Pink Panthermobile - Build thread

mtrappett

mtrappett

Well-Known Member
Mar 3, 2013
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Santa Clarita, California
I have been working on a model of the Pink Panthermobile for several years now... yes, that is correct... a VERY long time so it turns out. My dad before he passed away built me a plastic model of the Pink Panther car and it always stuck inside my head. The design is crazy different to anything else around at the time and for sure now in these days of the Tesla, and every car now drives the same as the next. Some may refer to it as retro from the 1960's but there will never be another so impractical, unusual looking car that will be ever built.

my goal was to build a 3D model in Maya purely for my own entertainment which is what I completed a short time ago. It has ALL of the details of the original car and it really took a great deal of research and experimentation. The shape of the car is "organic" and more resembles a living animal than anything else. This platypus, duck-bill, aardvark or something along those lines, This of course for anyone growing up back in the day the 1960's, 1970's or sooner, was the car that was featured in the Pink Panther cartoon series. It was actually designed and commissioned for the show and at the time cost $100k to build. In this thread, I will expand more on the car and what it took to build it, and from what exactly.

The 3D model I built is a hi-poly count model and is extremely detailed so I will have to see how it could be rolled out for others to build. Anyway, this is just a starting note for the stuff that will come ;)
 
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Holy smokes, I had no idea that such a car existed. Just imagine it were featured in the Pink Panther movies! :)
 
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I remember when the first version came to my town. It did not have a steering wheel, it hand hand held controllers, and you steered left to right by pressing the buttons. It was really huge (I was really small) Modeling this car is one thing, but making one will be difficult. One way could be is to make a buck out of formers to get the body shape. Fill in the spaces with 2 part epoxy, then sand till you have the shape of the body. At this point you would soak the paper patterns in place, and let them harden on the bucks to get the compound curves to make a true representation. Otherwise, you will have much trouble getting the flow of the car.

Another method would be using Balsa wood on the compound edges, and then gluing the flatter panels to the Balsa wood framing. Either way, making a model of this so that others could make would be difficult, easy as a one off, but hard to reproduce without loosing a lot of the flow. I didn't know you used Maya. My pockets aren't deep enough for that, but I can get that shape with Rhino3D. Maya is awesome though. This will be fun to watch. I had that model when I was a kid. I wished I had kept all the "Jo-Hann" car models I had, they are worth a fortune now. :)
 
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This brings back the summer holidays in the late 70's for me, the Pink Panther was on in the mornings before we went out to play

Judging by those pictures, the car still survives?
 
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mijob said:
:surprise:Noway this is not a model this looks awesome. Please stop using the shrink guns.
You did a fabilous job on this model.

:exploding_head:
Click to expand...
These photos are of the real car that exists currently. I think its now owned by Jay Leno? I do have some photos of the model car that was available back in the day around 1960 or so. There was one kit available on eBay recently and it sold for an extortionate amount like $160 or so. Here are some photos of the plastic kit.

contestcars014-1.jpgcontestcars015-1.jpgcontestcars017-1.jpgpink2_350.JPGpink3.JPGpink10_700.JPGpp001.jpgpp002.jpgpp003.jpgpp006.jpgpp007.jpgpp008.jpg
 
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Chuffy70 said:
This brings back the summer holidays in the late 70's for me, the Pink Panther was on in the mornings before we went out to play

Judging by those pictures, the car still survives?
Click to expand...
Yup, the car still survives! It was recently completely restored to better than new in 2016. Here is the original Pink Panther introduction video

 
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Rhaven Blaack said:
This is a rather oddly designed vehicle.
It would make for a very interesting paper/cardstock model.
Click to expand...
They don't come much odder than the Pink Panther for sure! The same guy that designed the old Batmobile and a bunch of other vehicles. Yes, I truly think that this would make a GREAT project for sure, made from paper/card or whatever it took.
 
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zathros said:
I remember when the first version came to my town. It did not have a steering wheel, it hand hand held controllers, and you steered left to right by pressing the buttons. It was really huge (I was really small) Modeling this car is one thing, but making one will be difficult. One way could be is to make a buck out of formers to get the body shape. Fill in the spaces with 2 part epoxy, then sand till you have the shape of the body. At this point you would soak the paper patterns in place, and let them harden on the bucks to get the compound curves to make a true representation. Otherwise, you will have much trouble getting the flow of the car.

Another method would be using Balsa wood on the compound edges, and then gluing the flatter panels to the Balsa wood framing. Either way, making a model of this so that others could make would be difficult, easy as a one off, but hard to reproduce without loosing a lot of the flow. I didn't know you used Maya. My pockets aren't deep enough for that, but I can get that shape with Rhino3D. Maya is awesome though. This will be fun to watch. I had that model when I was a kid. I wished I had kept all the "Jo-Hann" car models I had, they are worth a fortune now. :)
Click to expand...
That would have been awesome to see! I heard that they used solenoids to operate the steering at one point? Then they had a driver sit behind the actual drivers position and operated a steering wheel that was through a cable and pulley system. The original driver was blind for the most part.

The body was extremely challenging to get right. It had to be done through visual looking at photos and videos that was until I managed to actually see the car at the Los Angeles Car Show in 2016 which helped a lot. I actually finished up having to re-do the shape of the body after seeing it for real. It as many areas that could best be described as optical illusions for the way that they are shaped or the size. You should have seen the crew of guys at the show with all their smart suits on watching me worriedly as I as taking a whole bunch of photos from all angles of the car underneath, inside, the engine compartment and so on :eek::biggrin::animated:
 
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