In 1986 Just after the film Aliens had come out and left the screens i was offered something very cool , i was really into the film , i was 16 years old and collected anything i could from Aliens as i really liked it a lot , back then there was very little to buy as sic-fi was not as developed with merchandising as it is today , i had a friend that did a lot of the model work on the film called Faisal Karim he was a model maker on the film and i traded some Gerry Anderson items for what was left of the films screen used model of the Gateway Station from the opening seen of the film , this arrived in a black bin liner as it was broken up after filming was dun, i also got some power loader cargo boxes and some missiles from he drop ship and some other models and bits and peaces , so i was really into finding some more items , then on day in 1987 i was contacted by a friend that knew i was into Aliens and had something to offer me , he told me that the APC life size vehicle as up for sale if i wanted to buy it :-0 i was amazed and i arranged to go down to the studios to see it and work out what i needed to do to buy it , the production had left the studio and the APC had been left there and they wanted to get rid of it , this was years before the interest in these things and big things like this did just get scraped , so here i was now 17 year old looking at the screen used APC , i was told that the value they felt it was worth was £3000 , now i know you are all going to say thats nothing , but back then you could buy a house for £10K so it was quite a bit , but i was able to get that together , but then came the big issues , the APC was damaged , it was a converted aircraft tractor and weighs around 10 tons and the thing was the drive axel was snapped from when it was damaged at the films opening night at the end when they loaded it on to the loader it had slipped and broke the drive shaft so what i was looking at was a 10 tons lump that did not move anymore , that was why it was being sold for the scrap price of only £3K , so what to do ? , i had to go for it , i went off to find how much it would cost to hire a crane to move it , then i worked out i needed to hire it twice as i needed to get it off the low loader at the other end , then i had to hire a low loader also smile emoticon and the cost changed as to where ever it ended up ? so i went to look at where i could store the APC after i had moved it , i was only 17 and this was well out of my comfort zone as i had never dun anything like this before , but i was going to try to make this happen , my parents had no idea i what i was trying to do and would have most likely tried to talk me out of it but i wanted to try , so i asked around for quotes for the crane hire and low loader hire and a cost for storage , now putting it undercover was going to cost me to much so i looked at some local storage so the transport cost were not to much , i was tying to get costs of this and then my contact at the studio rang me and said it needed to go by Monday which was 5 days from now and if i wanted it i had to pay for the APC by then or it was going to be sold off to a scrap yard and it would be cut up on site and taken away , so i tried to get a location to store it and get the total costs for lifting it and moving it , the cost for lifting i managed to get down to £500 for each lift one on one off so another £1000 which was a lot more that i was expecting , then the moving of the APC even if it was a short trip the hire would be for a day and it would be another £500 fro the work involved , then i was running out of time to find a location to store it and then a friend offered me his yard for a year to keep it in , i went down and looked at the place it seemed good there was the space and he would let me store it there for £200 for a year then it had to be moved as he was planning on having a pool put in so i had a year , i was working out the last few things then someone posted out that it was hard core gravel and would that be ok for it to be packed on ? then we had a think and someone side if it weighs around 10 tons then it would sink into the ground and after a year it would be one with the group and it would get sucked in and you may not be able to move it in a year ??? then we also started to look at the access for the low loader and we could see it could not get all the way down the lane where it needed to be stored , things were coming apart fast and i started to see that my dream was in trouble , i tried some more friends and locations but with it being the end of the week time was running out , i also had to tell the low loader people by then if this was happening on the Monday, i rang the guy at the studio to see if i could buy some more time , but he said sorry It had to be Monday or it was gone , i tried over the weekend with out any luck and with only being 17 i knew a lot less than i do now and as such i had to let it go , the 17 year old me just could not save this amazing vehicle ,its something i have never forgotten and has driven me to go that extra step to save many props and film related items and to this day i have managed to save many things that would have been lost or distorted if i had not have stepped in to save , i lost that day but i did not have to like it and it changed me as a person from that day , we all need to try to save things when we can or they will be lost forever , latter that year i went to the 45th Worldcon held at the Brighton and managed to buy 4 of the marines fatigues from the film , Hicks , Frost , Vasquez , Hudson , Apone which i still have and later i managed to by Sigourney Weaver sleeping pod , Sigourney flam thrower the only screen used Narcissus form Aliens as well as a lot of cool dressing and things from the film , to this day i still love this film and it has great memories of trying against the odds to save something , and that has driven me the rest of my life, below are some images i found on the net , as on the day i was there i did not take a camera as i really thought i was going to buy it so did not think of taking photos well i was 17

Are there exact blueprints available with measurements? Making a full scale static one would be very doable in a backyard.