Friday, February 12, 2010

The Landmaster

Over at EXONAUTS!, Jay has an excellent post about space age vehicles. It got me to thinking about just such a vehicle that is near and dear to my heart...and it's real! I'm talking about the Landmaster from the 1977 post-apocalyptic movie Damnation Alley. Built by Dean Jeffries for a whopping $350,000 US (well over a million in today's dollars), the Landmaster still exists today and is fully functional (except for armaments, I'm sure).

I give you, the Landmaster:




-Rognar-

cross-posted at Rognar's Space Horror Blog

7 comments:

Aaron E. Steele said...

what's the purpose of the extra wheels?

Rognar said...

They were designed to climb over boulders, the triple wheel structure would literally step over obstructions. Apparently it was based on a military design that never really went anywhere. The design is probably pretty fussy in practice, but it looked very cool in the movie.

The Frothy Friar said...

The purpose of the extra wheels is to make it extra AWESOME!!

well, that and the missile launchers

Rognar said...

Exactly!

There was a lot of awesome in that movie...it starred George Peppard (aka Hannibal Smith from The A-Team) and Jan-Michael Vincent (aka Stringfellow Hawke from Airwolf). Even the guy who played Rorschach from The Watchmen was in it. Makes you wonder why it isn't more of nerd classic. Maybe the fact it was released the same year as Star Wars.

Rognar said...

Oh, I forgot to mention the armoured, man-eating cockroaches.

Jay said...

Man, I love that thing! The more I look at it the more I think I'll have to revise my criteria....

Rognar said...

I saw that movie when it first came out. Imagine an 11-year old boy in the backseat of my dad's station wagon at the drive-in and seeing that lumbering beast tearing across the screen. It made a lasting impression.