About a year ago my roommates and I decided we ought to do something spectacular for Halloween. We decided that it would be great to modify a car to match a theme, in essence to give it a costume. At the time I drove a white 1998 Subaru Outback, and years previously it had occurred to me that, as a white wagon, it would be very easy to modify it into a replica of the Ectomobile from Ghostbusters.

This is this story....

In early October of 2005, I went to a midnight showing of Ghostbusters at a local theater with one of my best friends. We'd been fans since we were little kids, and we'd grown into nerdy near-adults with interests in science fiction, computers,technology, and filmmaking. I'm Kevin, my friend was Will. As we left the theater we discussed building packs and making uniforms, then going up to the Stanley Hotel on Halloween and pranking them. Essentially we would run out with smoking ghost traps, handing the hotel manager a bill for $5000, and then run away. Then it hit me. "Will... I'll make you a deal. You build the packs, and I'll build the car." A few months later Will moved to New York and the plans were shelved.

Fast-forward to the following spring. Will has moved to New York, and the task of building the car is up to myself and my roommate, Austin. The first step was getting lightbars. We found the red, blue, and green lights were all incredibly illegal so we opted for a pair of 36" lightbars, which I bought for about $430 each.

Following two weeks of construction and hundreds of trips to Home Depot, we finally rolled the car out in late September.




Over the next two weeks I added various tubes, tanks, reflectors, and the red binocs up on top.... By October the first incarnation of the ECTO-1K was finished...




The car became incredible popular in Fort Collins. For a while it was sort of a myth, people were telling their friends that they had seen the Ghostbusters car driving around, and their friends said they were full of ****. We would go down to Old Town almost every night an do drive-bys of clubs and bars, leaving people wondering as to what the hell they just saw. We were making appearrances on KRFC with Louis Fowler and even took the car down to the anime convention in Denver, where people went nuts over it.

Then on October 26, five days before Halloween, the car was rear-ended by a semi.



*Mr. Bill voice- OH NOOOO*

We used the car to promote our business, GameOn (located in the mall) in the St. Patrick's Day Parade. I wrangled a bunch of kids to wear video game costumes and walk with us... it was a blast, even though we blew our light fuses on the first block of the parade...


We brought up the end of the parade, blaring the siren and music... lots and lots of fun!

The last six months have been quite adventurous. We've become pseudo-celebrities, and we are constantly asked if we are "for real" Of course.... we always say yes



Towing a Prelude to Loveland... an excuse to the run the lights on a public road, woo.



Pictures taken in... February at Horsetooth Res.

Today marked the sixth annual Downtown Car Show here in Fort Collins, a rather large event (six city blocks are closed off for spectators in downtown) that coincided with the Taste of Fort Collins festival.

Thinking it would be pretty fun, I registered my ectomobile into the 250+car show.

I got ready early, suited up and gave the car a quick rinse from the garden hose. I set up on the corner of Mountain and College avenues, the two main streets in Old Town. Asher showed up and we hung out a bit, running over to Subway to grab some early lunch. Turned out that the guys working were huge 'fans' of ours, so everything was half-priced. Delicious and fun!


I managed to find a wide open spot that was right at the entrance to the event, but far enough away from the pro and classic cars that our media and antics wouldn't piss anyone off. This was cool because my car was visible from the busiest road in Fort Collins, smack dab in the center of the main thoroughfare for spectators to enter the event, and not stuck between a line of 1965 Mustangs... good deal.


The car was ENORMOUSLY popular! We're fairly well-known with the college-age crowd and people who use myspace due to our crazy late-night antics, but this was the first time that regular citizens of northern Colorado had a chance to meet us. Parents with little kids, older couples who had read our articles in the papers, and everyone else got to come up and ask us why we did it, what we were going to build next, and to thank us for doing something incredible and unique in this community. I had no idea so many people would actually be thanking us for the positive impact our little project has had on the town.


Austin showed up just as the show was starting. We found ourselves talking to kids about how we really caught ghosts, describing the proton streams as sort of "laser lassos" that we use to capture them, and then talking to the parents about why we built the car, how we did it, and the next car we plan on building. We had kids running all over wearing my ectogoggles and the keymaster helmet, hilarious!


