Ghostbusters Ecto Magnum

[Boomerjinks]

Photos from the Colorado Movie Cars Fall Cruise up through Rocky Mountain National Park.








 





http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8031/7993803916_c8475409d3_b.jpg











My favorite.

 

[Boomerjinks]

Content links are gone, I'm fixing it!

 

[Boomerjinks]

...

 

[Boomerjinks]

Content links are gone, I'm fixing it!

 

[foxtrot5]

forgive me if this has been asked/answered elsewhere but do you guys carry any additional or special insurance on the vehicles because of the work put into them? I've always been curious about that with show cars.

 

[Boomerjinks]

forgive me if this has been asked/answered elsewhere but do you guys carry any additional or special insurance on the vehicles because of the work put into them? I've always been curious about that with show cars.

Not particularly. I'm sure everyone puts something in the field when the insurer asks "have you modified or added equipment to your vehicle and what dollar amount is it worth?"

 

[Boomerjinks]

Still playing catch-up here. We are up to September of 2012 now.


Since I completely failed to achieve my life-long goal of seeing a space shuttle launch, my next best option to see a shuttle "in flight" was to be present when NASA ferried the spacecraft to their new homes.


The transfer to Los Angeles was our best bet, so we scheduled flights for Wednesday and Thursday, September 19 and 20. Lobsterboy had recently, and graciously, offered to show me around the next time I was in LA, so I took him up on that offer.


Who DOESN'T want to get picked up from the airport in this ******* thing?


http://i.imgur.com/VXTJA.jpg


Our first stop was Pann's diner, which has incredible 50s charm (something that would become more or less a theme for the trip; not complaining) and has been open continuously since it was built.


After that it was a short trip to see the ocean (because we're stupid inlanders) near Santa Monica, and then it was off to the Petersen Auto Museum.


Of course, we had to slow down as we passed Sony Studios so I could wave to a buddy I hadn't seen since 2010. No time to spend hour crawling around inside with tools and measuring tape, though...





'Hey we just dumped tens of thousands of dollars into restoring this car, time to leave it out in the sun for another 20 years.'

 

[Boomerjinks]

And of course











****ing awesome Kaiser-Darrin, supposedly there's a big collection of these near Denver, so we need to try to make friends with those guys sometime soon. Also hey, it's that place we ate!


This was the main reason I'd wanted to go to the Pete, the Hannibal Twin-8!





Obligatory 59.

 

[Boomerjinks]

Dem fins. :damn:








Obligatory Lancia, minus hot chick posing.





After the Petersen, we took on LA traffic and fought our way up through Laurel Canyon into the valley. Danny took us to see the effects shop he works at, where we oggled a 1:1 lunar lander, a TON of amazing space suits from every era and -my favorite- the environmental suits from Outbreak. So very cool!


We had a little time to burn, and it occurred to me that we weren't far from APEX surplus, which is regarded as the go-to place for switched and cables and little sciencey-looking prop parts. Apex is pretty much the source for anything Time Machine or proton pack-related. But Danny knew a better place, called Norton Sales.


The specialize in used rocket parts.


We got there maybe 10 minutes before they closed so we didn't get any pictures, but hell if that isn't going to me on my list of things to do the next time we're there.


After Norton, Danny took us to a pretty secretive shop that he referred to as the Cadillac Ranch (not the place in Texas, but arguably cooler) where we got to see a bunch of really fantastic 50s cars in their original colors. Oh, and the #3 Tucker. We didn't snap any pictures, but this is it:





Then we took a break, rested at our hotel in Burbank for a bit. After that we headed over to a friend's home in Pasadena. We caught up for a bit while Danny got to pour over several Rocketeer jetpacks that were recently cast from the original mold, which was an amazing sight to see.


On our way back to the hotel we stopped by the Gamble House to shoot some nighttime pictures.





On Friday we got up early and hauled ass to LAX to find a spot to park. We then hiked about a mile to the roadway that passes immediately adjacent to the end of the south runway. A huge crowd had already started to gather. Cops on bikes were going up and down the street blasting sirens to keep people out of the road and to keep traffic moving. We all agreed they should have just shut down the road for the two hours or so that this took. Meh.





EVERY rooftop was covered in people, it was unreal.





You can even see the people that have stopped on the freaking FREEWAY and have gotten out of their cars to see the shuttle. What a spectacular and meaningful event.


