While this column is generally all about the buggies, the past few weeks have brought us some incredible new hoverboats. I can hardly ignore them, so this week we’re going to take a look at three new luxury boats. The key word here is luxury. All of these boats use color, and a unique model to create the ambiance of luxury and exclusivity. They’re also priced accordingly, but at least they all get great mileage! 

Creating a new hoverboat is more than just building a model. The avatar animations and positions are based on the original There hoverboat and are “interesting” to work with. Each of these boats handles the seating in different ways. More on that as we go into each one. 

The Senator 2 is the latest luxury hoverboat from Majandi. It’s based on the original Senator 1 so most of what is covered here applies to both with the prime exception being the price. The Senator 1 is by far the most expensive of this group at 85,000t. The original price was much lower, less than 30k. As time passed there was a progression of price increases bringing it to its current lofty tag. His plans for the Senator 2 are the same. Gradual price increases with each listing. As with most luxury products, Majandi is content to see few of them in the air. The seating on both of these boats is identical, which stands to reason. The driver sits in front with a control lever much like the one in the There hoverboats. Passengers sit in the rear and face each other. There’s a grab bar for each so the animation works exactly as it does in the There boats. The price of the Senator 2 as of this writing is 35,000t, but this listing expires on 1/10/07 and it looks like the price will go up. 

 

 

Our last boat is the Bel Aire Cloud Cruiser. The model for this one was done by Carcus. It too took a very long time to create. There are currently 4 versions with the painting for all being done by ZachC. The most recent is the “S” version with the “S” standing for the sunset color. Of all the Cloud Cruisers this is the one that was painted to most exemplify luxury. It’s priced at 32,500t and it too uses some interesting seating. The body needed to be narrower than a normal hoverboat to maintain the proper proportions of the Bel AIre. This made the seating arrangement a bit of a challenge. The driver sits on the right, which my Australian and British friends think is just perfect. Placing that seat on the left would have had the driver’s left arm sticking through the door. Since lowering the door or raising the seat would have ruined the proportions, he chose to move it to the right. The narrow body of this boat also left no room in the back seat for a third passenger. Here Carcus showed his roots... remembering how he and his friends used to sneak into the drive-ins when he was a kid! Yep, the seating node went into the trunk! Unlike the other boats reviewed here, there’s a less expensive version of the Cloud Cruiser. The red and white is the “economy” version currently listed at 26,500t.  

 

There are many other hoverboats available in the auctions, including other luxury models. These happen to be the newest and caught my eye. All are well done and deserving of your attention if you’re looking for a boat in this price range.

Next week maybe I’ll get back to buggies, but this was a nice change of pace for me.