Funny thing, we talked to more than a dozen people who thought we were actual paranormal eliminators, who thought that the Ghostbusters represented an actual company. One yuppie woman, who for all we know could be a nurse or other high-paid professional, asked how to make appointments with us for our services... A couple of stoner-type guys came and asked if we were for real, I told them we just build movie cars.... he seemed disappointed, and I asked if he was okay. He said hearing that was like hearing that santa wasn't real. I explained to him that while Ghostbusters aren't real, Santa does in fact exist. That put his mind at ease.


Our music selection varied throughout the day. About once every hour we would blast the siren and go through a bunch of ghostbusters music, such as remixes and selections from the soundtrack. Then we would play soundtracks and various other crowd-pleasing songs, then filled the space in between with Austin's Rob Dougan cd.


Shauna showed up a little later having just gotten off work. She suited up and walked around with us a little bit, and also helped present the car to more and more people as attendance to the car show peaked in mid-afternoon. Aside for New WestFest, I had never seen this many people walking around Old Town!



Mmmm, grey is so much better than khaki! A half-dozen FC police officers stopped by and talked to us, some had never even seen the car and others thought it was the greatest thing they'd ever seen; needless to say we keep on pretty positive terms with local cops and the like.


Hot buster-on-buster action!

I kept thinking it was too bad that there were a bunch of restored Model Ts out in front of the old fort collins firehouse.... would have been AWESOME to put the car there:http://www.flickr.com/photos/80651083@N00/449552265/)

What we thought would be a "hanging out looking at the other cars" day turned out to be a "take pictures of us hugging half the population of colorado" and "teaching kids not to cross the streams" sort of day. It ended with us leaving by driving the car through the crowd, all the way through the car show and back to College Ave. Of course we ran the lights and siren the whole way, getting cheers and calls of "Who ya gonna call?" What an unbelievably positive experience and event!


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Took the Ectocar up to Estes Park tonight. After being approached and applauded by every county cop and local police officer on duty, we shot some video, buzzed by the Stanley Hotel, and grabbed some dinner. On the way back out we swung by the dam and took some pictures.

They came out WAY cooler than we expected.... check it out.





larger-size images can be downloaded here:
http://i167.photobucket.com/albums/u134/Boomerjinks/Ectomobile/estesecto3.jpg
http://i167.photobucket.com/albums/u134/Boomerjinks/Ectomobile/estesecto2.jpg

So... Saturday April 22nd was StarFest at the Denver Tech Center Marriott. I dragged Austin out of bed insanely early, Shauna showed up on time, and we all trekked (ha, get it?) down to the convention.

Some pictures and a story.... All pics with ---- above them were taken by other people and found on the interwebs.


There's Shauna, my girlfriend....That's right, I managed to get a girl who to wear that suit (which belongs to my other roommate, Vincent) simply out of guilt that she has an emotional obligation to me.

Well, no. Actually, she makes her own costumes with needle and thread and enjoys scaring the squares. Any wonder we ended up together? She's awesome.


Allright, allow me to geek out when I recognize a guy dressed as the main character from my favorite book EVER. It was the sticker that brought us together, though. At least for this picture. 42, baby.


Holy crap! Tiny storm trooper! This kid was probably about 4 years old and incredibly tiny. I asked the mother if we could put her baby in mortal danger by perching him precariously on top of the hood of my car.


"Allright, back up. Little further. Now put the helmet on. We know you can't see, but pretend. Now dance and try not to, you know, fall and die." That's really what I said.


Coolness, the folks running the registration let us park the car at the main entrance to the convention. Hilarious. I sort of take pleasure (or at least great amusement) at the suffering of others, so I got to watch people park a mile or so away and walk to the convention in costume while I got to park in the space between the parking lot and the actual building. Suckers.

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Unfortunately, the only pictures I managed to get of the car were when we weren't being stormed by people with cameras. I tried to get photos of all the people clamoring around it, but I kept getting asked "can you go stand by the car for a picture?" Ugh.

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An EXPENSIVE camera took this shot. "Too bad there's a great big fat guy in the way!" -Will

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Too cool. TIE fighter pilot... in my car. If only he could see well enough to drive it.


He could use a good kiss!


Austin doesn't do too well without sleep. Poor guy.


.... Oh yeah.


