Imperial Speeder Bikes

The speeder bike has always been one of my favorite vehicles in Star Wars. Ever since I saw the Endor chase in Return of the Jedi, I've wished I could own one myself. The first LEGO Star Wars set I ever bought was the original Speeder Bike Chase, with Luke Skywalker facing off against a pair of scout troopers on bikes. I was pretty satisfied with LEGO's official rendition for quite some time. Later, in the Ewok Attack set, they came out with an "improved" version. It was huge, fat, clunky, and looked nothing like a speeder bike. After thinking about it, I realized their old one didn't look much like the movie either. So I built this:

The second pic shows Kenner/Hasbro's action figure Speeder Bike next to LEGO's original official model, with mine on the far right. As you can see, I improved the stabilizer bars, the shape of the handles, the feet, and the lower gun. By the way, the Hasbro figure isn't actually all that accurate either; the handlebars are supposed to be sideways, like on mine.

Actually, this Speeder Bike was one of the last Star Wars customs I built for a long, long time. Shortly after building this in December 2001, I began to rapidly lose all interest in Star Wars. I wouldn't build another LEGO Star Wars model for three years, and even then only to enter a contest.

Just because I might as well post it too, here is another, larger LEGO Speeder Bike model (not minifig-scale) that I made earlier, around 1999 or so...