So here it is. After days of pondering whether or not to buy this for our club Ecto, I went ahead and did it. The car is cheap enough, and can be used for busting. We aren’t really in the position to drop a whole lot of money on a club ecto, but we know that we do want a car that people will recognize when they see it.
So we went with… A 1980 Mercury Zephyr Wagon. For $250
It runs and drives, it’s insured and registered, and it’ll just take a bit of elbow grease from the club guys to make her look the part.
Because the members of our group live far apart, this project is funded equally by members of the group, as it will be used to pick up and drop off group members so we can all attend events together.
Here’s the car as she rests now:
And here’s a quick photoshop I did of the final product.
We’re going to try our best to get the roof rack as accurate as possible, and the lights and siren will be functional. We’ll be debuting this car at the Calgary Comic Expo, and have been given special permission from the CPD to use lights and sounds at certain parts of our trip in town. From the sounds of things, we will be getting a EMS ■■■■■■ around town, and then we can let rip when we’re at the Expo grounds themselves.
At the risk of coming across as a dick, please DON’T. Leave the accurate parts for people starting with a more movie accurate base car. It’s hard enough to find many of them as it is, seeing a non vintage, non pro-car with them just makes it hurt more.
I’m not saying don’t try to make it look accurate, by all means try to similar parts but since you’re not starting with a good car don’t bother trying to get the exact ones. Just my .02
The whole point of this build is to get a car. Simple as that. The general public isn’t going to know the difference between a white car with a roof rack and a screen accurate car with fully accurate parts. What’s we’re trying to do is boost energy levels at local shows and events. It’s one thing to see a well build Ghostbuster costume at an event. It’s another thing to see a whole group (in our case, 5 busters). But it’s a completely different experience to see 5 busters with a car making fools of themselves.
As for accuracy, we are really just going for that passable experience. Style rather than substance, really. We know that we can’t get accurate parts, but we can tray to make it as best we can, like a cheap stunt pack for clubbing.
darthbuster - Make sure you introduce yourself to us in Calgary. You’ll hear us roll up, we have big big plans for Calgary.
I should add that the decals arrived today, and that Brad found a satellite dish for the roof. I ordered the lights, I’m just going to make low profile LED lightbars, as full rotator lightbars are too expensive for this build (at least for now) but it’ll still have an impressive light display!
I honestly don’t understand the argument of this one.
As a fanbase we go off on those who do a terrible job (moar lightbar), now we are going off on someone who wants to do an accurate job, even though the car is not the same make/model? Seriously?
You are not being a dick, but your argument makes no sense whatsoever… to me (I can’t speak for others).
what jack said isnt limited to this car, or ectos. i can understand what he’s trying to say.
it’s like using accurate legris banjos and elbows, with real clippards and real crank knobs on a gareeee or junk pack style build. why do that, when someone that’s been looking three times as hard for those parts for their accurate pack?
Well, there are 2 reasons he does make sense…one is scale. See a '59 M+M Combo is at least a foot and a half longer and probably 6" or more higher than that wagon. So an accurately sized rack would probably not leave ample room for lights and at the least would “look huge”.
The second one is that the lightbars to some extent, and especially those yellow tanks are in REALLY short supply. I mean the tanks were used in WWII Bombers…so it makes much more sense for an owner of a commercial chassis car to have the accurate parts than an owner of a more modern car that doesn’t fit the scale and that custom equipment would look better on.
Consider this…you’re looking to make a KITT replica. You have the correct car. You have the rims and caps, dash setup, everything. Except the nose and scanner. You finally find one on ebay and its taken. By a guy who wants to make a Camaro version of KITT…same thing.
There are tons of examples of quality scaled racks…Minnesota’s car, Boomers Magnum, the New Hampshire HHR, even my Mag.
I know he lists to be ‘as accurate as possible’, but I don’t think they would mean the full dimensions of the original rack. One would believe they would make it to scale for their vehicle.
This is the part I was hoping would not be part of the argument.. the jealous factor that someone got the parts and you (I don’t mean you specifically, I am using it the general sense) didn’t. To that I say TFB. And, as I wrote (hoped) above, if they are building to scale then they are not going to have the WWII tanks - just something that would be accurate, not exact.
If I go out and buy as many exact parts as possible to stick on the roof of my 2005 Ford Freestyle (if scale were not an issue [which I wouldn’t as the scale would be off]) - because I want to make the rack to be exact.. then someone starts to go off on what I did because I am using parts that someone else ‘could’ have purchased to put on their 59 M&M conversion.. my response would be, really? You are really going to bitch and moan (regardless of how well it would look on my conversion) because someone else could have used the parts on theirs??
And that’s a serious argument? At that point the world of this fan-fun goes to the world of the elitist dick.
Thanks for that disclaimer…no seriously…it was well placed and dispite our other disagreements I apprecriate it, But continued…
If you didn’t think are elitist dicks in fandom than CLEARLY you’re new to the set,have a meet with the 501st…but to me personally, the scale is the biggest thing…if the accurate tanks fit your freestyle, then cool, mount 'em there. But the parts were placed on a commercial chassis car and should be on such.
I mean if they work…they work…My thing is I hate to see accurate parts used on an OBVIOUSLY innacurate application when there are others out there starving for parts
