WBO2014: You say Tow Mater, I say Tamata!

December 2014/January 2015: Originally a casual suggestion on the forum, my idea for the informal Winter Build-Off competition was to create a homage to Mater from the Cars movie (a character that fortunately would also neatly double as a Working Vehicle, Low-Rider, Zombie Apocalypse, Hero and pretty much every other theme that was mooted at the time... ;o)

Already a huge fan of weathered and beaten-up vehicles, once the On-Screen theme became the clear winner, I knew immediately this is what I wanted to do - not least because Mater is the scabbiest on-screen car I can think of, but also because I just love the scale appearance of the Midnight Pumpkin F100 shell - and have been inspired what other people have already done already with the Pumpkin in regard to low-ride and scale builds (yes, I realise there are rarely any genuinely new ideas here on TC ;o)

Of course I know what you're thinking, Mater isn't an F100... and not least it would be very difficult to accurately replicate the Movie vehicle anyway without some serious use of a heat gun and plenty of Isopon P38!

Therefore my project is more of a homage to the original Mater - using the key styling cues and as many of the details I could realistically incorporate while retaining the scale appearance and proportions.

Using the good-value M-06 Low-ride Pumpkin as a base, I also wanted to try and utilise as many other Tamiya parts as possible - and incorporate various 'scale' detailing and weathering techniques (some new, some refined) as I could, before putting my own twist on it at the end...

So here is the finished (well almost finished - I still have to wire up the LED lights) model, and I will create a separate showroom that highlights the details and some of the build & paint techniques...

In the meantime, I hope you love him as much as I do!

Jenny xx