The moment I saw the Matchbox Aristo Rat I knew I needed tomake it into a Buggy for Shattered Highways. I decided to pick up a few (four so far…) and show what can be done both with just paint and with actual modifications.
The starting point. This thing is basically a rat rod 356 Porsche, complete with a flat six engine under the bed.
First step after drilling through the rivets was to find some appropriate wheels, and jack up the suspension. Using a cutting wheel on a dremel I carefully deepen these slots to raise the suspension easily.
Next I cut out the fuel tank area in the front frame, and found an engine that would fit there. With a bit of trimming this supercharged Nailhead engine dropped right in (later trimming would make it fit even lower down).
I cut off and flipped the front “metal” air dam, and trimmed it away on the ends to make room for the tires. This turned it into a skid plate, and worked even better than expected.
Some metal mesh and I thought the custom work was done. Next up was paint work on both.
The unmodified car received heavy rusting &coats of grime. The modified car had it purple paint partially ground off, and a lighter coat of grime & rust. Once I got to this stage I decided the cars weren’t different enough. So the modified car was taken apart and was attacked with the dremel once again.
The rear wing was removed, and the resulting holes filled with 2-part putty. Once this dried it was sanded down, then some green milliputty was used to smooth the transition and replicate the 356 roofline.
The roof work meant I couldn’t strip the paint and do a real metal finish, so I faked it with some chrome spraypaint, and washes of heavily thinned black . This removed some of the chrome and exposed a bit of the purple, which worked surprisingly well.
I ended up with a modified version of a modified porsche, ready for battling on the shattered highways of the apocalypse.
And here are the three versions of the Aristo Rat. While modifications obviously change the vehicle a lot, a pretty cool buggy was also made using nothing but some model paints.