to work perfect. Based on doing this one side, I know I need about 12 cans of primer and a similar amount of color. The paints will be the light gray (6-8 cans), gold (2-4 cans) and possibly a green (1 can). The gray and gold I think can be considered standard XWing. The idea for green comes from Bigg's X-Wing (Red3 I think). All details and weathering will be airbrushed by hand. |
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Post by Obi-Shawn on Jan 16, 2009 7:23:29 GMT -5
I'm always having mine banged into- last time, I just had to incorporate it into the design.
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Post by Red Two on Jan 16, 2009 13:16:04 GMT -5
I'm going to pull some of the rear wheel well back out, but otherwise, the damage will be incorporated into the design. After seeing your proposed refit designs, I am ready to paint mine up when it gets warm again. I still owe near $10k on it, but I'm gonna keep her until she wears out.
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Post by Red Two on Jan 16, 2009 13:44:42 GMT -5
Tonight around 5pm pst will be the one year mark for me and my Tib. Around 3pm I walked onto the lot and around 7pm I drove away.
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Post by Obi-Shawn on Jan 17, 2009 3:53:42 GMT -5
I'm going to pull some of the rear wheel well back out, but otherwise, the damage will be incorporated into the design. After seeing your proposed refit designs, I am ready to paint mine up when it gets warm again. I still owe near $10k on it, but I'm gonna keep her until she wears out. My passenger fender is like that; just made it permanent battle damage.  Congrats on the anniversary... |
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