Then, out of the haze...





The SCA flew across the horizon over Hollywood and looped around for a near flyby over the north runway before heading south to Anaheim.


It then flew much, MUCH closer.





Before finally coming in





Utterly breath-taking. I'm very glad I got to experience it. And a huge thanks to Danny, as I would have never had the chance without him being such a kind and generous and enthusiastic badass.

 

[Zapp Brannigan]

Since I completely failed to achieve my life-long goal of seeing a space shuttle launch, my next best option to see a shuttle "in flight" was to be present when NASA ferried the spacecraft to their new homes.

Utterly breath-taking. I'm very glad I got to experience it. And a huge thanks to Danny, as I would have never had the chance without him being such a kind and generous and enthusiastic badass.

A failed dream of mine as well. as a nerd growing up, I spent many years being fascinated by space travel, and the Space Shuttle. Went to Space Camp 2x, aspired to be an astronaut for years. Never got to see a launch, landing, or to see them ferried.

 

[Boomerjinks]

Continuing the story!


Norton Aerospace was amazing, pretty much a surplus store in Sun Valley filled with rocket parts and fuel tanks and crazy stuff that is perfect for building movie sets of space stations. I would love to go again and load up on braided metal hoses for various projects. Also, we missed out on the Nethercutt Collection, but that is stickied as a "must" the next time I'm there. Hopefully it won't be entirely during the week so I can rustle up a few of the StarCarCentral guys.


Also also also, a few shots from the picture car company I visit whenever I'm out there. The people that run it are so freaking chill about everything, I love them!


Wreck Mercedes from The Hangover





1:2 scale mastadge from the original StarGate, I think?





Not sure if this was from the tv show or one of the sequels, it appeared to be sort of a "stunt" or maybe mockup of the real ED-209.





Original KITT from the 2008 NBC show.

 

[Boomerjinks]

I... what?





So weird to see this in a picture car lot. Have there been any films the featured my home town? This must be different from Granby, Colorado? The only movie I know of that even mentions Granby is Atlas Shrugged, what the hell?


Apparently the gear on this truck was originally built for the "Time truck" in Deja Vu, but it was transferred to this vehicle to pose as a weather chaser in another action movie or TV show.


In the duplicate section of the lot, where there are two of everything!








BANG BANG BANG!





First in friendship, fourth in obesity! From Parks and Recreation.





And lastly, maybe the coolest thing we saw there, two of these sitting in the shop from The Avengers!

 

[Boomerjinks]

Moving on to one of my favorite storeis.


Here in Denver we have a ton of haunted houses. They range in size from smallish, two-night productions put on by youth groups or schools to humongous, 40,000 square-foot million-dollar productions housed in warehouses that run from late September through early November.


Ever since building the cars I've been constantly asked if we "rent out" the cars or give people rides in them. I answered "no" since I didn't want to run afoul of copyright issues and I didn't want to feel like a shill for advertising and selling appearances of the cars.


There was a lot of excitement for what we were doing, and I tried coming up with ways to channel that enthusiasm into means of helping others. The idea fully coalesced in 2009, and I sent out a number of emails to various haunted houses in the area stating the idea - let's take people around to haunted houses in the Ecto-1, with the proceeds benefiting Children's Hospital Colorado. Shortly thereafter we heard back from the owner of the two largest haunts in Denver. He said, "Just tell me what you need."


This is the idea in clustered, overly busy graphic form -





In October 2010 we raised about $800 for Children's Hospital. We had maybe two reservations and we combined that to the money we raised at the Zombie Crawl.


In October 2011 we raised about $2,000 for Children's Hospital. Reservations were dead until the last week of October, when Heidi McGuire aired this newscast. After the newscast we had so much interest in Ecto Tours that we actually had to start doing two runs per night to get everyone in.


This year we took 92 people to haunted houses in the Ecto, the Resident Evil car, and the Mystery Machine. And we ended up raising $9,160.

 

[Boomerjinks]

Cool spotlight-fog effect... otherwise regular picture.





When we first promoted the Tours in 2010, we got a lot of calls from people who wanted to go in groups of 6-10. Since the Ecto only holds 4, we had to turn them down, and this limited the program's scope. After the success of 2011, we decided to bring in other Halloween-relevant cars into the mix for "overflow convoys." If we had a reservation with more than 4 people, we brought in the Resident Evil car. If we had more than 8, we'd bring in the Mystery Machine.





