Peter Walczak didn’t identify as a “car guy,” which makes his hobbyist superproject of choice all the more surprising: building a functional life-size version of the iconic Warthog jeep from the Halo games. By his own admission, the retired Navy test pilot has poured untold hours and thousands of dollars into this amazing prop, which he hopes to feature in Halo fan films someday in the future.
Walczak grew up playing video games, but his interest in the hobby waned as he got older. However, when a coworker told him about a hot new video game console called the Xbox in the early 2000s, he decided to pick one up. His primary interest wasn’t Halo, though–it was Steel Battalion, an obscure Xbox exclusive that required its own intimidating secondary controller, which featured two joysticks and three pedals. “It was an awful game,” Walczak says. “At that point, I thought, ‘I might as well get this stupid Halo game that everyone’s talking about.'”
Like many others, Walczak quickly fell in love with Bungie’s groundbreaking console shooter; he cites its beautiful levels and sci-fi story as two of the major reasons why. He even ended up playing with his coworker online, going head-to-head in beloved maps like Blood Gulch. The franchise ended up reigniting his love for video games. Walczak was stationed in Hawaii when Halo 2 came out, and while his compatriots were exploring the island and going to the beach, he was sitting inside an aircraft carrier, playing the new game on a washed-out 12-inch television. “It was the peak of that gaming era for me,” he says. “Nothing comes close.”
To be clear, Walczak does call himself a “car guy” now, but the title was hard-won. A lifelong tinkerer with a background in electrical engineering, he first got the idea of putting together his own Warthog when he saw Weta Workshop’s take on the mean green jeep, which was used in the live-action series Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn. (“I just thought, I can probably build something like that,” he says, laughing. “How hard could it be?”)
However, it wasn’t until Walczak settled into a new home with a garage that he actually felt he could work on it in earnest. That’s when he caught a lucky break: an acquaintance of his was selling a beat-up old truck for a very reasonable price. Walczak showed up and wrote a check; shortly after, he and a few buddies were stripping the truck for parts, reimagining it as a base for a futuristic jeep recognizable to a generation of gamers.
“That’s definitely when it became real,” Walczak says. “Before, I was just a guy with a few sketches. After I wrote the check, I had a dilapidated old truck in my driveway. I just thought, ‘What am I doing with my life? I guess I’m actually building this thing.'”
Embarking on the project in earnest in 2014, Walczak had to teach himself many skills to pull off the build, a process which he jokingly ascribes to “YouTube University.” For example, he had to teach himself how to weld various metal parts securely together, which he hadn’t done since college. He also had to master a 3D printer and learn the ins-and-outs of almost every facet of the truck base. From early on, Walczak tried to use as many off-the-shelf parts as possible to keep the project relatively manageable, but over time, he realized that he would have to buy a variety of components from different manufacturers to achieve his goals.
Despite the scale of the vehicle, he says he’s done almost all of the design and work by himself, with two major exceptions. He commissioned a racing firm to create the windscreen for the truck–which ended up being the most expensive part by far–and he got help from a friend at a machine shop to help him bend the rear bumper to the proper specification.
“I was a handy person with a technical degree, but I realized pretty quickly that I had to learn a lot to get this done,” Walczak says. “I had done a bit of welding in school, but I didn’t know how to weld, really…The hardest part of the project was finding parts that were compatible with the base truck. It’s really easy to go on a car forum and find some guy who says, ‘Yeah, this part in X car looks about two feet long,’ but it’s a little different when you need something that’s exactly 22 inches. It’s been a learning process for sure.”
Walczak has documented much of the process of putting the Warthog together on social media, which of course garnered positive responses from the Halo fan community, as well as the usual range of curious missives. Many ask the creator for the plans or blueprint for the Warthog, which always amuses Walczak–no such documents exist. Some have even offered to buy it outright, with one user offering tens of thousands of dollars for the super-prop. Needless to say, it’s not for sale. “Every price I’ve been offered would really just cover the parts,” Walczak says. “I just tell them, ‘Hey, this is 10 years of my life you’re talking about!'”
Like a lot of hobbyists who have put a lot of time into a single project, Walczak looks on the early days of his endeavor with a sense of bemusement. When I ask him if he might tackle another fan-build of this scale again, he offers a surprising thought. “Honestly, I have to resist the urge to do this one all over again,” he says, laughing. “There are things I would do completely differently. But to be honest, I haven’t decided yet…People ask me to sell these to them. It’s just wild to me.” He’s considered building his take on the Pelican–the dropships that spill Warthogs and marines from their guts in many well-remembered Halo missions–but that’s just a dream for now.
As of this writing, Walczak describes the Warthog build as roughly 97% complete, as he recently completed one of the most difficult steps: taking the entire vehicle apart and painting it, which took far longer than he expected. His ultimate goal of creating a drivable Warthog is within reach. “I can see the end of the tunnel,” he says. “It’s a strange feeling.”
“People always talk about the turret, like the cops will pull me over and say, ‘Hey, what’s that?'” Walczak says. “Honestly, it’s a piece of PVC pipe. It’s not something I really worry about…When it comes to making it street-legal, it’s more about making sure it has working windshield wipers, seatbelts, that sort of thing. I think it’s doable, for sure.”
When it comes to those who would look to follow in Walczak’s footsteps, he has some pointed words of wisdom: “Stop talking about it and just do it.” He notes that he’s seen many projects in the fan community collect hundreds if not thousands of upvotes on their first announcement, only to fall by the wayside once the intrepid leader hits an unforeseen obstacle. He recommends that fans start small and build from there: For example, if you can’t afford the materials to build Master Chief-style armor at home, try painting foam mats instead.
“People always say, ‘It’s too hard.’ Look, nobody said it was ever going to be easy,” Walczak says. “Spend less time talking about it and more time learning. You might not have the skills or the money to get started today, but you can go on YouTube and learn something, or just buy a cheap welder and play with it. Scratching ideas on a piece of paper is progress. So you’re broke; that’s okay. I was pretty broke when I started too…It doesn’t have to be life-sized, it can be a scale model, it can sit on your desk. Just do something. That’s the main thing.”