Parker... anywhere you like really



When I found FAB 1 (Matchbox, 1992 approx.1:64) at the bottom of my toy car bag I couldn't resist. Apart from being iconic and already harbouring hidden machine guns in it's original guise in Thunderbirds, the theatrical look along with the executive appeal of the car fit too well with my Limo not to make this my next project.

The club were talking about a monster truck race so I couldn't resist trying to do a monster truck conversion.

Construction and Painting:  So this one was a bit more involved. I drilled out the rivet under the chassis to access the upper part of the body. I disposed of the rest. I bought a Hot wheels monster jams pickup truck for 50p at a carboot sale to bastardise the chassis. I drilled the rivets out and switched the chassis and glued. The quality of the car is pretty decent, especially the solid rubber wheels.

The heavy machine gun is 40K TAU, the ammo 'picnic basket' on the back is Imperial guard. The external V8 was bought for the occasion from Dice mechanic games' Autokill The look is incredible, I had some difficulty removing the parts from the sprues without damaging them as the plastic/ resin in tough.

 Chaos Black Undercoat, Warlock purple basecoat followed by a lighter 50:50 mix of a purple and lighter pink. I then overbrushed the edges of the vehicle to highlight. I know some people like a smoother look but I quite like the cartoony style of 'lining in' the edges and having contracting dark shades and much brighter highlights. The wheels and lower parts of the chassis were lightly drybrushed with about 4 colours of progressively lighter browns. The depth of the tread on the tyres really made this simple technique really effective.

I went for a similar thing with the roof canopy, cantor blue base then a lighter blue layer, finishing off with a white drybrush.

I used mostly boltgun metal for all the metallic areas including engine but played with some tin bitz areas to make the chassis look rusted but not heavily corroded. This was then black ink washed. I used a lighter metallic runefang steel on the most raised areas to strengthen the effect.

 Gameplay: This is actually a pretty standard vehicle in terms of gameplay and quite cheap to field. The machine gun is forward facing so the tactics I use are not subtle. Drive right at things and shoot if they get in range of you. Especially handy for zombie squashing too. This vehicle is an undefeated champion but you cannot take it if your crew is Miyazaki sponsored.