My Millennium Falcon conversion to a 1/25 scale space hot rod.

I've always admired the basic shape of the Millennium Falcon's fuselage and thought that in a stripped down form it would make a great inter-planetary hot rod in 1/25 scale. The inspiration for this kitbash is a remix of Star Wars meets American Graffiti meets Calvin's alter ego Spaceman Spiff meets Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen's rendition of Hot Rod Lincoln.

To build one of these you need two kits: AMT/Etrl's Millennium Falcon and Revell's kit of Ed Roth's Beatnik Bandit II for the cockpit. The Bandit's scale is 1/25, so that makes the Hot Rod Falcon roughly 27 feet wide by 37.5 feet long. That's a pretty big hot rod, but if you have a very largel driveway, you could probably park it outside your house and use it to eliminate those long commutes!

There were three fundamental modifications needed to make the Hot Rod Falcon.

First, the cylindrical structure that connects the Falcon's flight deck to the main fuselage was cut off using a circular cutter in my dremel. Once the majority of the cylinder was removed, the opening was cleaned up with a drum sander in the dremel and some sanding sticks. The opening was then reinforced from underneath with styrene bar stock and putty, and then closed off with 0.040 stryene sheet installed flush with the original fuselage surface. Walkways to the cockpit were cut from sheet styrene embossed with an HO-scale brick pattern and glued to the fuselage surface. You will notice that the kit's side fuselage wall that is normally covered by the connecting cylinder is smooth. Some small parts from the scrap box were applied to blend in with the other molded in details.

Second, take the body of the Bandit and cut out the upper body ring that allows the interior tub to connect to the body. Leave a bit of the surrounding body around the ring so that you have something to help blend it into the Falcon's fuselage. Take the Falcon's upper turret and cut a matching hole for the ring. Now the tricky part: glue the ring into the turret and smooth out the resulting assemblage with filler and sanding. This is easier said than done; it took me a very long time to achieve something I was happy with. Before gluing this new turret assembly to the Falcon, you'll need to assemble the Bandit's interior tub and glue it into the ring. The only modification I made to the basic interior was to add some floor mats since moon dust is tough to get out of carpeting :-) That center console between the seats is actually a stock item in the Bandit.

Third, the back end of the Falcon has a grill cut from a used drywall sanding pad installed over the clear plasitic kit part. Styrene strips and sheets were then used to build out the grill area and give it some interest. Odds-and-ends from my scrap box were applied for some further detailing. The grill over the vertical lift engine on the fuselage bottom, where the lower turret would normally go, is also a drywall sanding pad. Behind that grill I epoxied a support leg from a discarded computer case to give a little bit of detail in the engine area.

The upper surface of the fuselage has numerous do-dads from my scrapbox glued to it to add interest. The structure covering the indentation for the dish antenna is a part from the engine of AMT's Amtronic kit. Plastic covered piano wire was added to this to help blend it into the overall piping pattern on the fuselage surface. The lower surface was also suitably adorned, but not to the same degree. The most significant feature was the addition of two extra exhaust pipes made from nested stryene tubes - these are necessary for quick planetary get-aways !

I spent what seemed like an eternity on the landing gear. And since they are almost completely hidden by the landing gear bay doors, it wasn't totally worthwhile :-( To beef up the struts and add more defintion, I cut and glued a number of nested styrene and aluminum tubes over the kit's spindly pieces. I also filled in the molding gaps on the strut structures and paneled them with pieces of thin sheet styrene. I think this does make for sturdier landing gear, but it isn't all viewable.

A number of finishing techniques were used on this model. For many of them, this was my first attempt on any model, so it was fun to see them bring the Falcon to life. To begin, both the inside and outside were base coated with Krylon Satin Black. The upper surface was painted in an afternoon long, outdoor, spray-can, painting frenzy. The colors used were: Krylon Silver, Testor's Panzer Gray, Testor's yellow, Krylon Gold, Krylon White, Testor's Guards Red, and Krylon Red. The panel lines were brush painted with Payne's Gray watercolor. Grills and worn piping were highlighted by rubbing with a sharpened silver colored pencil. Shadowing around the details on the fuselage side panels was added with thin washes of Testor's flat black. The equipment bays were painted with Testor's Aluminum and given a thin wash of Testor's flat black. The replacement panels on the upper fuselage surface were brush painted with Testor's Chevy Engine Red. Weathering on the fuselage bottom and rear grill was done with several applications of powdered chalk pastel. To finish off, the entire model was sealed with Testor's Dullcoat.

This kitbash took me nearly 5 months of on-and-off work as time permitted. I think the basic Millennium Falcon still has lots of untapped potential for other sorts of intergalactic hot rods.

Image: Top view

Image: Bottom view

Image: Left side

Image: Right side

Image: Front view

Image: Rear view

Image: Three quarters view

Image: Cockpit detail

Image: Construction