Remember all the way back to that galaxy far, far away where Luke Skywalker zoomed around Tatooine in his Landspeeder?  Well we do!  A celebrity TV and Movie car museum recently asked us to built them a pair of Landspeeders, one just like in the movie, and another that appears showroom fresh (just because they look cool).

This is what it looked like in the movie:

Here's what we started with...just a couple fiberglass bodies, some empty engine pods and one windshield.  Not much!

There were lots of details left out of the molds, and many pieces to build.  We started by mocking them up and building the side grills and figuring out the windshield angles.  

Next came designing the chassis.  Since we can't make them hover (yet), they have to roll.  Using the engine from a golf cart, the entire chassis and suspension was custom made, and designed to raise and lower using air shocks - gives it that hovering look, and allows it to be driven without getting stuck on every bump.  The body was hinged to raise up like a funny car so all the mechanicals and batteries could be accessed (yes there are 6 of them - it's 48 volts).

We had to build the ends of each engine pod, and of course in the movie one engine is visible because of a missing cover.  Ever build a land speeder engine?  Neither had we, until now - looks like it could fly - maybe?

More detail work - the movie version had missing covers that exposed some electronics.  More chassis mods and small details to make it all work.

The rear of the speeder has a very detailed area we really don't know what it does, but it's made up of hundreds of computer chips and some other specially made parts - they look pretty cool...

Had to build a second chassis for the other speeder - this one will go under the original appearing one, so it's painted in brown primer to look older...

The original speeder also had some damage (guess Luke wasn't that good of a driver), so we had to replicate that - it's nearly exactly like in the movie...

Now it's onto paint.  To make it look aged and damaged, first it will be primered, then painted as original, then airbrushed and sandblasted to create the aging...

Movie version complete, off to the museum...