- August 6th, 2009, 5:42 pm#149277
You tell 'em I'm postin'! And Hell's postin' with me!
You've probably already guessed that I am making an enormous compendium of ecto replicas.
I have always felt that ectomobile replicas can be divided into two primary categories. One contains modern vehicles, personalized cars with stuff stuck on them from almost any era, and the other consists of replicas made from hearses and ambulance that are not exactly the same model and year as the original movie car, but close to it. The time has come for us to discuss the latter.
The goal I would like to see accomplished by this thread is for it to be the single-most comprehensive archive of pictures of non-accurate, non-modern ecto conversions on the internet. I want this site to take the place of having to spend hours and hours of browsing Flickr and Photobucket and GIS. Also, it would be neat to have this thread become a conversation about what makes ecto conversions work and what makes them epic fail. What makes them appealing even though they are a long way from the original Miller Meteor. I'd also like to discuss what makes a conversion awful, with the hopes of guiding prospective builders down a path of vehicular righteousness. Car model, car color, decal placement, rooftop hardware, lighting setup, I want it all to be considered!
RULEZ:
- No pictures of pictures of modern cars that are not hearses or ambulances, that thread can be found here: http://www.gbfans.com/community/viewtop ... 13&t=10949
- No pictures of the original cars, or any of the many 1959 Cadillac Miller-Meteor Duplex replicas
- No photoshopped conceptualizations of ectomobiles, only the real deals, please!
- Do not quote more than one picture at a time. This is a picture-intensive thread so keep the reposting to a minimum.
Allrighty, let's begin!
I'd like to kick this thread off with what I am certain most of you will agree is the best-looking hearse conversion out there. This is Rusty's 1960 (thanks!) caddy. It's damn-near perfect, looking practically identical to the real deal from the front.
I would LOVE to see this beauty on my planned return trip from DragonCon!
Coming in at a close second is this beautiful machine. I'm not exactly sure where this one is from, somewhere in the Appalachian states, I'm sure Dan or Ron knows. Anyway, this thing came out looking great. It is one of the newer, boxier hearses, but having the wrong shape didn't prevent the owners from making a spot-on replica. Super-clean lines, very accurate roof rack(though misproportioned in places), no shriner shit plastered all over it, no visible loudspeakers. Perfect.
This car is absolute proof that less is often more.
Then we have these guys. I have no idea where they are from, but they have absolutely mastered the art of presentation. Their setup is far from accurate, and it even borders on being goofy, but I think we can all assume that any place this car stops for more than two seconds becomes a P-A-R-T-Y.
You can't see it in most of these pictures, but the guys that own this car have gone all out with the lighting. It has ground effects, glowing flashers behind the grill, blinky flashies EVERYWHERE. And while having speakers on your bumper won't make you look like a legitimate ghostbuster, at least they give you the satisfaction of having f****g SPEAKERS ON YOUR FRONT BUMPER. Holy crap.
Then we have the CGGBs Specter-1(sp?) that was their reliable ride until it was t-boned.
The Streethawk-style bar suits the size well. Too bad it all ended before they got to really jazzing it up... if that was their intention.
And now we start to move on to the less-awesome variety of hearses. If you've spent any time on the net browsing for ecto replicas, I'm sure you've seen these. The guys that wanted to build an ecto and once they had the box and lights and vinyl though, "Why stop here?" Before you know it there are witches in rocking chairs in front of the satellite dish and skulls on the hood and air raid sirens hanging off the sides which I am sure sound just terrifying with Ray Parker blasting out of them.
This is (I believe) a 1961 Cadillac. I recently had the chance to get one and convert it, but I opted to go with a car I could take cross-country and not have to worry about it requiring a pint of my blood every 200 miles. Obviously the car model has a lot of potential, but I feel that this particular replica missed the mark a little.
Here's the Hawaiian Ecto-1, which appears to be a 70s or 80s hearse that was (somewhat) successfully modified to have 1959 fins!
Oh... oh no...
Oh jesus WHY?
And then there are the people who built a car and figured, "Why not try to make a buck with it?" The cars are quickly converted into (usually gaudy) billboards for whoever owns them. The most prominent is the Jailbusters car in Alabama.
