Needs some suspension work and shocks. Brakes, brake pads, lining, steering box, transmission, rear-end.

September 19, 2010 4:10 PM

Ecto-1 A community dedicated to the discovery, creation and preservation of one of the most beloved movie cars of all time, Ghostbuster's (1984) Ecto-1. This site will be a useful tool for Ecto-1 Builders and collectors by providing rare photographic reference and knowledge from Ecto-1 Owners and builders.
posted by Fizz (20 comments total)

OOOOHHHHHHHHHHH! Favorited!
posted by piratebowling at 4:21 PM on September 19, 2010

You know...just in case you ever wanted to built your own.
posted by Fizz at 4:25 PM on September 19, 2010

Here's mine.
posted by anazgnos at 4:25 PM on September 19, 2010

Love the title.

Only $4800.

Also new rings, mufflers, a little wiring. :)
posted by zarq at 4:43 PM on September 19, 2010 [1 favorite]

You can't park that here!
posted by starman at 4:56 PM on September 19, 2010 [3 favorites]

Yet another thing that singlehandedly justifies the existence of the Internet!

Oh, I love living in the future!
posted by Michael Roberts at 5:11 PM on September 19, 2010

It was a hearse, wasn't it?
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 5:35 PM on September 19, 2010

Something that classic comedies (and movies of all stripes I guess, but I'm thinking about comedies here, primarily) do that others, especially now, seem to forget to do is to think creatively enough to come up with iconographic imagery. Obviously Ghostbusters had more room to spare in that regard, being high-budget and high-concept, but think about it. 26 years later, all you have to say is "Ecto-1" and people vividly remember the converted hearse (how perfect for a movie about ghosts?) painted white and covered with mad-science-type equipment (how perfect for the movie's tone?) and get all nostalgic for it. It's not particularly important to the movie's plot, but it is hugely important to the film's world and staying-power.

Zemeckis did the same thing a year later with the Delorean in Back to the Future (and then with almost every aspect of Who Framed Roger Rabbit only three years after that. Seriously, Zemeckis has been on a downward slide for a long time, but the man was a fucking wizard of iconography in his heyday.) Today, though, it's virtually absent in comedic films. Mike Judge does it a bit (TPS Reports, the red swingline stapler, Brawndo) and Tarantino obviously does it in spades, but his movies are harder to define by genre.

No, it seems now, that like with most great things about films past, the talent has just moved to television. Maybe it's that the images have more time to build weight, or maybe that's just where the best minds are working now, but the great comic iconography is in tv now.

Arrested Development - the Stair Car, GOB's segway, Lindsay's "SLUT" shirt, etc.
The Simpsons - Kwik-E-Mart, "Krusty"-branded everything, yellow-face underbite design
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia - Green Man, Mac's sleeveless shirts, uncountable recurring characters only known by offensive nicknames or vague identifiers
The Office (U.S.) - Dwight's bobblehead, Meredith's accidental/drunken flashing, too many tiny consistent details about Dunder Mifflin to mention

Maybe I'm wrong, but are there comedy films out there today that give this kind of attention to details that act as such powerful synecdoches for the individual characters and the worlds they inhabit? I don't get to the movies as much as I used to.
posted by Navelgazer at 5:38 PM on September 19, 2010 [7 favorites]

> It was a hearse, wasn't it?

Pretty sure it was an ambulance (especially with the sirens). It wasn't until the 1970s that ambulances were built off of full sized truck platforms.
posted by Burhanistan at 5:39 PM on September 19, 2010 [1 favorite]

Tarantino obviously does it in spades

I'd argue he mostly takes previously defined iconographies and uses them in new context.
posted by piratebowling at 5:54 PM on September 19, 2010

I frequently see this Ecto-1-esque vehicle parked in Park Slope.
posted by Sticherbeast at 6:05 PM on September 19, 2010

Oh, man, sticherbeast, I forgot about that thing! I've always wondered who drove it, and how much business they got, and whether they were complete whackjobs.

Maybe it's you?
posted by Jon_Evil at 6:43 PM on September 19, 2010

"Premakes" Ghost Busters (1954)
posted by inconsequentialist at 7:30 PM on September 19, 2010

My sister made a first trip to the United States a year or so ago, and my family and I eagerly waited for the photographs she promised to send back, wondering what she was going to see. When she arrived in New York on the first day, what were the landmarks she went straight out to photograph? The Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge, Central Park, Times Square? Did she head straight to MoMA, the Ellis Island museum, the Empire State building?

None of the above.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 9:40 PM on September 19, 2010 [2 favorites]

Your honor, ladies and gentlemen of the audience, I don't think it's fair to call my clients frauds, OK so the blackout was a big problem with everybody OK, I got stuck in a elevator for two hours and I had to make the whole time, but I don't blame them, 'cause this one time I turned into a dog and they helped me. Thank you.
posted by Sutekh at 12:43 AM on September 20, 2010 [1 favorite]

One of my favourite movies of all time. Growing up atheist in a catholic family, Dr. Peter Venkman was my role-model...
posted by alvarete at 2:49 AM on September 20, 2010

My wife was an EMT in the 70s-80s and fondly remembers Cadillac ambulances. The low ceiling height made it easy to brace yourself when doing CPR. Today's ambulances are just trucks with large spaces and high ceilings, it's just not the same.
posted by tommasz at 6:09 AM on September 20, 2010

I've always dreamed, that if I ever became fantastically rich, one of the things I'd do was build working replicas of all my favorite movie cars: Ecto-1, the Delorean, Max's V8 Interceptor (and the awesome camel powered 4x4 from Beyond Thunderdome), the Blues Mobile, hell, even the Cherry 2000 Mustang.

I think I love the idea of someone coming over and seeing, not row after row of exotic high end performance cars, but beat up old machines with dents and stuff wired all over them. There is something really appealing about that to me.
posted by quin at 8:25 AM on September 20, 2010 [1 favorite]

According to the blurb next to the "Ghostbusters" Ambulance in the Haynes Motor Museum, that type of vehicle was commonly used as a hearse and as an ambulance. It said, in fact, that many times the same vehicle was used as both, and wikipedia (Combination Car) seems to bear this out.
posted by mjg123 at 2:06 PM on September 20, 2010

It said, in fact, that many times the same vehicle was used as both

Well this adds to 911 Is A Joke. Flava Flav: automotive historian.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 2:41 PM on September 20, 2010