Surfer Van

Hot Wheels 1977 Dodge van.

Very common for surfers and motorcycle clubs.

Often motorcycle clubs will have a van follow their motorcycles.

Members who due to illness, injury, age, or disability can still participate by riding in a van.

The van will usually be at the rear of the group to aid those who have mechanical problems with their motorcycles.

As part of my Beach Blanket project I am building some of the motorcycle characters from the Rats.

I am adding a van to their gear and giving them a larger size group.

Underside.  Of course surfers use such vans because they are great for carrying surfboards, firewood, extra clothing, so I have a few of these and some will likely be repainted.
 

Motorcycle

I got this trailer and motorcycle as part of my biker gang collection.

It is a sub-set of my Beach Blanket Bingo collection.

There is a biker gang called the Rats that appear in most of the movies.

I managed to get only one of these, my plan is to cut the motorcycle off the trailer and mount a rider on it.

Checking ebay they are too expensive to cause me to buy more there.

So for now I only have this one.

Maybe someday I will get some others.

We shall see.
 

Motorcycles Drive Into Town

A biker hang out.

Motorcycles drive past.

Others watch from Dante's Inferno.

Other pedestrians watch.

Neighborhood parking.

Vroom.
 

Motorcycles Rumble

Bikers in town.

Riding down the street.

Making a turn.

People watching them rumble past.

Heading to Dante's Inferno or no?
 

Motorcycle Priming

This is my outdoor painting area.

A couple pieces of 4x4 foot squares of chip board on top of a metal table with a wire mesh top.

I bring out trays I made of thin plywood or plastic and paint my figures on them.  Here the bikers on foot get ready for primer paint.

First run with the primer.

Quick set up with the primered figures.  They probably won't get painted for a while as I still need to add a few more figures and accessories.
 

On Motorcycles and On Foot

I have taken some of the boardgame motorcycle gang member figures and modified them.

They come without helmets, but I have put WWII German style helmets from Atlantic Africa Korps sets on a few of them.

Others got head swaps with Hat WWII German helmets.

Some bikers got a second rider behind them both male and female.

I did about 20% of the figures with something different to make the whole group less uniform.

My hope is to eventually paint them all, but that could be a while.

The figures will be painted to a certain uniformity since they are gang members but not too uniform since they are not a military organization.

They make an interesting group for War of the Worlds, as opponents to the Martians or as one other problem for the defense forces to deal with.  Most of these figures are from Dark Alliance with a few others from Airfix, board games and others for maximum variety.
 

Dante's Inferno and Bikers

Bikers at their hang out.

Dante's Inferno.

Bikers on foot and on motorcycles.

Some armed, some unarmed, some male, and some female.

Makes for a pretty formidable group.
 

Motorcyles and On Foot

The motorcycle figures come in several colors, but my plan is to paint them eventually.

Red, fuchsia, green and black are the colors.

The sent includes 24 identical standing figures in the same mix of colors.

Here they are together.  The man on the motorcycle seems shorter than the standing guy, but real people on motorcycles seem shorter than they do on the ground.

Running man from the Airfix 1/76th scale running man from the Civilian set.

Standing man from the Airfix 1/72ns scale WWII British Infantry.  These motorcycle figures seem to fit well with the 1/72nd scale figures.

Motorcycles at the beach.

24 motorcycles and 24 men together make a reasonable number of people for a crowd.

This is part of my War of the Worlds police project, the plan is to give more utility to the police other than just fighting Martians.