"The Groundhawk" (Gambler 500 challenge) 1.0

A combination of the bodywork and engine (well, almost, the maximum cylinder bore in Automation was just a bít too small to accurately replicate it) from a light aircraft, and the chassis and wheels from a pick-up truck.


It is, perhaps surprisingly, a rather capable off-roader; with the only real issue being it's top-heavy-ness and the resulting tendency to roll over when driving on angled ground.


It features various home-made modifications, such as an external rollcage, a piece of drainpipe being used as a snorkel, a spotlight in the nose where the propeller was originally located, and a home-made exhaust system inspired by the racing cars of the 1930's.


It steers using the original plane's steering yokes, this means that it can be steered from both the driver's seat and the passenger seat.
Since the plane fuselage was found in a junkyard with all of its instruments stripped out, the only speedometer you've got is an app running on a tablet mounted to the dashboard, but hey, what'd you need all those other instruments for anyways?


Much of the vehicle can be smashed to pieces in BeamNG; the roof lights, both of the doors, and the entire tail section can break off if you're not careful!

Spoiler: Creation process

• I started off by downloading this free 3D model of an airplane, editing it (cutting off the wings/propeller/landing gear/tail/doors/etc, making a 3D model for the instrument panel rather than the flat texture it originally had, creating textures for the cut off parts like wing spars).
• Then I made a 3D fixture mod for Automation that contains those cut-up plane parts, and (of course) used them to build the vehicle in Automation.
• After finishing and exporting the Automation build I also made various changes to the BeamNG mod:
  • Changed the brightness/roughness of various textures in materials.json to better fit the intended look (most of the materials looked way too shiny).
  • Moved engine intake nodes to the tip of snorkel so that the snorkel actually "works".
  • Added 2 animated steering yokes to the interior, which where also made in Automation and then exported separately.
  • Changed node positions and added collision triangles to the breakable tail section, now the collision model of it is approximately the same as the visual model, instead of being several times bigger and a completely different shape.
  • Front light turns on with both lowbeam and highbeam, roof lights only turn on with highbeam.
  • Roof lights stop functioning when broken off, no more magical levitating light beams.
  • Changed 3rd person camera position/zoom, by default half the vehicle wouldn't fit on the screen.
  • Re-took thumbnails in in-game thumbnail generator; since those look much better than the ones generated by the Automation exporter.