Like many of you out there, the first time I saw the Landspeeder in Star Wars, I thought it was the coolest vehicle – ever! Anti gravity! Three plasma-ion engines! Open air cockpit! Room for your ‘droids, Jedi Master and light saber! Wow!
The Landspeeder I built; in February 2005
What the back looks like. The “license plate” says “THX-1138”.
The Landspeeder at Burning Man 2002, picture courtesy of Brad Templeton
Back in 2000 my brother Chris (who manages www.Swabbies.com) and our buddy Karl (who is the lead singer and bass player for a Star Trek band here in Sacramento, Ca. http://www.warp11.com) went to the Burning Man festival in Nevada http://www.burningman.com/.
They came back with tales of great people, awesome art, mirth, laughter, dance raves, technology, and ‘art cars’ slash ‘mutant vehicles’. In 2001, I went to Burning Man with a bunch of friends and I’ve gone every year since.
After I got back from Burning Man 2001, I began to think about Burning Man 2002. Everyone gives so much at Burning Man. So, rather than just be a tourist at the festival, I wanted to be a part of the community and participate; give something back as it were.
I have mechanical, electronic, computer and engineering skills. It’s fair to say I’m pretty decent with wood, metal and plastics. I don’t consider myself an artist with skills like my friend Kendall (http://gingergunshot.blogspot.com/) or my buddy Rex (http://www.kostoomarts.com/). There are many people with much more talent than I. But I thought…hmmm…I can build an ‘art car’ and drive it around the festival. Yup, this I can do. =)
Every year there’s a different “theme” at Burning Man; the 2002 theme was “The Floating World”. The light went on in my head and I’m thinking...floating world…floating car…hmmmm…Landspeeder! Burning Man takes place in the desert! Landspeeders are driven on the desert planet Tatoonine in Star Wars movies – that’s it! =)
I know what some of you are thinkin’. Too much time on his hands. What a waste of energy, materials, etc etc. There are more important questions to be answered - like who invented cheese in a can, and why?
Seriously though, building vehicles are one of many ways to express ones self. Through Burning Man, there is an “outlet”, a place, an event, a festival where you can ‘show your art’ to 40,000 people. Having a vehicle like this allows one to meet a lot of people from all over the world - and from other places too!
I looked all over the ‘net, reading all I could find about the Landspeeder created by George Lucas and his company for the episode IV Star Wars movie. I realized right away I couldn’t build an exact reproduction or replica of the movie prop – unless I had unlimited funds and unlimited time.
Of course (not to burst anyone’s bubble but) the vehicle is a movie prop and can’t hover and fly across the desert as shown in the movie. And the plan wasn’t to make an exact replica, down to the littlest detail, to take to Burning Man. Rather; I wanted to pay homage to George Lucas, his team of artists and to have a vehicle that would be easily “recognizable” at Burning Man.
Others out there have built what we’d consider “replica” Landspeeders:
http://web.mac.com/danieldeutsch/landspeeder/Landspeeder.html
Really nice work Daniel!
I figured I’d use the Landspeeder just one time, at Burning Man 2002, and then just pretty much toss it away or sell it. Burning Man is a harsh environment and vehicles can easily be damaged or destroyed by the high heat, blowing abrasive alkaline dust, extreme winds, sudden unpredictable thunderstorms, drunks, dipshits, Imperial Storm Troopers, Death Stars, etc. So I had to make it strong and somewhat durable but also find ways to build it inexpensively – my budget called for $2,000.
Here’s a famous photograph you may have seen. This Landspeeder is the non-wheeled version – there’s George over on the far right with Mark Hamill sitting in the Landspeeder…
Lucas Films apparently made two or three versions (depending on which web site you believe) of what they called the “X-34 Landspeeder”.
Here’s the wheeled version
Here’s the three – wheeled car, a British Reliant Bond, they apparently used underneath the wheeled version:
Here’s a shot of some touch up work on the original Landspeeder used in Star Wars episode IV
Overhead view of the wheeled vehicle version
I looked around the web and found some cool pictures and information:
Mark Hamill and Anthony Daniels (C3PO)
Here’s a cool drawing I found out on the net
Apparently this is the same Landspeeder used in the movie “A New Hope” but repainted green and used in “The Phantom Lettuce” =)
It looks like Lucas Films took out a patent on the Landspeeder. But I’m thinking they won’t sue me for building a non-commercial copy because I’m sure they’ll agree: it’s a way to celebrate one of the best, if not the best, sci-fi action adventure series ever put on film! There, George, I’ve said it. =)
Lots of us make our own costumes and props. We spend lots of money on Star Wars merchandise; we enjoy the films and stand in line for hours to see the latest Star Wars film…oh wait.
They’re not making them anymore.
