Is this the World's most expensive Ork Warbike?

 

In my never ending quest to create the most pointless conversions known to Warhammer, I knocked up this monstrosity (in the centre, between some of my other Warbikes!)  a while ago but never really got around to documenting it. So anyway, here it is, in all of it's limited release, Bob Olley, Iron Claw, Rogue Trader glory, the Vincent Orkshadow!

More details after the cut...

I've slowly been working on an army based on Luggub's Drop Legion from the Chapter Approved book using only period appropriate models, and that allows the Orks to use captured Imperial Equipment, hence this conversion. 

So, before we start, it has to be said that I'm not the biggest fan of Bob Olley sculpts, so I've had a bunch of his stuff knocking around and neglected in the leadpile for a long time. 

For a start with, there's this guy: 

Kaptin Gozeye, really? I mean, this is objectively a terrible sculpt even for the time. It's very two dimensional, badly proportioned (with no torso!) and also pretty small, so just looks a bit naff.

Then there's this... thing:

It's the Iron Claw Roborg, also sculpted by Bob Olley, and my word it's awful. I've had it in a drawer for years, as I wasn't really able to sell it as it was missing an arm and the weird eyeball thing off the back. 

I realised that the body of the Roborg looked a bit like a sidecar, and so decided to make something a little less shit out of all the bits by combining it with an Imperial Vincent Black Shadow bike and some other period bits to complete the job.

The sidecar wheel is the front from a metal Ork Warbike, cut off from the rest of the forks and filed smooth. I added a marine helmet for added orkiness, and cut the flamer in half and attached the two parts together with pipes, to allow it to work like a gun on the sidecar. About the only 'modern' part is the plastic sight on the flamer barrel, which is probably only a mere 25 years old or so.

Next up, the crew. I didn't need to do anything to the sidecar pilot, but there was some extensive bending and alteration of Kaptin Dorky to get him to work as a rider. I cut him across the belt line and opened him up to increase the length of his torso to get him into a better riding position. His left arm was also gut, drilled and pinned to change the angle completely so he could hold the handlebar. 

And undercoated ready for paint: 

And finally the finished, painted model. Obviously, it's in red so it goes faster, and with flames to even improve on that! 

I'll be honest, I'm still not the biggest fan of the model, but it's way better as it is now that it ever was as the original parts. In the end I went with Vincent Orcshadow as the name, but I was tempted by calling the Gruff Superior, (after the incredibly rare and desirable Brough Superiors), as it's probably the most expensive Ork bike in existence if you add up the current cost of all the individual bits on eBay!

Enjoy!