Sorry if this has been discussed before, I did search but found nothing.
In the ‘resurrection’ extra from the Blu Ray, some of the still shots used are of ECTO 1A. I guess most have noticed this already, but it is interesting that she was stripped down the same time as ECTO 1 and yet little has been seen since. Anyone else have the feeling parts were cherry picked to get ECTO 1 roadworthy?
My other query is this; in some of the shots that are clearly of ECTO 1 pre restoration, you can see the ‘ghosting’ (great pun huh!?) of the GB2 ‘no ghost’ symbol, particularly on the rear door, you can see the two fingers. When was ECTO 1 dressed as 1A? Clearly I suppose around '89-'90, but as the car was in storage for years why change them back?
Again, apologies in advance if this has been discussed already, somebody point me that way!
I wouldn’t be at all surprised, considering how, at the time of the blu-ray production, the 1A wasn’t even slated for restoration. They must have pulled it in to consolidate parts.
Good theory… all I know is that when I saw the car in person 2 years ago, there were a few ill-fitting parts, mainly the rear bumper. It could be that due to the heavy alterations made to the 1A, certain parts wouldn’t fit correctly on the Ecto-1… or it could just be that the car was in such bad shape during the restoration that this was the best they could do.
Swapping rear doors wouldn’t have caused the bumper to not fit correctly. The 1A didn’t have a rear bumper, it was a custom-made diamond plate step. The biggest reason I can think the doors were swapped was because it was in better condition, essentially putting off fixing it until the 1A was slated for restoration. Now, as for the bumper…either they twisted the brackets somehow during rechroming or they just didn’t care enough to take the time and properly align it when putting it back on.
Seeing the state that both cars were allowed to get into since the movies, why would they have swapped the rear doors for any reason at any point and gone to the effort of changing the vents, surely a minor detail few would notice.
Not sure what I’m driving at myself, sounds like I am coming out with a conspiracy theory, which I’m not. Its just interesting that ECTO 1 might have been dressed as 1A for a short time after the second movie, then redressed in her original patches.
As I remember now, back when Ecto-1 was on the Sony Backlot, a photo came to light showing her with a Ghostbusters II logo decal applied to one of the doors.
We’d wondered about it at the time, and speculation theorized that it was a replacement for a normal Ghostbusters logo decal that had deteriorated to the point of no return.
All I’m saying is the reason why the doors might’ve been switched was because the 1 was a priority and to save time (and money) they put on a better door. I haven’t seen the pic of the logos being switched so I can’t say for certain.
Well, I’ve watched it a couple of times and to me I’m pretty sure ECTO 1 came out of the restoration with her original rear door. Some of the shots of 1A seem to have been filmed by the guys who made the documentary at the time ECTO 1 was finished and she still has her original rear door.
Like I say, I think 1 was dressed as 1A for a time, probably just the no ghost patches around the time the second movie came out and was then redressed for some reason when it was in the backlot. Ah well, unless pics turn up to prove it we will never know, all I know is ECTO 1 had the GB2 patch on the rear door at some point.
I knew if I did a little digging, something would turn up.
I know this isn’t of the back door, but it’s of interest none the less… from February of 2004, before the car had received the “spit-shine” restoration for it’s appearance on a talk-show for promoting the “green slime” DVD set:
That decal looks a bit too new to have been on the car since Ghostbusters II wrapped, if you ask me:
You can also see in this picture from this site’s own archive, that the logo on the front passenger door has completely vanished, leaving only a faded mark:
Again, I’d put my money on the decals deteriorating, rather than some sort of weird redressing.
It’s from an old version of Proptopia, from a visit made back in the day, there weren’t an awful lot of photos posted at the time due to the person taking them being there without official permission from the studio.
The doors weren’t swapped, and the GB2 decals happened within this decade.
Please note that these are not my photos, nor am I responsible for the sloppy editing in the first pic …also, I renamed the files for my own archival purposes.
Memory serves, this was around the time the 1A got the baseball-sized hole in the windshield, and the caps on the rear white tank broke off. From what I recall reading, the E1 and 1A were taken out of the elements and put into storage together, with a few other random movie vehicles. For reasons unknown, one of the garage’s staff members took some of the spare decals they had for the 1A (left over from GB2) and slapped them on the E1, to replace E1’s missing/damaged decals.
I was watching that feature, and one of the cars shown is definitely 1-A, or at least had the higher roof rack and large “storage” cylinder on it. There were also shots wear some of the wear and age were different on the same parts.
Like’s been said, I don’t know if there restoring it or not, but I really believe they had it at the time.
