Built by: Tim Nolan in Edgewater, Florida

"On Halloween night, the Great Pumpkin rises out of the pumpkin patch, bringing toys and candy to all of the good little children of the world.²--Linus VanPelt 1966 Needless to say, Linus spent a lot of years waiting in vain for the Great Pumpkin to show up in the pumpkin patch, ending up with no candy, and some of his closest friends being mad at him! I was a big fan of the Peanuts cartoon strip growing up. I started thinking, what if the Great Pumpkin DID show up?! What if he not only showed up, but arrived in the loudest, fastest, fire-breathing, tire spinning, outrageous showrod in the netherworld?!

I started sketching ideas a few months back for this build. I wanted something scary, but not too dark and sinister. The animated characters of the Peanuts gang are just too good natured to make something too evil out of, so I decided it should be scary-fast instead of just plain scary!

I wanted a pumpkin head for part of the body, and a decoration from K-Mart fit the bill. I hollowed out the eyes and mouth, and started trying to adapt it to a base of some kind. I ended up with this resin Roth trike body from Bill Michaelson. I had been wanting to kitbash the Raiders Coach, so I decided the tractor section would be the power plant to pull the Punk'n trailer with. It was built basically stock.

I wanted it to be ridiculously overpowered, so the dual Pontiac motors were fit with the triple blower setups from the Creepy T. The headers, oversize Cragar mags, bat trim pieces, and rear tail light are also from these kits. I topped the blowers with some cast metal skulls, and added photo etched pulley faces. Milled aluminum magnetos with plug lines were also added, along with radiator hoses.

The tow hitch from the Raiders Coach was fitted to the trike body, and some hydraulic lines were added to the steering system, also made from a Raiders part. The parts box yielded some odds & ends, including the chrome foot rests, tags, Moon tank (located inside the pumpkin head) and some of the errand components. An axle was made from brass tubing.

The skeleton from the Li'l coffin was cut apart, and repositioned to fit the drivers seat. I airbrushed him with about 6 colors from Createx' Autoair series, and added some hair cut from a stuffed animal. I painted his face like a Halloween jack-o-lantern, reminiscent of the "Legend of Sleepy Hollow" animated film, another old favorite! He has a black cape on that I made from some scraps of black satin, and carries a trick-or-treat bag made from some old brown paper bag, with handles made of heavy twine, and hand lettered with a fine Sharpee.

Dan Warford handled the custom decals once again. He took a drawing I did of Linus and made it to fit the hood perfectly! He also used some Munster-style fonts for the rear logo, the custom ³Carved² tags, and the bats were his own special touch! Dan's my buddy, he makes my ideas come to life! The paint is House of Kolors Kandy Tangerine and Kandy Organic Green, airbrushed over a silver and gold micro flake basecoat.