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.

PROGRESS!! Didn't get NEARLY as much done as I'd wanted. Grr.

However...


Got the rollbars painted. Pretty much 98% of these will be covered, but if anyone looks closely at the seams, they'll see a nice red rollcage.


Sanding down the pits and dents on these very very old wheels. Smoothed it out for primer.


After two coats of primer and a single coat of red. I need to wait til morning and sand down some cracks on the edges of the other two wheels before I can get red on them


These are going to look so UNBELIEVABLY badass!

These wheels will be fitted with brand-new BF Goodrich tires and mounted on the jeep this saturday.

SO CLOSE!

Got them today... about $200 worth of 3-color vinyl, with paid labor to plot and vector out the numbers. Quite a bit of money, but they are soooooo pretty, and sooooo big!

I also scored 5 tires with the correct wheels.

I have tomorrow off, and HUGE to-do list!

-Shop for rollbar covers
-Get crap tires off of wheels
-Paint wheels
-Buy new tires
-Put new tires on shiny red wheels
-Paint fenders
-Put all old tires and wheels on Craigslist

If I have time and Chad lets me use his lift...
-Take old rear flares off
-Attach new flares
-Take off old tires and replace with shiny red ones

Here's hoping it's not a million degrees again!

Another update. Spent the afternoon wandering around a junkyard off I-25 in 100-degree heat... and found exactly what I needed!





It's green, and cost about $200, which I am glad to shell out for an important piece of safety equipment. It is from 1995 Wrangler, and almost fits the old rollcages mounts perfectly. We'll have to cut out like 1/8th of an inch on the holes. The white spars that connect the cage to the windshield are from the Jeeps original rollbars. I am going to paint everything, and then cover it with tan padding just like the jeep in the movie. I am going to miss not having ANYTHING over my head while in that jeep. I suppose I can still take them off from time-to-time and crash through a fallen tree while being chased by a t-rex, jeff goldblum making me angry by leaning on the stick...

Should I paint the rollbars gray, black, or red? Or should I just leave them.... green and white? Hmmmm.

I also managed to score these:

I was ready to settle for not having the steps on the jeep, but seeing as how I'm a member of PROPTOPIA and not just some other prop forum, I'd go ahead and find myself a pair of reinforced sidesteps.

They are going to be a pain in the ass to mount, but they will look awesome.

Graphics (logos and stuff) should be done tomorrow morning.

Tiny update.

Got all the parts save for the fender flares attached last night. The jeep is looking newer and newer.


At work, going through boxes of new toys!


That nw windshield seal (the great big black one at the bottom) really makes a difference. The original was unbelievably corroded, and then it was covered in red paint. It had to go. Notice the new intake grill, restored sprayers, and detailed bolts. It seems I forgot to include the new hood tie-downs, as well.


The whole set-up. New lights, hood tie-downs, bumper horns... can't wait to get that second mirror on there!

The restored bumper, bumper cover, with new corner horns. The little jeep logo look brand. fucking. new. It's ridonkulous.


Left mirror (of which I have two), painted and good to go.


It's a nice accent, don't you think?


Very. Very. Red.

Awesome.

Update time!

Today was spent coating the interior of the jeep, covering up as much white as possible. I also had the windshield replaced, so the car is now borderline street legal.


Current state. New fender flares and rubber cowl seal are on their way from Quadtratec.


Pretty black trim that I treated and repainted today. It was certainly NOT black and shiny when I started.


I absolutely love the contrast between the windshield and.... everything! I need to fix up the interior door panels and reinstall them, so what you see is the white metal door. Also, the dash cleaned up very nicely, no need to replace the dash like I though I'd have to.


Ahhh, new interior! Coated and sealed to a semi-flat black. No rust, and easy to wash out

I also called Jeeps Unlimited down in Erie and found a new box-style set of rollbars, as well as a pair of Sierra Edition sidesteps. So it's looking like this jeep will be very, very close to the original.

Well, the paint job is done. I have some wicked orange peel texture in front of the windshield and two or three runs which I'll have to wet-sand down this weekend... but other than that, the hard part is over!

Masked and ready to go. I spent so much time figuring out ratios for the stripes size, and laying under the wheels with a protractor trying to get the angles just right. Goddamn!


End result. It's not perfect, but it is a VERY pretty 17-year old Jeep!


The shiny new paint job is complimented by the brand-new lighting gear that came with it. On the jeeps in the movie, there is a small orange light above the main tail lights. I am debating whether or not I should forgo that and instead outfit the rear lights with little protective cages. As of now, they'll stay as-is simply because they look so good.


Back at home after a rather interesting 3-mile night drive. The bolts on the hood are temporary until I get around to painting them flat black.


Handsome stripes.


Tomorrow looks like it will be spent wetsanding and prepping the inside of the jeep for rhino coating. I may also drop off the vector art for the logos at the shop where I got my Ghostbuster graphics.

Looks like priming is done... we'll start painting tomorrow!

Current status of the Jeep:





We'll fix some bondo damage tonight, and prime it tomorrow... it's weird actually being on schedulue for a project O.o