by Roger Shuffield

I've had a 1/25 scale AMT kit of the 1966 Dodge Deora for several years now and almost built it straight from the box as the X-truck it was meant to be; but, the beauty of style and design and the sheer movement of this "truck-we-never-got" moved me to throw it into space.

The engine is from my now grown son's 1993 Batmobile action toy. That added the heft and potential drive to the basically unchanged body. Rearmost, I added an empty capgun magazine to simulate a multi-burner array. The wings were a direct dictation from the style itself and the necessity of defense prompted the weapon atop the ship, made from a scrap item of unknown origin.

I first painted all flat black spray and then I alternately sprayed grey primer spatter, then flat black spatter, etc., to produce an off-black finish. Two sessions of spatter spray from the front with RUST-OLEUM Hammered Finish, completed the process.

The windows are painted flat black from inside. The windshield has a masked off clear section, with an amber backing cut from a floppy disk case. (I know... there should be a light in the cabin - which houses two captain's chairs facing the operations console and on-screen monitor- trust me...they're in there.)

I added the markings with cut out masking tape.

On the shots of the bottom and of the right side, I'm showing three graviton attractor/repulsor units as the landing gear array - trust me... that's what they are.

Image: Right/rear view

Image: Front

Image: Underneath

Image: Above