Experimental Gambler 500 Crazy Redneck Pigeon Pack 1.0

CRAZY REDNECK PIGEON PACK


This is my entry to the Gambler 500 modding competition, a Pigeon parts and configs pack! At first it was supposed to be just a quick little mod, but it soon grew into a pack of various crazy ideas for Pigeon modifications made using spare parts, household objects, a chainsaw, a welder, metal pipes, wood, cardboard, duct tape, cheap baja parts, hopes and dreams!

The mod consists of various configurations for the Pigeon built to compete in the Gambler 500 event. Each one has a unique set of parts and a backstory.

THE WHEELBARROW

For a few months it has been a work truck of a construction company in Utah, but one day its front end was destroyed in a crash. In an effort to repair it, the owners cut off the broken part and replaced it with a wheelbarrow with a broken handle, duct taping the engine bay equipment to the firewall. For night driving, it has been equipped with a flashlight of a broken smartphone, activated by a selfie stick that goes to the driver's window, which you need to roll down to operate the 'headlight'. The steering wheel and pedals were replaced with a bent handlebar from an old ATV, in order to install a differential brake steering system on the rear wheels, which had to be upgraded with disc brakes for higher braking torque. Aware of the crazy nature of their creation, the company employees submitted it to the Gambler 500 event.

SQUATTED

A few years ago a not very rich person wanted his cheap Pigeon to stand out in traffic, so he straightened out the rear leaf springs and installed the biggest front wheels he could find, among other modifications. He didn't think it through though, and as a result the car wouldn't turn. In order to fix it, the owner simply cut off the whole front end of the body that was blocking the wheels. One of his friends saw the resulting abomination and jokingly suggested that it belongs in the Gambler 500 and not on a public road, but the owner took it seriously and entered the challenge. He has been a regular contender of it since.

REDNECK LWB

This Pigeon was in the middle of modification, the frame was cut in half in order to extend it to fit a larger bed, and a longer driveshaft was put in place. The owner wanted to see how it would drive in this state, so he temporarily connected the 2 parts of the body on top by a wooden pallet attached to roof bars, which was not the most rigid connection. To his surprise, it wasn't handling too bad at all, so he decided to show it off in the Gambler 500 challenge before continuing on with the frame extension project.

6X4 POWERED TRAILER

An extensively modified Pigeon built specifically for the 2023 Gambler 500. Its creator already owned 2 Pigeons and decided to combine their parts into one vehicle, with little budget for extras. The rear axle has 2 differentials welded together, a side one that receives power through an an angled driveshaft going through a cut frame and bodywork, and a middle one that outputs the power to a second driveshaft with a middle flex point, which ends with a differential on a trailer axle. The resulting powertrain layout makes driving this creation a unique experience. The car also features baja wheels with massive spacers or axle extensions and cardboard mud flaps, double leaf springs in the middle axle, custom tube bumpers, a custom rear section with a spoiler, homebuilt vented hood, off-road lights, a wooden wing, and a rock camo paintjob.

6X4 POWERED TRAILER (ALTERNATIVE)

A previous iteration of the same build, made for the 2022 Gambler 500. The trailer has small off-road wheels and a standard narrower axle, the differential gear ratios and welding setup differ, the upfits of the truck and trailer were swapped around, the lighting setup and paint colors are also changed. This version lacks a vented hood and dual leaf springs, but instead features a duct taped rally net wannabe window and a roof mattress.

4X4 MID STEER 'IBISHU PIG'

A spectator of the 2022 Gambler 500 who also owned a Pigeon was inspired by the Squatted and the 6x4 Pigeons that appeared there, and decided to combine their ideas to create a 4x4 vehicle with the steering in the middle. He recreated the powered trailer system and added a steering mechanism between the 2 halves, then removed as much weight as possible from the front half of the car and added as much weight as he could to the back, especially near the connecting point, in order to balance the weight distribution. One cheap livery later and he finished his 4x4 Pigeon in time for the 2023 Gambler 500, which drives better than it looks.

SWIVEL FRAME

Inspired by a classic pickup truck, this Pigeon achieves a swivel frame effect simply by having a cut frame where the bed meets the body. This cheap setup creates many issues, such as the whole rear axle with the suspension and the bed rotating backwards upon acceleration and dragging on the floor, so you need to feather the throttle. It also needed stabilizers on the sides due to only having 3 wheels, which was causing the front half to tip.

SWIVEL FRAME LWB

Whoever created this abomination surely just wanted to build the worst driving vehicle in existence. It's like the Swivel Frame and Redneck LWB combined together, bringing the worst of their handling characteristics and adding even more driving nuisance on top. You need to be EXTREMELY careful when turning this thing and you can't drive it fast at all. Once the angle between the bed and the body increases past a safe point, the only way to straighten it out is to grab reverse. If Gambler 500 is about making the most impractical vehicle ever, then this is the winner.

