Baldwin is on the hunt for the movie's main actors, Bill Murray, