TECHNICALS INTERLUDE (2) - THE MOSLEY MOBILE and BEARWOODMAN !

The final entrant to the Modelling Challenge 2023 (Technicals) reveals a twisted tale of travel in time and space, child sweated labour, 1930s British social attitudes, odd bits of cardboard and the welcome return of LAF Bearwoodman!

Regular readers of this blog (and who is not?) will recall LAF Bearwoodman's intergalactic intervention in the Modelling Challenge 2019, when he translated the concept of the (haphazardly) armoured tank products of the Shezuan Ordnance Depot and Delivery Yards ("Shoddy") into the 40K universe (complete with wonderful "White Dwarf" parodies), produced the "Super Shoddy" tank with little more than cardboard, a flourish and an old metal washer, and was the first to introduce - to an astonished universe - the now famous "GW - Shezuan Exchange Index", noting that:

"...buyers can acquire 52.42 Shoddy 40K tanks for the cost of one Leman Russ (at current UK prices) making it attractive to Adeptus Mechanicus bean-counters and frugal xenos invaders alike....."

And then.............silence. Aeons passed. Empires rose and fell. Somewhere beyond the stars, out past the Gates of Antares, LAF Bearwoodman curled up his multitude of converting limbs (biological and bionic) and entered a state of suspended animation, knowing that only one thing could ever re-awaken him...

The irresistible lure of cheap Chinese 1960s plastic !

Not having taken part in the Spring Big Game 2023, and therefore not having received a FREE GIFT of a suitably sized vintage plastic jeep, the Modelling Challenge 2023 presented a particular problem for LAF Bearwoodman : he lacked the necessary "donor vehicle":

Cheap plastic - jeeps here, jeeps there...and nary a one for LAF Bearwoodman !
The Spring Big Game 2023 donor vehicles - the smell of vintage plastic
had clearly wafted from Earth to LAF Bearwoodman's intergalactic lair..

Not one to be put off by such an insignificant initial hurdle to ultimate modelling success, we shall let LAF Bearwoodman himself take up the tale:

"...Fortunately, I am blessed with a teenage daughter who (as a result of being cursed with a miserly father) has become adept at scouting charity shops for bargains. She has found that her meagre pocket money allowance goes further if the clothes she buys are 'pre-loved' and I thought I might put this skill to good use. I asked her to keep a look out for a second hand cheap plastic model jeep while she trawled and promised to re-imburse her if she found one and brought it back to me.

Weeks went by, and every time she returned from an expedition I would ask her if she had secured a cheap plastic jeep. Inevitably the answer was 'no' and it became a sort of running joke. She started pre-empting my question with a roll of her eyes and a 'Hi Dad, no I didn't buy you a plastic toy jeep thing, but look at these hardly worn Converse High Tops/distressed denim shorts/etc...

That is, until one day she returned with a triumphant look in her eye: 'I got one Dad ! You owe me £1.50'. And she presented me with this: "

A 1/43 diecast 1980s Land Rover - wrong scale, wrong material, very wrong decade.....and
no flatbed on which to mount a heavy weapon, thereby producing a "Technical".
 As the curmudgeons say in Hereford1938 - "the result of sending a woman to do a man's job".

However, constrained by paternal duty, and not one to be put off by such a multiple of hurdles to ultimate modelling success, LAF Bearwoodman consoled himself with the fact that his daughter's find was "at least green, and that was a start...." and set to work with an iron will and pile of cardboard:

Back to the 1930s ! New cardboard wings...

New radiator shape, VBCW protection for the windscreen, 1930s running boards and
further work on the wings ...a strangely familiar 28mm VBCW figure
 looks in on LAF Bearwoodman's workshop..

Rivets, turrets, machine guns, milliput and cardboard lights...

"The Leader" inspects the latest work.

Conversion finished...milliput loudspeakers, cardboard bonnet, door reinforcements, more rivets..

And painted ! Not quite a Technical, but a heavily armed converted 
civilian vehicle nonetheless, fit for none other than...

"The Leader" himself, Oswald Mosley !

beautifully painted 28mm example by LAF Bearwoodman.
For uniform references, see HERE

"The Leader" in front of his "Mosley Mobile".
A clear breakthrough in "Personal Messaging"....

...with multiple machine guns if the populace don't appreciate the message...

A side view. You will love my message, and spontaneously so...or else !

Microphone atop the "Mosley Mobile".

An ideal position for a political rant..."the Leader" in full flow.
Wonderful modelling !

So what did the international judging panel of the Modelling Challenge 2023 make of LAF Bearwoodman's entry of the "Mosley Mobile" ?? It has to be confessed that the "Mosley Mobile" breaks pretty much every rule of the Challenge, as solemnly laid down HERE, save for the most fundamental: LAF Bearwoodman's back story made all of the judges quietly giggle. And there was one more factor - another Modelling Challenge 2023 entry that, due to its non regulation beginnings and diminutive size, could not enter the main Challenge concourse.

Hence, in their wisdom, the judges created an entirely new category for the Challenge - the "Disabled Technical" lane. While attitudes to disability were very different back in 1938, the BUF Leader and his Lorried Loudspeaker Machine were back in the hunt for modelling prizes.....could he yet triumph ?

Attitudes to disability were very different in the 1930s.
Read on to the next thrilling blog instalment to discover
the fate of LAF Bearwoodman !