SWIVEL FRAME COOL

Remember the 'Cool' configuration of the Pigeon? Turns out it's a great base for a swivel frame conversion, thanks to having all 4 wheels and a bed with a forward leaning center of mass. That's what the owner of that version thought, so he cut the frame, repainted the bed, removed the spare tire and retuned the gear ratios, and boom, he had built himself one of the most competetive Pigeons so far for this year's Gambler 500. It still requires gentle handling of the throttle though, especially on initial acceleration from a stop. You don't want to scrape this nice two-tone paint.

XLWB DRIFT

While not exactly conforming to the Gambler 500 spirit, this parking lot sliding machine is still a crazy redneck creation that fits the rest of this pack. The owner was tired of his Pigeon falling over while drifting due to being top-heavy, so he decided to solve it by extending the wheelbase by making a frame and driveline extension, the latter being made of an axle with a double welded differential and 3 driveshafts. The frame extension is connected to the steering system to make it easier to initiate a slide. Other modifications include a cardboard body kit, beacon light, and a cut front end for better engine cooling.

5X4 NOBEAM CUSTOM

When the builder of the 6x4 powered trailer Pigeon showed a concept of his project online, he was contacted by a youtuber called Nobeam who also owned 2 old beat up Pigeons, and asked him if he can make a similar build for him to use in his videos. He had a 5x4 drivetrain in mind, with not much budged needed to put in the project, and quickly made a complete visualization in Photoshop. The constructor agreed to help, and managed to execute this idea quickly before the Gambler 500 event started. The most work was put into the drivetrain, as the initial version suffered from massive wheel wobble issues due to having only 1 front wheel. It was solved by welding all of the differentials, but as a result the car handles... interestingly when turning.

5X4 THE JUNK HAULER

This behemoth was built as a collaborative effort of several Gambler 500 Pigeon veterans on an unlimited budget with only 1 goal in mind: to clean as many trails as possible from the trash left by tourists. Built from combined parts of their older entries, optimized for high torque and maximum cargo capacity in order to transport as much trash as possible, and painted to resemble a dump truck, it's a true weapon to fight for the modern ideals of Gambler 500.

GROUP P RALLY

Our last entry was built by a guy called Rocky McBoulder who lives on a rock mountain in Utah with his pet rock. One day he saw a rally truck on TV and instantly decided to modify his Pigeon to resemble it, purely for attention. He made a roll bar and bumpers from welded metal bars, and then bought spacers, baja tires, off-road lights, a bigger engine and a nitrous system, but then he realised he's almost out of budget already, and he needed some money for the livery. So he took the wooden and cardboard boxes that the shipment of the parts he ordered came in, and used them along with a lot of duct tape as materials to finish the build cheaply. But even then he could only afford half of a livery, so he painted the other half himself. The car had no exterior mirrors because he used parts of them for the spoiler, and the interior mirror view was blocked by the rear cover, so he taped his phone to the mirror and connected it to another phone on the back to act as a camera.

EXTRAS

Due to popular demand, the mod also includes a separate trailer made from the Pigeon bed that can be pulled by any car and equipped with any trailer parts from this mod; an off-road version of this trailer, made to show the possible equippable parts; and the cheap wheelbarrow as a separate prop that you can push in walking mode (with working handles).


LIST OF PARTS ADDED BY THIS MOD:​

• Short bed extension, lighter than normal, with slots for custom parts:
  • External roll bar used to stabilize the bed extension
    
  • Main roll bar with front extension
  • Front roll bar lights
  • Triple rear roll bar lights, also available on standard roll bar
  • Roll bar roof mounts made of leaf spring U-bolts
    
  • Roll bar top cover
  • Wooden wing for top cover, heavy, unstable, flammable
    
  • Roll bar side covers, glass (crackable) and cardboard (flammable) variants
    
  • Back up camera made of a phone connected to another phone taped to the interior mirror
• Frame for the trailer rear suspension, with a cut crossmember to fit angled driveshaft, lighter and easier to bend in that spot
  • Bed for this suspension, with a hole at the bottom for this driveshaft and cut wheel arches to fit mud flap mounts
  • Body for this suspension, with a hole in transmission tunnel for the driveshaft and other bits, louder, stripped from some accessories
  • Relocated fuel tank for this frame to not clip with driveshaft, closer to engine, hotter and more flammable
  • Dual differential widened suspension for the trailer, no sway bar, for 5-lug rear wheels with wider offset
  • Double leaf springs option: standard, heavy duty, straightened
  • 3 differentials: middle axle input, output and rear axle input; open and welded options + LSD for input ones
    
  • Final drives for extra differentials, reversed in the output one
  • Angled driveshaft for the front axle differential
  • Custom driveshaft for the trailer, pivot point in the middle, reinforced, 2 separately breakable parts
  • Steering system for the trailer that connects both frames
    
  • Trailer frame, available both on the trailer driveshaft slot and as a separate frame option
    • Standard 3-lug and wide 5-lug live axle suspension
      
    • Trailer bed
    • All the normal bed accessories: tailgate, box + tailgate, bed cover, bed extension, bed + roll bar cover, all the vanilla bed loads, fender flares
    • Roof bars for bed box (can't be used together with the roof bars on the bed box on main car!)
      