For 2013 each car will be available independently - we won't have as much fun convoying, but we'll be able to accommodate more donors.

 

[Boomerjinks]

One of the groups even whipped up some goofy shirts just for their night on the town! I was utterly blown away by this - people were really getting into it!





We had participants of all ages. We had a group of 15-year old who were getting to experience mega-haunts for the first time, and we even had a group of senior UNITED pilots!!








Our largest run of the month - 12 people at once! Pulling into the haunts with all three cars was a BLAST!





We even got some snow about halfway through October, but it didn't discourage people from donating! Of course, people participating in the tours spent less time waiting in line than ANYONE.

 

[Boomerjinks]

And of course, while I was waiting for the donors to come out of the haunts I took pictures for people, handing out business cards to promote the tours for next year. We got a TON of reservations in 2012 from people who had seen us while standing in like the year before. Also, the strobes **** with phone cameras so my little Canon point-and-shoot was a more appealing option.








We were out doing these runs from 6pm-midnight almost every day of October. I put about 1,200 miles on the Magnum and burned over 50 gallons of gas.


DONATION BREAKDOWN


-88 people at $100 per person


-4 people on a post-Halloween, 4-house run at $65 per person


-1 completely unsolicited, out-of-the-blue, amazing $100 donation from CelebrityMachines.com owner Travis Bell, who saw the project unfolding on our Facebook page.


If it weren't for two cancellations, we would have cracked $10,000 easily. Children's Hospital Colorado wants to do a "giant cardboard check" presentation in early December, and I'm mulling around ideas to raise that final $1000, either through selling Ecto-1 posters or possibly copies of the Denver Ghostbusters patch I from the Ecto Tours jacket.


So yeah. It's nice to look back and see that the program more than doubled every year so far. The end goal - the "Five Year Plan" as I call it - is to have each of the cars individually available for reservations, you'd get to pick 5 haunted houses from a selection of 10 in the Denver area, and you'd get the car for the whole night (as opposed to the two nightly runs we've been doing). It would be more of a full-service limo package that last 5 hours or so, we'd take donors to restaurants or bars, and we'd even learn a few good ghost stories to tell as we drive donors between the haunts (nothing serious, just good enough to set the mood for a terrific Halloween experience), and then auction off each of the slots.


Of course, all I did was promote the charity, schedule reservations, and drive. The real sacrifice, as I see it, was on the part of the haunted houses. They let donors cut in line and enter for free. Typical Instant Access tickets usually run $45 per house, and the owners just waived that and let us do our thing. A few haunts even stepped up to the plate on little to no notice when other houses closed due to weather.


Huge thanks go out to , Josh Holder from The Frightmare Compound in Westminster, http://www.asylumdenver.com/Warren Conrad of The Asylum, and of course the owner of http://www.getscared.com/The 13th Floor, Chris Stafford. Without their generosity, enthusiasm, and willingness to humor my dorky ambitions, none of this would have been possible. If you live in the area, please support these businesses next year!





One day I'd like Ecto Tours to basically be a nearly-automatic $10,000-$15,000 fund raiser that we can just kick at whoever needs it. A few people need mobility chairs? Bam. Service animals for kids? Bam. Just, helping local causes or whoever is in need.





I think we'll get there.

 

[Boomerjinks]

One more shot of the Magnums together. Not a terrible pair.





Aaaand once the deed was finally done.





More recap:

















Definitely my most successful charity to date, I love it when a plan comes together!

 

[Boomerjinks]

Last January the car was about to roll over 100,000 miles, so we decided to make it something special and engineered a road trip that would take us to the Royal Gorge Bridge, about 2 hours sound of Denver. We hit 100,000 at exactly halfway across the bridge, and since it was super bowl sunday we had the entire park to ourselves for nearly 2 hours. One hell of a day!











Go Ecto, go.

 

[vonirkinshtine]

fuuuuuuuuuuuuu...

 

[Troop]

I was a big fan of the ghostbusters growing up...I thoroughly enjoyed reading this entire thread! Thanks for sharing!

 

[Boomerjinks]

Got a call from a friend the other day saying there was a rather "marvel"ous car I needed to see down in Littleton.


Did not disappoint!











A 2011 Acura MDX decked out in SHIELD gear seems to have randomly appeared for sale in Denver.