This guy is from Wisconsin, I believe. He's in his 40s or 50s and insists that he is a professional ghosthunter. He built this car to drum up some money from rentals, but my sources say that he was quickly shut down and that the car was "sold" to a "museum." Who wants to put money down saying the car is displayed as being the original car, designed by George Barris? >:)
My general rule of thumb is that if it has to have "ghostbusters" spelled out on it, you're doing it wrong.
Oh man, REALLY close! Fortunately hearses are big enough for streethawk lightbars to work on them.
The chrome appears to be in great condition, too. Here is more info on this car: http://www.sixpines.mb.ca/ghostbusters/
Then there is the acclaimed Arizona Ghostbusters and their ecto-rep, which started off like this:
...is now like this:
And will end up looking like....? Come on boys, we're dying here! Throw us a concept rendering or something? The edge of my seat is about to break off!
You've got the run-down, nearly-done ecto in Texas off I-37, which is now a memorial to the guy who died while building it.
Seriously, how did you guys NOT get that this was a memorial?
A British Ecto, most notably featured in a recent BBC car show... I think. Check PC. I believe this one started out as fan-built but was cleaned up a lot and used to promote the game about a year ago... can any of you limey ruffians confirm this?
After that you've got Kn1ght's OK-busters high-top. I felt it started out a little dodgey, but now it could probably go on a weekday-morning talk show and be all like, "Boomer you didn't like me when I was younger, but look at me now! You ain't never going to get a piece of me, baby." And I'd be all like, "Dayum!"
So there we are. Not complete by a long-shot, but a good start. This thread will continue to grow as more and more ecto-reps are found and photographed. The thing I've noticed the most is how much better most non-hearse conversions look than these. Perhaps it's because hearse-owners are, by nature, a little insane? Maybe it's because more modern cars are converted by die-hard fans and that most of these hearse owners saw the movie once or twice? Maybe it's because a lot of the hearses were built in the early days of the internet, before incredible reference pictures and dvd screen-caps became readily available? Who knows. All I know is that shriners shouldn't be allowed to have ectomobiles.
I have always felt that ectomobile replicas can be divided into two primary categories. One contains modern vehicles, personalized cars with stuff stuck on them from almost any era, and the other consists of replicas made from hearses and ambulance that are not exactly the same model and year as the original movie car, but close to it. The time has come for us to discuss the latter.
The goal I would like to see accomplished by this thread is for it to be the single-most comprehensive archive of pictures of non-accurate, non-modern ecto conversions on the internet. I want this site to take the place of having to spend hours and hours of browsing Flickr and Photobucket and GIS. Also, it would be neat to have this thread become a conversation about what makes ecto conversions work and what makes them epic fail. What makes them appealing even though they are a long way from the original Miller Meteor. I'd also like to discuss what makes a conversion awful, with the hopes of guiding prospective builders down a path of vehicular righteousness. Car model, car color, decal placement, rooftop hardware, lighting setup, I want it all to be considered!
RULEZ:
- No pictures of pictures of modern cars that are not hearses or ambulances, that thread can be found here: http://www.gbfans.com/community/viewtop ... 13&t=10949
- No pictures of the original cars, or any of the many 1959 Cadillac Miller-Meteor Duplex replicas
- No photoshopped conceptualizations of ectomobiles, only the real deals, please!
- Do not quote more than one picture at a time. This is a picture-intensive thread so keep the reposting to a minimum.
Allrighty, let's begin!
I'd like to kick this thread off with what I am certain most of you will agree is the best-looking hearse conversion out there. This is Rusty's 1960 (thanks!) caddy. It's damn-near perfect, looking practically identical to the real deal from the front.
I would LOVE to see this beauty on my planned return trip from DragonCon!
Coming in at a close second is this beautiful machine. I'm not exactly sure where this one is from, somewhere in the Appalachian states, I'm sure Dan or Ron knows. Anyway, this thing came out looking great. It is one of the newer, boxier hearses, but having the wrong shape didn't prevent the owners from making a spot-on replica. Super-clean lines, very accurate roof rack(though misproportioned in places), no shriner shit plastered all over it, no visible loudspeakers. Perfect.
