I never thought I’d be relived to read that an Ectomobile part was “only” installed backwards.
Just found this shot of the “front”, it looks like it’s lost some pieces, but connection point for the antenna is still visible:
There are way too many changes done to the Ecto since the first film that it’s somewhat exhausting. Some stuff disappeared from the car shortly after. There was a long rainbow cable that came from a mysterious device (now ID’d) mounted on the dashboard that went outside of the car and wrap itself around the roof rack. It can be seen in older photos, especially around the front heat sinks just behind the siren/propello ray. This cable was most likely at some point adhered to parts of the roof rack with small microchips. Looks sorta like something you would mount/seat an eprom into.
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The heatsinks changed after the film.
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Paint changes (raydome/sniffer, etc).
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Labels were replaced, painted over or went missing completely.
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Original logos were removed from the car and replaced (there is evidence that the GBII logo may have been on it for a short time).
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There was an unidentified black box with cables connected to the back of the roof rack that went missing.
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Interior pieces are no longer in the car that were most likely there for filming (a cover to one of the radar parts is long gone. Also the faceplate for what is known as the Astrodata panel/box is long gone).
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The grey hose connector is not the original that attaches to the fender/was replaced.
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A basic plumbing bracket (yes, just a plain old bracket you can buy at most hardware stores) was added around the gas cap. I don’t know why and it looks silly.
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Front deck lights were changed.
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There were female Amphenol connectors mounted in various spots in the wood of the roof rack that are gone now.
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There were also quick disconnect plugs mounted to the tubing on the roof rack that connected to the lightbars. Those are gone.
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A lot of the roof rack tubing is gone now.
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Raydome antennas were replaced.
There are so many changes done to that car over the years. The one that always got to me is that most of the labels on the car aren’t even the originals seen in the film. Some we don’t even have a good record of but know that they were different and are long gone. The radioactive labels on the fan box and sniffer were added after the film. Most likely sometime during pre-production of Ghostbusters II. Personally, I didn’t even know that the large heatsink underneath the raydome wasn’t the original until it was pointed out to me.
The car will need another restoration soon. Sony leaves it out in the elements and I have personally seen that the roof rack is falling apart. I know that they do some work in-house with their maintenance department. It was seen in public in 2014 with a badly rusted rear bumper but eventually repaired shortly after. I just hope that Sony doesn’t give the car to Cinema Vehicle Services again when that time comes.
The deck lights is a forgivable change, those bulbs are becoming rarer and rarer with each passing year… Sooner or later we’ll probably end up seeing a team whip up some LED facsimiles, if they even bother to replace them once they’ve died.
Some have speculated that some of the Code 3 lights have already died as seen in this footage:
Nope, not a forgivable change. For what CVS charged they could have easily had the 4 housings re-chromed and reinstalled.
Of all the changes done to the car a different but similar bulb in the deck lights is the least offensive and obtrusive, and as I touched on likely motivated by a lack of available vintage parts…
The lamp housings being re-chromed would’ve been nice, but to be honest I’d forgotten they were even chromed until you mentioned it.
The lightbars suddenly not working is common. Those have to be maintained every so often from what I have experienced. Another thing about the screen used Sony Ecto-1 is that the brakes are completely gone on it. One of the reasons why you never see it being driven for anything anymore. They load it onto a truck bed and have it towed to/from events.
To me, the dumbest thing they did on that car was to paint the siren when they could’ve just had it re-chromed. I know it’s not cheap to do (about $1k) but the end product is completely worth it.
They do try and get the gadgets to work on the car, but I have yet to see the radar dish spin anymore.
Notice the loose/busted siren in the video above. Might have something to do with the mounting bolt that has been missing since the restoration and visibly missing in the photo in post 1.
What’s sort of upsetting is Sam Salerno’s (Cinema Vehicle Services shop manager) claim that some of the lenses were simply polished, and not all of them were replaced.
“We end up restoring the lightbars on the top of Ecto, replacing the lens, polishing some lenses…”
Restore the lightbars? Wasn’t the rear Force 4 swapped out entirely?
I still don’t understand why the Force 4 XL lenses disappeared during the restoration. They were there when they took the damn thing apart, and they re-used the wrong front bar from the spit shine restoration because they were too lazy to find the right one.