    • Short bed extension with all the same parts as the one for the normal bed, except the glass covers are not available, the external roll bar has counterweight and an antena available, main roll bar has no front extension and only 1 row of lights
    • Standard and tubular rear bumper and taillights
    • Spare tire load + jerry cans
    • Both vanilla rear license plate options
    • Tow hitch
      
    • Trailer reflectors
      
    • Alternative trailer parts colorable with the 2nd color palette: bed + tailgate, box + tailgate, bed cover, normal and short bed extension, bed + roll bar cover
    • Wheel options for the trailer: all 3-lug wheels with tires and hubcaps, + Autobello buggy off-road wheels and tires for 5-lug hubs
      
    • Only for the trailer selected as a separate frame: draw bar made of a driveshaft connected to differential
• Frame for the trailer rear suspension additionally with a cut off front end
  • Air cooling system for the engine to be used when the radiator can't be mounted
  • Body with a cut off front end, holes at the bottom, very loud, removable pedals
  • Bumper that can be mounted on the cut off frame part
  • Edited doors for cut off body
  • Headlight for the cutoff body made of a phone flashlight with a breakable selfie stick
  • ATV handle bar in steering wheel slot which enables brake differential steering, bent to fit with the door
  • Wheelbarrow attachable to the front of cut off body, broken handle to not impale the driver
• Split in half swivel frame + extended variant with space between the 2 parts
  • Edited variants of the bed and bodies for this frame
  • Variant of the bed colorable with the 2nd color palette
  • Custom rear differenial variant without driveshaft slot, which was moved to the frames because each one requires different driveshaft
  • Edited cut off exhaust to solve clipping
  • Alternative variant of roof bars to connect 2 parts of long split frame
  • Edited variants of standard and extended live axle rear suspension
• Variants of the bed and bed accessories that are colorable with the 2nd color palette: bed + tailgate, box + tailgate, bed cover, normal and short bed extension, bed + roll bar cover
  
• Front and rear spaced out drum brakes, increased weight
• Front and rear tubular bumper
• Quadruple hood lights for tube bumper
  
• Off-road taillights for tube bumper and mid steering
  
• Right door glass with duct tape, will crack instead of breaking fully
• Cut exhaust, a bit more torque and no clipping with custom frames
• Homebuilt wented hood, offers more engine cooling and less drag
• Front cardboard mud flaps on mounts for stabilizer slots
• Rear cardboard mud flaps for a custom slot in wide suspensions
• Rock sliders for stabilizer slots
• Roof case for beacon light slot
• Front 1500mm spacers for wheel slots, add weight and give option to select 5-lug front wheels with wider offset
• Widened live axle rear suspension for 5-lug rear wheels with wider offset
• Cardboard widebody kit for mirror slots, flammable
• Spare tire bed load
• Extra loads like for the BeamBox
• 6 skins: Dirty (Colorable), Classic Two-Tone w/ Gambler 500 Logo (Colorable), Ibishu Pig (Colorable), The Trashman (Colorable), Group P Rally, Rock Camo (Colorable)
• Edited duplicates of vanilla skins to work on the parts that are colorable with the 2nd color palette (not separate, applied automatically with normal skins)
  
• Cheap Wheelbarrrow prop (not part of Pigeon, separate prop)

​

KNOWN ISSUES:
Lots of them, but they are not bugs but intended features, this is Gambler 500 after all lol. If you find something weird then it's probably intentional.

CREDITS:​

• BeamNG - Pigeon materials, model and textures, Wydra handlebar model and textures, cardboard box model and textures, wood pallet material and textures, design for the smartphone I modelled for the mod (from one of the billboards on Italy map)
• Gambler 500 - the logo of the event that I used on a few skins, some inspiration for some custom parts
• Felipe Maciel - Group P Rally and Rock Camo skins, designing the tubular bumpers, widebody kit, whole rear section with the covered roll bar, and the Group P Rally config for me to use as reference, Rocky McBoulder lore
• Nobeam - Designing the Nobeam Custom config and most of its parts, idea for the Dirty skin, idea for the powered trailer, a lot of inspiration
• People on the MFD server - lots of ideas, inspiration and feedback, also requests for the wheelbarrow and trailers to be made into separate props
• Me - the rest of the mod, and spending like 4 hours writing this description lol

Have fun with the mod! You can use anything from it that I made in your own mods, just remember to credit me or else your mod won't get approved by the moderation (not my choice, it's the rules)!​