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Ever Wanted Your Own Land Speeder?
An anonymous reader writes "Be the first on your block to drive on of these! a StarWars Land Speeder. This used to be a 1988 Ford Escort and only has 880 miles since built." This is a surprisingly impressive conversion.
It's better than the ones from the films .... you can't see the wheels.
This isn't the Escort you're looking for...
Scoundrel? I can live with that...
Impresive?
As compared to what?
But anyways that is impresive wish they said more about how it was built though (ie. in progress stuff like the mechwarrior tree fort)
I'd do something interesting, but my server can't handle a slashdotting.
The interior is pure Ford Escort, though. The guy could have put some better seats in the thing, and reworked the dashboard.
How does this work in the US? Or is this just a backyard car?
Well, in Europe (Italy to be more precise), where I'm originally from, there are *extremely* strict rules that define what is street legal and what is not (for example, most kit cars are not legal despite the fact that they've been tested, because you're building it yourself, so you can't, say, use the crash tests from a different one, because the manufacturer is different).
;)
Something like this would probably be laughed at before even starting the application process
Just curious, what are exactly the regulations that define street-worthiness in the USA? I'm thinking about things like
- safety (if I want to install an impaling device on the front of the car, am I allowed to? or what about the always fun side-mounted scythe blades?)
- safety (if I want to install a 10 foot tall flagpole that will make my car 99% flip over in a turn when there's wind, can I do it?)
- safety (if I take my average car, install a couple thousand pounds worth of 'mods' and its braking distance shoots up fourfold, is it a problem?)
- safety (what about being able to evade an accident? if my 'mods' make my car drive like a barge in a river, is that ok?)
- safety (what about if sharp pieces of my 'mod' become unglued when going over a bump at speed, take off, and shatter the windshield of whomever is following me?)
- safety (what about seatbelts? what if it rolls over?)
I don't want to spoil the fun, but really, if a car doesn't pass *all* of the above (and more) IMHO it shouldn't be classified as 'road worthy' regardless of how cool it looks...
just my 2c
-- the cake is a lie
Cop: Son, do you realize you were going 45 in a 25? License, and, um, registration please.
Obi Wannabe: These are not the droids you are looking for.
Cop: What?
Obi Wannabe: Move Along.
Cop: Get out of the car and place your hands where I can see them...
C8H10N4O2 | Developer > Code
How will we pay for insurance on this? With credits?
But really, serious question: would the insurance rates be at all affected by driving this? The link mentions it's "street-safe" but there's more regulations on driving than just having this required component and that required component.
Or as Bevis once said...
You can't polish a turd
F-16? U.S. Navy? Good luck, since the Navy doesn't fly F-16s.
Despite what EULAs say, most software is sold, not licensed.
I mean, come on, odds are he got the escort with 100k miles on it for next to nothing (say, a thousand bucks), he spent maybe another thousand bucks in supplies and spent a month (fulltime) tops working on it.
If he gets 7K (I think he's gonna get at least 20K anyways, star wars, word of mouth and all that) by this quick seat-of-the-pants calculation, he could have made a good 5K with a month of work, which while not good enough to retire, is not exactly bad pay either, also considering the fun he had while making it (and driving the 880 miles to show it off).
-- the cake is a lie
102k = 102,000
880 = 880
102000
+ 800
------
102880
102880
s/800/880/
;) )
(This, of course, is why I'm on the QA side of things
This thing... Needs some work. The dimensions appear a bit off. Nose too long, pods not quite the right size. Others have mentioned the obviously Ford dash. A trip to Dakota Digital could have quickly solved that. And a Grant steering wheel would have been nice. After spending this much money, they could have at least grabbed the seats out of an Escort GT.
And what's with the nose? There is no reason to have those huge cutouts for the headlights. Either put them behind the grill, or let the grill roll up when needed ('69 Camaro among others). Please tell me it has this feature, and they were just rolled up for the pictures.
Finding a competent glass shop isn't always easy. If you can find a Corvette specialty shop, you might be okay. Otherwise, you are stuck with boat shops. And most of them are more worried about the structural repair than the appearance.
Still, a fun link for a Saturday afternoon.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Then and only then will I be able to complete my transmogrification into the Comic Book guy from The Simpsons.
