Machinas: Travelers and Racers

Work is still bad, but I'm finding a little half an hour here and hour there to devote to the painting/building table. Walmart had a couple M2 cars for models I didn't have yet, a '58 Impala and a '57 custom Dodge Royal Lancer (I have the non-custom version, too.)

I also finished converting the '49 Mercury I picked up last week. The Mercury and the Impala I decided to outfit for travel in the Wasteland as opposed to racing on the Machinas circuit. What separates these "traveling" cars as opposed to the racers is that I add a lot more baggage, fewer of the heavier weapons, and more defensive measures.

The Mercury lacks a ram, has plenty of baggage and a modified engine (by which I mean I simply put the exhaust as a stack sticking straight out of the engine rather than a pipe out the back.) The Mercury is armed with twin .50s and, barely visible just under the guns, a flamethrower - a little more weaponry than needed, but perhaps this car belongs to traveling marauders?

The Impala is more of a good example of a Traveler in the Wasteland: Lots of baggage, the only armament is a tail gun, big engine (big pipes, anyway), and not really a ram, but more of a push bar for clearing road obstructions. I left the windows all open more because I like the look; a usual traveler will have the windows all armored.

Then we have my Custom Dodge Royal Lancer. I actually picked this car up for a couple reasons: It's a model I didn't have yet, and also it is from M2's line of "Auto Projects." These are cars in varying degrees of "maintenance," complete with excellent weathering already painted for you!
This one is a Racer- some heavy windscreen armor, machine gun and rocket tubes, and no baggage  to weigh her down. She could use some more armor, but Brother Pilots like to live dangerously.

Now a quick word of caution if you purchase a car from M2's Auto Projects line: These cars will randomly be missing pieces (by design.) There were two Lancers on the shelf at Walmart, this one which was missing a door, and another which was missing a wheel. I need cars with four wheels, and that's actually a spare part I don't have any of in my bits box. So be sure to take a close look if you purchase any cars from the Auto Projects.

I plan on picking up an M2 Apache pickup when I get a chance. When I talked about my class of chopped cars the Nomads use for running contraband (the flat-topped cars), I mentioned four vehicles by name. I have models for three of them, but not a fourth ("Dark Soul.") I was looking for the right car for the job and have decided to try something different; I'll take a pickup and chop the top. I'm not sure how it'll turn out, but I'd like to give it a try. I figured dark soul would be the car running the most cargo since it runs during the latest part of the night, so it needed the best carrying capacity and a good engine. Apache pickup. We'll see how it goes.

Hopefully, I can get to painting these sometime this week. I'll see how work goes. It's been busy, but now that I know what to expect (last week was the first of several hellish weeks,) I can plan my free time a little bit better.