Dang. =(
OK, so know I knew the general shape of the body, but really…first I should think about the chassis and running gear underneath. I really couldn’t use a 4 wheeled vehicle, the Landspeeder would be too wide – the front wheels need to turn, right? And I wanted to hide the wheels as much as possible. A three-wheeled vehicle chassis has several advantages – it would be easier to “hide” the front wheel and because the front wheel is in the “middle” of the body, the body can be narrow; the front wheels don’t have to “turn out”.
But where the heck was I going to get a three-wheeled car? I certainly couldn’t import one of those British Bond three-wheeled vehicles (pictured above) from the U.K. it would blow my budget all to hell.
There are acres and acres of golf courses around the area I live - and then one day I saw a Harley-Davidson three-wheeled golf kart wheelin’ across the green, green lawns of Northridge Country Club here in Sacramento!
I checked out on the net and found a real nice guy who had a bunch of three-wheeled Harley-Davidson golf carts; he lived close by, what a stroke of luck! He had spare parts and pieces and the price was right. He had electric karts and I figured it would be awesome to have a vehicle that doesn’t make any noise…but I settled on a gas-powered Harley-Davidson golf cart.
Let's face it – it’s a lot easier to carry 15 gallons of old plant life and dinosaur remains that have been already cracked in a catalytic chamber at a refinery somewhere than carry at least a 2000 watt generator, a 115V AC to 36V DC 20 amp battery charger and 15 gallons of old ancient plant life and dinosaur remains that have been previously cracked in a catalytic chamber at some refinery somewhere to power said generator for hours and hours to charge the electric vehicle batteries which will take hours and hours to charge…well, you see what I’m saying.
Also, when ya think about it… I can brag and say, “It’s powered by Harley-Davidson”!
Cool, eh? =)
After the cart was delivered to my house in 2002 (I paid to have it delivered – I didn’t have three ramps and it wouldn’t fit into either the Sebring Convertible or Ford Aerostar van) I invited my brother Brian over for a beer and then we worked to remove the fiberglass body.
(BTW the boat in the picture is a Glastron-Carlson Scimitar. It’s the “unofficial” James Bond boat:
http://www.classicglastron.com/gl-scimitar-web.html)
After the body is removed, you can see what’s left…
After the body was taken off, we put the vehicle in the back of a pick-up, drove it to the shop my brother Kip used to work at and we drank beer and welded up a frame made out of muffler pipe. We used the hydraulic muffler pipe bending rig to make all the bends you see.
Here Randy is welding some excellent welds.
Now let’s give some thought to the “jet engines”…
The Sunbrothers made a cardboard Landspeeder for Burning Man 1999 (see picture).
Notice they used cardboard tubes for the engines. Their vehicle is motorcycle powered. Dennis, the guy in the picture, suggested I use cardboard tubes, since a flowing and curved shape of the engines would be hard to cut or make. These guys are immensely talented artists and designers and I always respect their opinion and almost went and got the tubes they suggested.
I happened to be watching “Saturday Night Live” and there was this guy playing conga drums and a light went off in my head – imagine, if you will, the Conga drum laid down horizontally (instead of vertically). I found an elegant solution! Problem is – Conga drums are not cheap. And I needed three. Finally I went to a local but pretty well known music store (Skip’s Music in Sacramento, Ca.) and bought three matching Aspire LP Conga drums for about $330.00. I figured it was worth it – I’d save a lot of time and effort and the engines would look real – almost professionally made.
Here’s what the Plasma – Ion engines look like:
I then taped and painted the body with normal, everyday house primer and house paints I bought at Home Depot, the body is plywood, not metal, so I didn’t use automobile paints. I used normal, everyday Bondo to smooth out the body. The colors were chosen for the “desert” theme and don’t really reflect the actual paint job used on the movie props. By this time, months after I’d started, I was now a month away from going to Burning Man and I wasn’t finished with the project yet. There was still a lot to do – I had to add lights, details, speakers, a sound system (more on this later).
I went to the several of the local auto wreckers in area and looked around at various vents, inlets, tail lights, side marker lights and other doo-dads to see what I could come up with. When I saw a Fiat X19, I knew I had found the vents I wanted – and the side marker lights, too! So I bought a few, took them home, cut out the side and installed the vents. I wanted functional vents because I knew I’d be taking this vehicle to the high altitude (4,000 feet) desert in Nevada, in the summertimeand it’s a two-cycle air-cooled engine – oil has to be added to the gasoline.
Here you can see a shot of the interior panel lifted up to show the engine and some of the details.
Here is a shot from a different angle – check out the (Italian-made) 18HP Harley Davidson engine!
Now it was time for the electronics and such.
I put a row of ultra bright LEDS vertically in the top fin and there’s a row of green LEDS I got out of fax machines (the LED’s are used to erase the photo sensitive drum) installed along the top edge. I bought some white fog lights and installed them underneath in the front, to use as headlights, so I could drive at night at Burning Man.