The car seems to be mostly accurate to the movies, with the exception of the number stamp on the rear quarter panel. The door logo is as it appears in the film, instead of the more angular TV show logo that was used on an MDX that toured car shows and conventions. That promo car also had a large side step rail mounted under the rocker panels, which is not accurate to the film and does not appear on this car.


So, it could be fan-made, it could be a promo car, or it could be from the film itself. Hopefully I'll know by the end of the week!

 

[Boomerjinks]

Visited my home town in the mountains last week, right after a pretty sizable snowfall and during a full moon. Couldn't resist getting some night shots!








Aaaand my saving my favorite for last.

 

[silverunicorn]

This is just epic.


Thank you for sharing and documenting your journey!


Chris

 

[Zapp Brannigan]

Sorry to :hijack: , but possibly the most appropriate place on the forum. OP, if you prefer it posted elsewhere, please let me know!


RIP Egon Spengler

 

[fritzm]

I am building an ecto soul...I would love to pick your brain

 

[vonirkinshtine]

The Ghost Busters "special" forces.

 

[FireEMSPolice]

I am building an ecto soul...I would love to pick your brain

20140916_142729.jpg

20140916_142705.jpg

 

[2004p71]

this is the most awesome thread full of win that I have ever seen.

great story and great pictures guys 

 

[Boomerjinks]

So I got to spend some more time with that SHIELD Acura a while back!


[Broken External Image]:https://scontent-a-dfw.xx.fbcdn.net...337_725034357518209_2448674813799451249_o.jpg

[Broken External Image]:https://scontent-b-dfw.xx.fbcdn.net...469_726121604076151_7939697856615247653_o.jpg

[Broken External Image]:https://scontent-a-dfw.xx.fbcdn.net...9044_726122777409367_606370107068196675_o.jpg

[Broken External Image]:https://scontent-b-dfw.xx.fbcdn.net...289_726121630742815_3526592594984747274_o.jpg

[Broken External Image]:https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd....729_726123247409320_5573497740117911631_o.jpg

And of course....
[Broken External Image]:https://scontent-b-dfw.xx.fbcdn.net...344_725626834125628_2397181702297584505_o.jpg

Pretty cool vehicle. A few cosmetic defects but it IS a screen-used picture car and anyone knows that they are never as pretty up close, but it's still an incredible vehicle! The flat black is amazing, the car only had about 200 miles on it, and it looks like the amber light bar was moved onto a different car when the TV show switched to Lexus. It was a blast to drive around!

And yeah, I folded this up and stuck it in the owner's manual for whoever eventually buys the thing

 

[Boomerjinks]

Changed things up by getting rid of the gaudy wheels and going with something a little less expensive to maintain.

Photos are from various trips around Colorado and events where I was promoting Ectoberfest.










 



I received an odd little package in the mail from a guy on one of the Ghostbusters prop boards. What could it be?

This is the cutest thing that has ever happened to me.

 

[Boomerjinks]

I'm sure you guys will love this!

A few weeks back we were paid a visit by Travis Bell and Jim Shine of www.celebritymachines.com (where I get all my replica license plates) as they passed through Denver on their way to a movie car event in Las Vegas.

They had their Transcon Medivac in tow and we just had to do something special for the brief time they were here. I sent out a dozen emails to local EMS heads and I finally got in touch with a Lt. who knew what the hell I was talking about when I mentioned the ambulance.

He was able to score us a little meet-and-greet with a few other of Denver's finest orange and whites! The photos turned out amazing, I'll see if I can dig up the video when I get home.





Everything worked on that ambulance, down to the license plate flipper and radar decoy. And it sounded brilliant, too!

 

[Jarred J.]

 

[Boomerjinks]

Engine sounds here: https://www.facebook.com/ColoradoMovieCars/videos/919255514762758/ VVRRRRROOOOM!

Plate flipper here: https://www.facebook.com/ColoradoMovieCars/videos/919155614772748/

 

[Boomerjinks]

Massive picture thread continues.

Sooo it's been an eternity since I properly updated the adventures of the Ecto Magnum. Time for a megapost.

EctoberFest 2013 did alright. I was out of a job at the time but the charity has gained quite a following of return donors that believe it's the highlight of the Halloween season, so we obliged. I anticipated huuuge growth after our $10,000 triumph the year before, and we upped the ante with a gift bag that included Denver Ghostbusters patches, Don't Be a Monster swag, free tickets to Denver Film Society theaters, posters, and more. The amazing dudes Jim and Travis from CelebrityMachines.com even made several hundred custom "Ecto Tours" license plates and donated them to the program. Astonishing generosity!

