But, it’s not. You aren’t actually fighting ghosts, you’re driving a car with dings and scratches.
There are really two routes you can take. One is that of many people on these forums, which is to settle with what you have. There is a saying that goes “You get what you pay for,” and this works for both monetary transactions, and also with dedication and effort. Many people cannot afford the materials necessary to make movie-accurrate reproductions of ghostbusters car, so they use what they have, a green mustang, blue pick-up, a silver sedan, etc. But they are choosing not to so something truly spectatular, but instead to settle with what they have in front of them.
The funny thing about the whole project is that a lot of people think I am absolutely nuts about ghostbusters and the paranormal. I think Ghostbusters is one of the greatest MOVIES of all time, and I grew up with the cartoons, I had all the toys, I really did love it. But people ask me why I chose to convert my car into the Ectomobile, and I simply tell them that it was the most logical choice to make a something that isn’t the Ghostbusters car look like the ghostbusters car. I tell them that if I had a black corvette I would have made the batmobile. If I had a grey jeep I would have made a car from jurassic park. If I had a white coupe I could have build the Mach 5.
I was lucky in that I had a white station wagon to begin with.
That was taken away from me about a month after finishing my ectomobile. At that point I had several options. My parents wanted to sell me their car, a green 2002 outback. While it fit the right dimensions to move my roofrack to, I refused to settle for it. When I was faced with it being the only reliable car I could afford with my insurance money, even then I fought to find out how much I could sell it for and use that money to buy a white car.
I called EVERY subaru dealership in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and freaking New Mexico asking them to keep their eyes out for a white outback that was in my price range. I spent every day scouring craigslist and ebay and cars.com looking for a white wagon. I started looking at volvos, at audis, at all sorts of different cars. I drove my partially-destroyed outback for a month, holding off the insurance agents who wanted to collect the car and sell it to salvage. I busted my BALLS looking for the right car.
I recieved about $6000 for my 1998 outback when it was totaled. With this money I could have easily purchased an identical car. I could have bought an even OLDER outback and pocketed some of that money. But I wanted more. I wanted a car that would be truely amazing. I wanted my ecto to be good enough to be put in a showroom. So I persevered. I kept at it.
Eventually I found what I was looking for. And I attribute the following success and popularity of the project to the high quality of the end result. I never really dogged anyone for praise for the car. I simply presented it where it could be seen, and the popularity came to us.
Three newspaper articles (one of which is a 5-page coverstory), half a dozen radio appearrances, requests to have the car put on display at local dealerships, requests for appearrances at concerts and entertainment events, and most recently, offers to be sponsored at car shows.
What you really have to ask yourself is how far are you willing to go to make your project as spectacular as possible. To get right down to it, a gold ectomobile will look as good as a gold batmobile, or a gold A-team van, or a gold turtle wagon. To the people looking at it, it will be like a familiar song, played in a manner that isn’t true to the original. It will still be cool, and it will still be popular, but your car will likely be met with much less enthusiasm than it would if it properly evoked the original, stoic icon of the Ectomobile.
I know that anyone, ANYONE has the potential to do something incredible with their projects, so long as they do not settle on the only things in front of them…
