X-Wing Prop From Star Wars A New Hope Is Selling for the Price of Ten Dodge Challenger R/T

The Star Wars universe is known and loved for many things, and one of them is the fighter spaceships that pit Rebel Alliance pilots against those of the Empire. And it's the machines fighting on the side of good that are of interest to us today.

The rebels used a wide assortment of spaceships to go about their business, but a very high-profile one was the mighty X-wing. Not only was such a machine used extensively by rebel pilots to fight off the enemy, but it's also the fighter Luke Skywalker himself used to blow Darth Vader's Death Star to smithereens.

That happened in the first-ever Star Wars movie, the 1977 Episode IV – A New Hope. And it's from that exact movie this here X-wing comes from.

Back in the 1970s computer generation was not a tool of the movie industry. That means a lot of scale and miniature models of whatever hardware needed to be in the movie had to be made and actually shot on camera, using trade tricks that make us believe we're looking at the real deal.

For filming X-wings in action in A New Hope, Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) put together a lot of X-wing miniatures, divided into two categories. The ones called Pyro were used to shoot scenes where the fighters had to be blown up, and a lot of them were made. Because, you know, a lot of X-wings go bust in Star Wars.

The others, called Hero, were used for closeups, and those are a lot rarer. In fact, history notes that just four Hero miniatures of the spaceship fighters that had servo-controlled wings were made for the flick.

The toys had to be constructed in a functional manner because these were the fighters that had to conduct all the action on screen. This means they had to extend their wings in an X pattern, fire lasers and torpedoes, and generally look badass.

The miniatures were made at 1:24 scale from resin, vacuum-formed styrene, acrylic, and metal components, all of them pulled over an aluminum structure. They came with internal wiring to power the lights of the four wing-mounted laser cannons, and halogen lights to mimic both the proton torpedoes in the two tubes, but also the four-engine exhaust nozzles.

These pieces of prop were, in effect, the closest thing to the real deal the people behind A New Hope were capable of doing with the tools of the time. And the result was spectacular enough so that, when paired with the hype around anything Star Wars, it results in highly valuable collectibles.

One of the four Hero X-wings popped up this week for sale as part of an auction organized by Heritage Auctions. And it's not just any X-wing, but the Red Leader, the ship seen multiple times in the movie. And it's also likely the same miniature that played the role of Red Two and Red Five – the latter is the one Luke Skywalker himself flew at one point.

The prop comes complete with a battle-hardened look, achieved by means of the paint job seen on it: there are service wear, blast marks, and even heat scorches around the exhaust nozzles. A single red stripe can be seen running down the wings, and two additional red stripes of unknown origin can be spotted on the lower wings.

We're told the miniature does show age and production use, but that it has never been exposed to daylight or any untrained eyes. That means, of course, the one who has it is selling it in "its original condition as it was filmed on the blue screen stage at ILM in 1977."

How much does the seller expect to get for this incredible piece of movie-making history? Well, a lot, as the bidding process alone for the Red Five T-65B X-wing starts at $400,000. You know, that's about as much as you'd pay for a fleet of no less than ten Dodge Challengers R/T. Or some Ferraris. Or some Lambos. You get the idea.

There is a lot of time left (33 days) until the bidding process for the prop-worth-a-house ends, so we won't know for a while how much this official Star Wars hardware is worth to the public.

We will of course keep an eye out for developments, and update accordingly to tell you if and how much the thing eventually goes for. In the meantime, if you plan to make a bid for the Red One X-wing, you can do that here.