Felt so sorry for this guy. His entire costume (save for the armor) was made from fleece. Gotta suck in the summer. However, along with driving an ectomobile, one of my dreams is to get a stormtrooper costume and go snowboarding or snowmobiling in it.


Our only real competition at the con. But it didn't have flashing lights or an incredible sound system, did it? DID IT? We were offered the chance to park the car inside next year, but even if I still have the car put together by this time next year, I think I enjoyed running the lights and sound too much to leave it as an interior static display.


****! Klingons! At.. Wendys.

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Cool picture taken by someone else while we were around the con.


He's must have a great personality, I mean... he's one [u]ugly[/u] mother****er.


We're geeks, we seriously get off on this sort of thing.


Allright, back to what we care about, THE CAR! Check it out. The fire lane can suck it.


I really like this one. Good friends.

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*fan service*

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Giving an interview on the backstory of the car to a 'news' crew. I always make the dumbest faces.

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Picture found on the CBS NEWS 4 website.

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This is a pretty cool pic, too.

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Bidding the convention farewell.

This was technically my first science fiction convention. Unless you're really hardcore into the fandom, there really wasn't that much to do. You could walk around and see TONS of awesome costumes, quite a few completely socially inept people, and if you had a cool costume yourself, you'd get lots of people taking your picture and... you know... blessing their children with your godly powers.

Next up for the Ectomobile, the Denver Hearse Association event May 11-13. Fun!

A few weeks back I mentioned that the Rocky Mountain News, the largest and most widely-distributed newspaper in Colorado, did a fun little article on us for their "What's Happening" page of their entertainment section.

Apparently one of the editors had seen our car and found our myspace page. He emailed me and asked me to write a little blurb about what we'd be doing during the weekend and the weekend after. I asked if it would be okay to bull**** a lot and make an article that is full of fictional techno-gibberish that doesn't make sense to anyone.... and he said that was what he actually wanted.

The first paragraph was written by the editor of the Rocky Mtn News, and is in my opinion pretty much the coolest set of words placed in a particular order about us and the car that there has been so far...

By some random twist of fate, my custom plates arrived on Friday. So... off to the DMV to grab 'em!

Anyway, we booked it down 287 through Loveland, Berthoud, Longmont, and finally Boulder. We arrived just as the show was starting, lights and siren blaring as we came down the street and into the parking lot. At registration the staff running the event were heard to say, "Okay, you are my new hero," "Yeah, you just won yourself a trophy," and miscellaneous "that is awesome" remarks.

We tucked ourselves behind the AWD Pirates subaru row and chilled out.








This is me, standing in front of the Ghostchasers' Ectocar!


Categories on the left are things like 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place for best engine, best interior, best japanese import, best european import, etc etc. The awards on the right are 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Oddball categories.

Bam!

Allright, it's a chinsy trophy, but I still think it's funny as hell.


It is now my goal to win every "non-serious" category trophy from every car show I can get to and display them at future shows.

A few weeks ago I started getting emails on my myspace inviting the FC GBs to bring our car to the Red Rocks Subaru Meet, which is sort of an unofficial car show up in the mountains just barely west of Denver.

Sunday morning I got up early, tossed a bunch of common junk (frisbees and cd cases) into the bed of my car and
pulled back the bed cover to hide it all. Washed the car briefly and then met up with about a dozen WRX STIs that were completely decked-out for racing. We traded names and had some donuts, Shauna moved her stuff into my car and then we were on our way.



Somehow I managed to keep up with these subie beasts on the interstate, at times pushing my car over 105 mph. Let's just say I had to reposition the dish when we got there...

My Ecto was one of the first 30 cars to show up...



Running the lights and siren, and blasting out our GB mix cd, we attracted quite a crowd. After about a half our we blew our main power switch, melted the bugger. I shut everything down then Shauna and I walked around talking to people and enjoying the beautiful warm day.







Over 220 Subarus and other street racers showed up to this meet. I was one of four wagons there, the other three were a brand new 2006 Outback (white... grrrr!), an older green legacy from Fort Collins, and a black Volvo!



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Pictures taken by other people and posted on various interweb forums....













The best part of the day was being told by many groups of people that mine was the coolest car that showed up. I am not sure whether or not they knew about the Ferrari that was making its rounds, though