by Andrew Stanicek

It is a confusing time in the Galaxy. The Republic has fallen, the Jedi have been exterminated, smoke still rises from their temple ruins on Couroscant. But the Temple Hanger is strangly empty. Coincidently, a short time after Order 66 was carried out, several of the small high performance ships formerly owned by the Jedi started showing up on the illegal racing circuit. Now completely stripped down of combat gear, and tricked out with the latest performance, audio and video gear Republic Credits can buy. But as the dark shadow of the new Empire creeps across the galaxy, everyone is growing wary of new dangers ahead. Dark days as we await a new hope to return the galaxy to the light...

The base kit for this was the AMT Jedi Starfighter. Most of the time on this model was spent "pimping out" the interior of the cockpit. I used lots of parts from the "Fast and the Furious" edition of the Toyota Supra for the new control panel, pedals, steering column, emergency brake, gauge pod, and subwoofers. The rear wing and sport mirrors are also from this kit. The racing harness is made from strips of Scotch tape, folded over and painted before CA'ing into place. The new control yoke is made from the steering wheel of a '57 Corvette. (I also made some fuzzy dice to hang off the rear view mirror, but realizing there was no rear window, the mirror seemed a little silly) Since the new interior covered the original front window, I added a chrome air intake "grill" from a 48th scale Russian Frogfoot.

I left the droid socket empty, since any teenager who is spending all their cash on aftermarket racing stuff, probably doesn't have any left-over coin to buy an astromech. The paint is all freehand airbrush work with a base coat of white with candy purple and blue for the flames. I then laid down a generous coat of acrylic pearl medium, and finished it off with a couple coats of clear. The canopy is tinted with a few coats of Tamiya smoke, and the carbon fiber wing is covered in a custom decal that I printed on my ever-handy laser printer.

Image: Top view

Image: Underneath

Image: New dash

Image: Interior