This car is absolute proof that less is often more.
Then we have these guys. I have no idea where they are from, but they have absolutely mastered the art of presentation. Their setup is far from accurate, and it even borders on being goofy, but I think we can all assume that any place this car stops for more than two seconds becomes a P-A-R-T-Y.
You can't see it in most of these pictures, but the guys that own this car have gone all out with the lighting. It has ground effects, glowing flashers behind the grill, blinky flashies EVERYWHERE. And while having speakers on your bumper won't make you look like a legitimate ghostbuster, at least they give you the satisfaction of having f****g SPEAKERS ON YOUR FRONT BUMPER. Holy crap.
Then we have the CGGBs Specter-1(sp?) that was their reliable ride until it was t-boned.
The Streethawk-style bar suits the size well. Too bad it all ended before they got to really jazzing it up... if that was their intention.
And now we start to move on to the less-awesome variety of hearses. If you've spent any time on the net browsing for ecto replicas, I'm sure you've seen these. The guys that wanted to build an ecto and once they had the box and lights and vinyl though, "Why stop here?" Before you know it there are witches in rocking chairs in front of the satellite dish and skulls on the hood and air raid sirens hanging off the sides which I am sure sound just terrifying with Ray Parker blasting out of them.
This is (I believe) a 1961 Cadillac. I recently had the chance to get one and convert it, but I opted to go with a car I could take cross-country and not have to worry about it requiring a pint of my blood every 200 miles. Obviously the car model has a lot of potential, but I feel that this particular replica missed the mark a little.
Here's the Hawaiian Ecto-1, which appears to be a 70s or 80s hearse that was (somewhat) successfully modified to have 1959 fins!
Oh... oh no...
Oh jesus WHY?
And then there are the people who built a car and figured, "Why not try to make a buck with it?" The cars are quickly converted into (usually gaudy) billboards for whoever owns them. The most prominent is the Jailbusters car in Alabama.
This guy is from Wisconsin, I believe. He's in his 40s or 50s and insists that he is a professional ghosthunter. He built this car to drum up some money from rentals, but my sources say that he was quickly shut down and that the car was "sold" to a "museum." Who wants to put money down saying the car is displayed as being the original car, designed by George Barris? >:)
My general rule of thumb is that if it has to have "ghostbusters" spelled out on it, you're doing it wrong.
Oh man, REALLY close! Fortunately hearses are big enough for streethawk lightbars to work on them.
The chrome appears to be in great condition, too. Here is more info on this car: http://www.sixpines.mb.ca/ghostbusters/
Then there is the acclaimed Arizona Ghostbusters and their ecto-rep, which started off like this:
...is now like this:
And will end up looking like....? Come on boys, we're dying here! Throw us a concept rendering or something? The edge of my seat is about to break off!
You've got the run-down, nearly-done ecto in Texas off I-37, which is now a memorial to the guy who died while building it.
Seriously, how did you guys NOT get that this was a memorial?
A British Ecto, most notably featured in a recent BBC car show... I think. Check PC. I believe this one started out as fan-built but was cleaned up a lot and used to promote the game about a year ago... can any of you limey ruffians confirm this?
After that you've got Kn1ght's OK-busters high-top. I felt it started out a little dodgey, but now it could probably go on a weekday-morning talk show and be all like, "Boomer you didn't like me when I was younger, but look at me now! You ain't never going to get a piece of me, baby." And I'd be all like, "Dayum!"
So there we are. Not complete by a long-shot, but a good start. This thread will continue to grow as more and more ecto-reps are found and photographed. The thing I've noticed the most is how much better most non-hearse conversions look than these. Perhaps it's because hearse-owners are, by nature, a little insane? Maybe it's because more modern cars are converted by die-hard fans and that most of these hearse owners saw the movie once or twice? Maybe it's because a lot of the hearses were built in the early days of the internet, before incredible reference pictures and dvd screen-caps became readily available? Who knows. All I know is that shriners shouldn't be allowed to have ectomobiles.
Last edited by Boomerjinks on January 19th, 2011, 12:40 am, edited 3 times in total.
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You tell 'em I'm postin'! And Hell's postin' with me!
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