Despite my best efforts, Ectoberfest only pulled in about $5,000 in 2013. It's nothing sneeze at, but after 2012 it really was a crushing disappointment. It was still fun though, and that counts, too.

We promoted the program everywhere we could with Stay Puft and the car.


November 1st marked the fifth anniversary of Colorado Movie Cars, so we got as many cars together as we could and took a photo in the same spot as the first photo from our first meet - November 1, 2008.



Not every member, but still a good turnout!

Mid-winter I received an AMAZING gift from an EctoberFest donor. While going on the haunted house runs we would talk about all sorts of things with the donors, and the topic of ways to make the program better always came up since I really wanted to get feedback for improvement. Someone had the idea of providing Ghostbusters costumes for the donors to wear, and this guy took the idea to heart, bought and dyed a ton of suits and belts, sewed and dyed elbow pads, and even did a terrific velcro job on the name tags so people could choose which Buster they wanted to be. I was beside myself.



We did a little bit of shooting over the winter, those photos can be found above (Ecto in the snow and SHIELD car in February).

When March rolled around of course we had to get a small group together for a St. Patrick's Day parade, and of course we had to have a DeLorean lead the group because... Ireland!



Did a little early summer mountain driving, this is Ute Pass near Silverthorn and Breckenridge.


And Denver Comic Con was an total blast. Definitely the crown jewel in Colorado nerd gatherings.





Turtle Van friends (yes, those are the owners) up from New Mexico!

Spectacular costumes. Whenever someone comes up with a costume that goes with a car, we go all out for cool pics.


Abbott, the owner of the Indy motorcycle flipped his lid when Henry Jones Sr. showed up. What a great moment.






World's greatest red. I love that red so much.


The Late Models...


GOBATS 1959 Vespa!




In July we took a little trip up Pike's Peak with a handful of movie cars. Good way to get out and enjoy some mountain driving!


Displayed on the 16th Street Mall. Bandit!!


The Curtis Hotel launched their Ghostbusters-themed hotel room on the 13th floor so we had to help them out with their debut part!


Aaaand Ectoberfest won a Best of Denver award!


Hung out in Fort Collins with the Umbrella Corp. Magnum, yes we have matching stripes!


And even got in a little bit of drive-in action!


Roadtripped out to Utah to meet the Salt Lake Ghostbusters. Their Ecto wasn't 100% assembled but it was nice to finally get the two together.


And possibly the best moment of the year, meeting Mr. Hudson at Salt Lake Comic Con! Yes, his signature is on the visor right next to Dan's!


When October rolled around it was time again to fire up Ectoberfest with as much publicity as possible. We got Stay Puft set up outside the local Fox affiliate and started doing promotions on the tv, radio, and everywhere we could.


Getting ready for the promo


We got 'im!




And of course the costumes were a hit. Definitely some added value to the program!


The suits were a bit toasty at the indoor haunts, but cooler Colorado nights made them worthwhile overall!




By Halloween, Ectoberfest 2014 had raised about $6,700 for Don't Be a Monster, proving that $5k was a solid goal. Since I started in 2010, Ectoberfest has raised just over $24,000 for local charities. I beat myself up for not being able to cap 25k, but it is what it is.


I hope we can do more in 2015 and keep this bustin' train rolling!

 

[Zapp Brannigan]

Buy used!! Upgrade those nasty old Edge 9000 to Freedoms!!

Only $325 each, and maybe he would strike a deal if you got both!!!



If cost prohibitive, start a GoFundMe, I'd certainly contribute to see this happen!!!!!!

 

[rettoded]

First off, I wanted to say thank you for keeping us up to date on your awesome ride. It is amazing work and and a great homage to the original film.

Secondly, I will Ecto.....er I mean echo Zapp's idea for Freedom's, as it would be nice upgrade. Just please keep colored lenses as I think that would look aesthetically better. If funds are still prohibitive for an upgrade, your current Edge's are still millions of times better than the abomination of the crappy, wannabe rent-a-cop beacon on the new Ecto-1!!! OK before I derail any further on that rant:

Thirdly you are going to need this...

 

[resqguy]

I knew this car looked familiar. How did you like the beer?