About time I got my thread up, right?
I decided to have another whack at an old project, and a larger scale one at that. Some of you may remember the New Bright PT Cruiser that I bought a couple years ago and hacked a suspension and hobby grade electronics into. The front doors open and a cell phone or camcorder fits pretty neatly inside, which can be fun to play around with.
Here's an old picture of it flexing.
The suspension is really basic, just a steel triangle with a hinge where it meets the body and a shaft and some bearings to hook to the front and rear axles. The springs are simple coils out of things I've disassembled over the years.
I started off trying sort of a junker look on it, with a wrecking yard door and the like.
It was never all that quick, thanks in large part to the crappy New Bright motor I left in it, and the suspension is primitive at best. It didn't hold up too well, either. The New Bright logos and crappy red paint never really cut it. My plan is to make it drive properly and look a little more realistic.
Here's the body in bits. The dashboard was just grey plastic originally--I had a go at it with some Sharpies to give it a little life.
I sanded down the old paint and got rid of the nasty factory mold lines.
I'm still going for sort of a junker look with it, and I thought it needed a grille ornament. I got this pot metal skull from a tie clip my dad got with a shirt a while back. It had a gunmetal finish originally, but when I heated it with a propane torch, it heat-anodized blue and gold.
Paint is in the works.