In 2009 a British gent named Peter Cooper built a surprisingly spot-on replica of Halo’s Warthog vehicle for a fan film called Operation Chastity. As writer and director of the film, the creation of the Warthog was just one more indicator that Cooper was willing to go to great lengths to finish this flick. Unfortunately, the production seems to have become inextricably mired in the dozens of small issues that crop up when creating movies. A teaser appeared in 2010 that offered a “Summer 2011” release window for Operation Chastity, but here we are mere days from 2013 and the movie has yet to materialize. Supposedly Operation Chastity is still being in production, but at this point we feel safe in describing the project as stuck in limbo.
Given the lack of progress on his film and, presumably, mounting debt related to the project, Cooper has decided to sell his Warthog. The price? £17,500, or roughly $28,180USD. Can’t come up with that much scratch on such short notice? Cooper’s initial sales announcement does state that he’s willing to consider reasonable offers for the vehicle (though “reasonable” in this case is entirely subjective and up to Cooper’s own discretion).
Assuming you do have that kind of money burning a hole in your pocket and an unending wellspring of affection for Microsoft’s most famous franchise you’re likely now wondering what exactly you’ll get for Cooper’s nearly $30,000 asking price. Luckily, the official Operation Chastity website includes a section specifically devoted to the Warthog. According to the site, the Warthog you see pictured above started life as an unassuming early-80s Land Rover Defender. With the assistance of professional prop maker Daniel Carey-George (who is most famous for supplying the cars used in 1997’s Herbie Fully Loaded), Cooper stripped the Land Rover, and equipped the basic skeleton of the car with a new body, lifted suspension, special oversized tires and “a whole host of other upgrades to make it into the futuristic combat vehicle.”
As much as we’re excited for the possibility that one of you readers might turn this prop into your daily driver, we’ve got concerns about the work Cooper and Carey-George put into the Warthog. Actually, scratch that. Cooper and Carey-George created a vehicle specifically to suit their specialized needs (read: they built a movie prop), but it’s questionable whether this machine might also function as a real world vehicle. Even assuming the normally quite capable Land Rover Defender engine isn’t massively bogged down by the alterations made to this car’s body and suspension, we doubt there are many DMV locations that would approve of the Warthog’s huge exposed doors. Likewise, Cooper makes no mention of safety features in the Warthog. We’ve seen how some of you drive in Halo 4, and without seatbelts we have to imagine that most of you would be killed the first time you attempt to launch the ‘hog off of a conveniently-placed rock formation.
And of course, that’s assuming that you don’t attempt to mount a gun on the back of the Warthog. Even in the most lenient of jurisdictions an exposed, fully-automatic machine gun gives the cops free rein to search your vehicle.
Still, as far as replicas of video game objects, this is one of the best we’ve ever seen. It ranks right up there with the finest cosplay, only instead of fancy homemade clothing, this object is a gear-grinding, diesel-chugging piece de resistance for both Halo fans and gearheads. We imagine Cooper won’t have too much trouble selling this car, even with its sizable price tag.
