As with my Ork Warbuggy photographs, I recently found the original photograph of LE24 Sleazy Rider, so I decided to rescan them as I had only low-res ones on the site.
Sleazy Rider was a Citadel Limited Edition released in July 1987. At the time it was £1.95, which though appears cheap today, wasn’t then!
Despite the bike, the hemet and the shotgun this was a fantasy model, Sleazy was an Orc not an Ork!
The advert from White Dwarf #91 has text talking about a fantasy ‘car’ race involving vehicles with steam boilers and Snotling Pump Wagons.
‘Dad was hero,’ gasped Mad Sid, ‘he died out on the track…’ A silence fell upon the tribe as their leader wiped a tear from a piggy little eye. ‘Dad was a real orc, an orc with a dream! All he ever wanted was to win the Undun Appoluz. It was neck and neck coming up to Death Pit Corner. Dad was on the inside with the Stunty Evulcan Evul on the outside. As they went into the bend, Dad opened up and went into the lead. For just one second he was in Evulcan’s sights…’ A lump came to Mad Sid’s throat, ‘the bolt hit the steam boiler. They never found Dad. It took three weeks to fill in the crater.
As Mad Sid bowed his head in memory of his sire, a tall, made-eyed and rather oily orc wheeled the new machine forwards. ‘She’s faster than the Borgheim Bersekers super-charged steam dragster. She’ll leave the Drastic Dik and the Snotling Pump Wagon on the grid. She’ll go like a Stunty rat-catcher with a red-hot poker up its…’
‘What are we waiting for!’ Bellowed Mad Sid. ‘Undun Apollouz Allcomers here we come!’
The bike rear was based on a Judge Dredd bike, but the front had a wooden wheel and an Evil Sunz glyph.
In the advert, the Citadel painted model had a US flag painted on the fuel tank, so when I painted mine I did the opposite and painted the Soviet flay on my model.
As I was writing this blog post I got thinking that maybe there was something here about a new game, a fantasy racing car game. Well Bloodbowl is fantasy football!
I have distant memories of playing a chariot race using the Warhammer rules, and we didn’t just have chariots either, there was probably a Snoting Pump Wagon in the midst as well.
Well that’s got me thinking…