I’m well aware of many of the mistakes and errors made during the 2009 restoration of the original Ghostbusters Ectomobile, but I’ve never been able to find a single thread documenting all the errors, as the information is scattered across many years and websites. I know I’m repeating some and forgetting other, but I figured I might as well present the most obvious ones to get the ball rolling.
One of the most irritating overlooked details was the incorrect front light bar and mourning bracket on the Ectomobile:
It’s unlikely these issues (as well as the barely-running engine, which I’ll admit, has historically not been a strong suit of the Ectomobile) will ever be addressed, let alone by people as passionate about the vehicle as on this forum.
I wonder if the original light bar and bracket were too far gone to restore.
As to the engine, I’m not a mechanic, but the issue seems to be the car sitting for too long at a time. The engine was repaired and working well in 2009 but Internal combustion engines develop problems if they aren’t frequently run.
It’s to my understanding that the front lightbar was removed from the Ectomobile during the 2000s for use on another production. The lightbar and bracket had been gone for years by 2009, so it’s more likely they just been lost rather than overly corroded/rendered unsalvagable.
The repercussions of the terrible restoration are still affecting the GB community. The new cars in afterlife still got the wrong front bars but they almost got the same horrible brackets as well. The car team working on Afterlife really didn’t do a thorough job on the research as evidenced by this photo and the hand painted logos.
The front lightbar bugs the ■■■■ out of me too! Its the wrong model, wrong length with wrong mounting brackets that also make it sit at the wrong height at the wrong angle
The lightbar is just way too long and it looks goofy, especially compared to the rear one. It’s so unfortunate that even all the highly detailed models get big details wrong simply because they decided to study/reference the Ectomobile as it is currently. The Afterlife cars reflecting the restoration is just another pain in the side of the often-reocurring problem.
The only models I can think of that weren’t completely referenced to the inaccurate restoration since its completion are the Blitzway and the new Lego set (which I guess doesn’t really count since it was based on the corrected Afterlife Ectomobile).
Much of the paint has begun to fade, some rust is evident, the fuel cap was replaced with an incorrect one, and even the Red spinning beacon has had some of the paint removed somehow:
Recent photos I saw show the siren just laying up there on the roof not mounted at all. But of course, photos taken right after the restoration show the mounting bolt in the pedestal missing entirely so maybe it has just been held up there with “hopes and dreams” all this time.
There was definitely a Radio of some sort mounted up there during production. Was it the midland? I’m not sure.
Unfortunately, the restoration added a strange, somewhat garish headunit under the steering wheel, another screen, and completely massacred the poor dummy antenna by turning it into a speaker?:
Also missing from the restoration done to the Ectomobile (and forgotten on the Afterlife Wrecktomobile) were the yellow French “Attention” labels next to the bumper lights:
