Post-Apocalyptic Cars and Motorcycles
Though Chicago Skirmish Wargames is preparing for our summer Song of
Blades and Heroes campaign, I would like to dedicate two last blog
entries to post-apocalyptic gaming, which has occupied a good deal of
our time and energy over the last six months. In this post I'll review a
few recent finds that the penny-pinching gamer will find appealing. On
the docket today we have 1/43 diecast cars from Bburago, as well as Hot
Wheels motorcycles.
Bburago "Street Fire" 1/43 Die Cast Cars
Following up a tip from the
Post-Apocalyptic Wargames forum,
I headed over to my local Dollar General and found what may be the
cheapest 1/43 cars ever! At about $2.50 each, these cars are about half
the price of cars from affordable brands like Kinsmart, Motormax and
Welly and Maisto. As you'll see below, these cars hold up well against
those brands.
Here's the armada I came home with after my first visit; I've since
purchased a couple more.
Pictured are: Mini Cooper, Ford Mustang GT, Hummer HX Concept, Chrysler
300, Dodge Magnum, Ford F150, and Dodge Charger. Also available were a
Porsche, Lamborgini, Dodge Viper, Corvette, and one or two other sports
cars, but as high-performance sports cars don't fit into my vision of
post-apoc, I didn't purchase them.
A few more visits to Dollar Generals seemed to confirm that is the extent of the available selection.
For those on the hunt, the boxes they come in look like this:
I was curious how these cars would measure up to other diecast in scale.
The picture below shows the Dodge Magnum next to a Welly 1/43 Crown
Victoria (nice little cars —
see my brief review of them here).
Though the Crown Vic seems unusually large, checking the comparative
measurements of these two cars, the scales are very close. The Magnum is
only a smidge short compared to the 90's Crown Vic, which is a very
large car compared to most contemporary autos.
Like Hot Wheels cars, the Bburago are box-scale cars for which the size
of the car has been adjusted to fit the box in which they will be sold.
This resulted the cars being of a fairly uniform scale, except that the
Mini and Mustang are a bit large and the F150 and H3 a touch small.
As the pictures below show, the differences in scale are minor and
should be no problem for most 28mm gamers. The miniature in this
picture is 29mm from boot sole to eye and 37mm from bottom of base to
top of his hat.
Chrysler 300
Dodge Charger
Mini Cooper
Hummer HX (Never put into production, this concept vehicle
deserves special mention as the car in the series that has real
potential as a sci-fi vehicle)
Ford F-150
Ford Mustang GT
And here's one more pic of the
Welly Crown Vic for comparison.
Quality observations
On balance these cars are quite nice. They have good detailing, even
extending to small brand names and colored edges around windows. The
interiors are nice, and there are none of the annoying pull-back motors
that every other cheap die-cast car seems to come with.
All is not perfect, however. The cars suffer from one-piece, mostly
untreaded tires that look cheap. Also, most are mounted high in the
wheel wells so the car can ride low. The low-rider phenomenon affects
lots of brands of toys these days, so I am not surprised, but it's
wholly unsuited for the rough roads of a dark future.
The cars have a rather unique assembly system. There are no screws
holding the car together. Usually this would mean that they would be
difficult to disassemble, but these cars are held together with a clips —
usually attached to bumpers or front grills — that can be easily
released or cut away from the bottom of the car for easy disassembly.
The picture below shows the clips attached to the bumpers that hold the
car together. (Also note that the wheels are attached directly to
studs on the body, and once the body and chassis are separated, they can
simply be pulled off without too much effort.)
In the final assessment, I am quite pleased with these cars. The scale
variation is minor enough that it doesn't bother me, and the issues with
the wheels can be dealt with through repositioning and repainting or
replacement. I have nothing but good things to say about the usefulness
of the selection, overall quality, detail and ease of disassembly, and
of course the phenomenal value. I have not found diecast cars anywhere
that approach the quality of these cars at anywhere near this price.
Hot Wheels Motorcycles
Though most Hot Wheels toy cars are far to small to be useful in 28mm
scale gaming, many of their motorcycles are spot-on. The choppers in
particular scale very well with 28mm, as their longer shape means they
are often designed to be a bit smaller to fit inside the standard Hot
Wheels packaging. They also tend to be a bit narrower than other bikes
and thus easier to fit a rider on.
The figures on the bikes are a mix of Games Workshop parts, primarily
GorkaMorka Ork arms and legs and Imperial Guard Catachan torsos and
heads with a mix of weapons.
I've put the official Hot Wheels names in "quotes."
"OCC Splitback" Chopper
"Blast Lane" Chopper
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y167/dane5140/Misc%20Sci-FI/post%20apoc%20vehicles/DSC01009.jpg
I've got three of these assembled, although there is still some
detailing, positioning and green-stuffing of the seat areas to be done.
The metallic sections and wheels will likely be repainted, but I'm going
to try and keep the body paintjobs mostly intact with a bit of
weathering added. For a few more pics of similar bikes and a potential
cheap rider figure for these bikes,
check out Lucky Joe's Place.
Here are two more bikes that will probably be incorporated into my biker
gang. The blue "Boss Hog Cycles" trike is very well sized. The white
"Scorchin' Shooter" is too wide to easy put a figure in the saddle, but
I'm going to take a Dremel to it and see what I can do.
These three may also see use, though not likely with my biker gang. I
have 3 each of the tri-wheel "Tri and Stop Me" and "Snow Ride"
snowmobile. They might end up with police or military riders. The
orange "Hyper Mite" (shown with canopy removed) will end up with a gang
someday when I find a suitable replacement for the tiny front wheels.
I found the "HW450F" dirt bike and "Canyon Carver" to be unsuitable for
my use, but I include them as scale references for those who may be
interested.
Though the project isn't finished, I'm very happy with the Hot
Wheels choppers. The size is right, and the detailing is as good or
better than you'd find on comparably sized gaming models. At about a
buck each, you can pick a few up to experiment with with no real risk to
the gaming budget.
— Karl, Chicago Skirmish Wargames member
These are two of my favorites; the Life Guard and one that's taken a close range shotgun blast to the chest.
Here's a view of their backs. I love the irony of a zombie being a
"life guard", and James 'Tank' Nickle gave me the idea for the shotgun
zombie with the big hole in front and all the smaller exit wounds on the
back.
This is another favorite; the swimmer zombie. I'm really pleased with how the floral pattern on his swim trunks turned out.