I got an old and tired (“mature technology”) laptop and installed it beneath the tiller. I wanted to blast out the excellent “Star Wars” theme, written by John Williams, so I bought the Star Wars music CD. Now, you might be wondering why I used a laptop instead of buying a CD player. The laptop was a “throw away” and would have ended up in the landfill. Laptops have a stereo-out jack so I could install a normal, 170W car amp in my Landspeeder and blast out the theme music; using Pioneer 6X9’s hidden in wooden boxes inside the “nose”.
The laptop requires 18V DC, so two 12V 17 amp-hour gel-cell batteries were used in series to power the laptop. I recharged these batteries with a 24V solar panel. Don’t give me a hard time about using 24 volts to power an 18 volt laptop. I tested it for days, there were zero issues (in fact, the same laptop was used several years in a row, in the hot desert sun). Also - think about this – two 17 amp-hour batteries would power a laptop for hours and hours and hours.
I installed a professional 30-watt PA system with a microphone, so I could yell at people as I drove around the Burning Man festival. We thought up all kinds of funny things to yell at the peeps:
“Darth Vader is NOT fully functional!”
"I cut off Luke Skywalker’s hand and stole his Landspeeder!” (People are always losing hands in Star Wars movies. What’s up with that?)
“Join the Rebellion!! Travel to strange new worlds, meet new people and kill them.”
“Yes, we ARE the ‘droids you’re looking for!”
“Ewoks. The other white meat.”
Here’s a picture of Kiki (from Star Trek band WARP11 www.warp11.com) standing in front of the Landspeeder in Reno in August 2002. My RV is pulling the Landspeeder in a Y’all-Haul trailer. =)
Landspeeder at Burning Man in front of our “theme camp”.
Notice the very important ice chest behind the seat, for keeping the soda
cold, as we drive around the festival. Yeah, the soda. That’s the
ticket. Soda. =)
At first, I wasn’t going to go to Burning Man 2003. Most of the gang (I go with) let the festival kinda sorta sneak up on us. Punkin’ didn’t want to go; the dust, heat, dry wind, etc. can get to be a bit tooo much for some.
I kept the Landspeeder in the garage the rest of the year but would, once in a while, fire it up and drive it around the street in front of my house. The laptop still worked 100%, all the electronics worked, the engine ran perfect, etc. so basically I was all set for Burning Man 2003.
I added a second PA with microphone for the passenger, so he or she could yell at people too. I added a chirping car alarm – so when I walked away from the vehicle, I could hit the key fob transmitter and chirp-chirp the alarm – I figured it would be good for laughs, and it totally was!
So I hit the road in my RV, with my theme-camp buddies, Karl, Niki, Ryan, Jason, Kiki in another RV, Odin and Chad in a giant Ryder truck, Brandy drove her car, etc. We left at about 5:00PM on Saturday night and got to the festival site outside of Gerlach, Nevada at 4:00 AM on Sunday morning. Normally it’s a 6-hour or so drive but we stopped a couple of times and had a relaxing ride – no stress at all.
Arriving at Burning Man 2003…look closely at the rental truck - Odin is asleep in the cab
Mr. Wizard from Oakland and I are about ready to drag-race at Burning Man 2003. He independently had the same idea – build a Landspeeder and take it to Burning Man. He used an electric Harley-Davidson golf cart. That’s his wife holding the light saber.
Tons of people took pictures of the Landspeeder. For a while I started taking pictures of people taking pictures of my Landspeeder but after I took 20 or so pictures of different people, I decided to save my rolls of film – you can’t get film at Burning Man, you can only buy coffee and ice. It’s fair to say 100 or more people took pictures of the Landspeeder, as we’d cruise around. Everyone was very nice and many smiled and laughed and totally enjoyed the vehicle. Of course it helped playing the Star Wars theme…
My buddy Todd and his sister Niki at Burning Man 2004
Friends and campmates at Burning Man 2004
I sold the Landspeeder in 2005, on eBay, to a really cool guy who lived in Denver. I used the money from the sale of the Landspeeder to help build the Star Trek shuttlecraft “Galileo” (see other web page). After I sold the Landspeeder, friends have told me they’ve seen the Landspeeder at several Burning Man festivals since. I saw a picture of the Landspeeder at Burning Man 2009.
Last I heard the Landspeeder was owned by someone who lives in Las Vegas but I’m not entirely sure. If you own this Landspeeder, write to me (below). I have two spare parts for you!
Thanks for reading! I hope it’s been entertaining.
Questions? Write to me: galileopilot (at) yahoo.com
This non-commercial Landspeeder is not associated in any way with George Lucas, Star Wars, Lucas Films, Jedi Masters, R2-D2, C3PO, Mark Hamill, Star Trek, William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, George Takei, and/or Gene Roddenberry. If you’re a dweeb, geek or nerd, PUT DOWN THE CONTROLLER and move outta your mom’s basement. Today. All pictures are owned by their respective owners and this page is for entertainment only and there is absolutely zero intention to plagiarize. Words and comments © 2003-2010 TREXXIS.COM. All rights reserved.