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
Basically, it becomes a kit car if you take components from multiple cars. I don't see anything to suggest that with this car, although the windshield looks a bit suspicious.
If he's just added plastic and such like, it probably counts as a 'body kit'. The rules are very different for that. The handling should be pretty much the same for example.
It's been on a road for a while, so presumably it has passed any yearly mechanical test, so there's nothing very untoward here.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"I'll give props to anybody willing to drive this thing regularly and to places other than a convention. You know damn well it going to hide in the garage until the next Movie comes out so and then go right back in, so don't even bother placing a bid. And as for US driving regs, can the thing survive a 5-10 mph collision? Emissions standards?! Riiiight...
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Alternatively, you could just drive it around East L.A. real slow blasting Eminem on the sound system (once you installed one :).
You can bet your ass the first time I get pulled over I'm gonna say, "These are not the droids you're looking for," and pray that the cop finds it funny instead of realizing I just insulted his intelligence. =)
My
Limekiller
Don't you mean your parents' garden?
(* it used to be a frigging Ford Escort. How much more could he fuck it up? *)
I had a Ford Escort once. It indeed was a P.O.S. I had to write "NOT TO CLOSE" on the back because it would stall if I stopped on a hill and roll backward. It had an aluminum head-block that cracked every six months.
If Richard Petty sins too much, an Escort is what God and/or Satan will give him to drive around in the afterlife.
I hear that the *only* reason Ford sold Escorts is that by law the average gas milage on *all* cars a vendor sold had to average a certain gas milage. Ford sold Escorts to simply keep the average down so that they could sell more fat trucks. (This is why they had wimpy engines). They practically gave the things away and people *still* did not take them often enough.
People would rather pay the same for a used Toyata with 55K than a new Escort. The post 55K is better in a Toyota than the first 55K on an Escort.
They should make something that is half mini and half go-cart, then the engine would have decent pull. Don't try to dress it up as a real car, because Escorts ain't real cars. I hated renting the damned things too. It is a lawnmower in car body.
Table-ized A.I.
Bust out the high end stereo system and blast the StarWars anthem as you cruise around town... I'm sure it'd have the same affect as having the Black Plague or Ebola... "Chicks? We don't need no stinkin... ch-- No, actually, we DO need some chicks... BOB!! CANCEL THE BID BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!!"
You need a FREE iPod Nano
So Ford pulls the plug on electric cars, but they're allowing this out?
Forget hearing about how cool their trucks are; we need to a commercial with Ford's CEO William Clay Ford, with a public apology for building the Escort that transmogrified into this.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
Isn't it just cool that it's been built? Sure it's an Escort under the shell, and you could fix the interior but the guy is just a fiberglass man (remember that).
But this bugged me:
or let the grill roll up when needed ('69 Camaro among others).
Yeah; that is all we need, a land speeder with the right headlight up during the day and the left one up at night.
Get your Unix fortune now!
They destroyed my front two tires, brand new and when I left 0 tread was left.
(interesting side note: the Ohio E-Check was lobbied to the state by the company whom owns the facilities. When the state wanted to pull out because of complaints the company pointed out that it would be better if the citizens paid their $20 fees instead of the state paying as the contract demanded millions)
I personally think that something like e-check is a good idea but it's failed for two reasons. One, anyone paying 20 bucks to the attendant can pass; yes bribery. And two; if your car is a pollution machine like no other you eventually become exempt if you show receipts saying that you paid over $2000 (I believe) to try to fix it.
I wish we could fix our pollution problems but those two examples show how politics and money just undercut honest efforts, even if they are only half way honest.
Get your Unix fortune now!
This wouldn't be allowed in Australia. No Jedi stuff there.
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
Friend of mine has done something in the same vein, if not as dramatic (tho the "guns" do get second looks from passing highway patrolmen). See it at http://www.shawnandcolleen.com/shawn/Pages/hwing/
BTW Shawn's car won "Best Hall Costume" at LOSCON in 2001.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Unfortunatelly, you see a couple of 'jets' at the rear of the car that stick out sideways. The inspection definitely doesn't like sticking out bits that may cause problems with other vehicles or pedestrians.