Gaslands Buggy II

My thoughts on buggies for Gaslands part II

III) The variety with semi-covered wheels

Theses could be considered as the ancestors of modern sporty compact SUVs. Sometimes the line between a potential buggy and a small SUV is rather blurred.

The Meyers Manx is a classic kit car on a VW chassis. And of course there's a Hot Wheels version of it. It looks about as menacing as a baby racoon. But with a roll cage, a ram, lots of buzz-spikes and several guns it could be a Gaslands car...

Haha, who am I kidding? Just stick a few flowers to its panels!

Pro: Classic. Good scale

Con: I mean, really? 



But if you add a roof and sharpen the curves, you can get something like this: Twinnin' 'n Winnin'. 
Now here is the thing. All of these cars are too big. 

Luckily in this case the problem is caused by the chassis rather than the body. With a custom suspension and a wheel-swap you can achieve something like this:

Pro: has a nice shape. Reasonable amount of details
Con: building a new base / suspension is some work.

There are a lot of similar cars.

Dune Daddy (2016)

Sand Burner

Sandivore

In my opinion all of these cars are slightly too big for buggies. They are more like rallye-raid SUV.

Dune Crusher

Hyper Rocker

Geoterra

Are even bigger and could be treated as offroad-trucks

The UNSC Warthog is a combat vehicle from the game Halo.

Technically it's not  a buggy. More an open version of a HUMVEE-type vehicle. So it fits right with the bunch above. But scale again is tricky. The car should be bigger, so the scale is more like 1:72 or something. 

But in this case it gives us a buggy sized vehicle for 1:64. Just get rid of the flimsy gun and other details that give a clue about its actual scale.

Pro: looks very military

Con: needs some modding for scale adjustment

Speaking of video games, we have to mention Octane.

Yes, it is the Rocket League car. And it looks cartoonish. But I've seen great buggy builds made from it.




Pro: scale is o.k.
Con: cartoonish and a bit weird

Here is a Pic of what you can do with it.




So if Octane looks a bit aviatic, then 2 Jet Z takes you the rest of the way.

Pro: Good scale
Con: more a performance car, really

And then we have this. It's a very strange, but well known design. The Da'kar is a futuristic concept of a rallye car. It's a weird casting.



From some angles it looks really great. From others it's all weird proportions and shapes. The car is too wide for its length. And I especially dislike the rear axle. But at least that can be fixed. And apart from that it is also too big for a buggy. 

Con: too big, weird shape

Pro: It's approved by a higher authority, isn't it?

Over to matchbox, then.

They also have a range of classic beach buggies inspired by the Myers Manx.

The classic castings include Beach Buggy and Baja Buggy.

Both date back to the early 1970s. Models you find on Ebay are either a bit pricey or totally beaten up. Wich should not be too big of a problem for my fellow Gaslanders, but unfortunately the plastic parts, especially the engines suffer under the decades.

The size is actually quite o.k.

Beach Buggy

Baja Buggy

Pro: Size o.k.

Con: old, discontinued cars.

My version of a Matchbox Beach Buggy

There's an open version, too. The Beach Hopper

This one has a Roller-matic function. The driver bops up and down. Or hopps. Thus the name. While it's a classic collectors' choice, it's not a very good Gaslands donator car.

Pro: Yeah, it's a buggy, allright

Con: Roofless, old, bulky mechanics. And also too big. I wouldn't



The modern reincarnation of the beach buggy looks more the part. The Baja Bandit casting is much more recent, dating back to the mid 2000s.

It looks still far from menacing, especially in pink, but it does have potential. Other than its older siblings it is a bit too large in scale. 

Pro: a buggy, still in production

Con: too big.

In the late 2000s and early 2010s Matchbox introduced a whole lot of new models, many of which were fantasy offroad vehicles. Some of them are trucks or even heavy trucks, some more SUV. 

Many of them had a rough, edgy, angular style, that looks menacing in some cases, and cheesy in others. And they went wild with scale. But there are a few worthy mentions here:

The Off-Road Rider looks also a bit huge, more truck-like. But you can achieve wonders by lowering it significantly. It changes the percieved scale tremendously.

Pro: after lowering a good scale
Awesome looking suspension parts

Con: -

The Coyote 500 looks like a hot rod Hummer. But with some modding it could become an armoured war buggy.

The GHE-O Predator is an actual real-world-car. Extrem offroad-racing stuff, I know nothing about. But it looks cool.

The Spark Arrester is a good example of the angular style, I mentioned above. It's certainly different looking from many other examples

Already well armoured up, I guess.

Technically the MBX 4X4 is a Jeep-type SUV. But it is modified to an extend, that makes it Gaslands friendly. Will it count as a buggy? Propably no. But decide for yourself.

The same goes for the Jeep Hurricane Concept. But in that case I'd bring in the Warthog from above. If I was to do a Warthog-like vehicle without Hot Wheels Warthog casting, I'd start from here.

The 4X4 Buggy is called a buggy, but it's actually more a compact SUV. 

Even more so the Terrain Trouncer. But this one with it aerodynamic body looks more buggy like to me than many above. 

The last 5 above castings are too big in size to really feel like buggies. But if you pair them with other big cars, it might work.

So, this list claims by no means to be complete. Nor do I think my personal views on the topic should be mandatory. I just wanted to share my thoughts on the topic. And maybe give a little inspiration.


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