As regular reader would know I have been searching around bargain stores for some cheap plastic cars to turn into damaged and burnt out vehicles for the gaming table.

Per chance I decided to go into one of the large department stores (KMart) and picked up these die cast metal vehicles for AU$5 each. They are of good quality but cheap enough to convert into what I need.

They are all 1:43 scale which is close enough for 28mm gaming. I bought one of each vehicle they had in stock and multiples of the 2019 Ram 1500, police vehicles, and fire rescue units.

The additional Police and Fire Rescue vehicles are useful for a large range of scenarios, and could easily be converted if I didn’t need them.

Besides, the helicopters and the rescue boats are additional scenic items that I can use.

First I unscrewed the bottom of the car, then took the wheels from the axle and dismantled the cars “pull back mechanism” to obtain the cogs as I thought they would make interesting scatter around the wreck. The windscreen broke when I was taking it out, but no matter I will again use it as two bits of scatter rather than one! The dashboard will be used underneath the destroyed vehicle in what was the drivers compartment just to give some interest.

The first thing I did was to spray paint the base matt black as it might be difficult to get to some of it once the vehicle is glued on to it. Next I glued the door open and glued the dash and the vehicle hull to an mdf. base.

Then I added some detritus around the vehicle for interest. Above is a seat, wheel, and some of the toys friction drive.

Another seat and a wheel with the tyre half off.

Once the glue had dried I spray painted the vehicle with matt black being careful to make sure the original paint showed through in places.

I then added debris to the base in the form of black scatter and mdf “bricks”.

The vehicle and the base were then dry brushed with burnt umber, puddle mud, and white.

Not a good advertisement for a 2019 RAM 1500 is it!

The model placed at various locations of the freeway sector of Gotham city!

Next I tackled the helicopter:

A perfect landing on top of the police building.

A not so perfect one!

The police van that will meet the same fate as the helicopter!

I went through exactly the same process with the helicopter.

I will need at least another five vehicle wrecks but they do not take long to do now that I have worked out the process, and I think I will do a little diorama of the the Fire Rescue boat rescuing a sinking boat to add interest to the port!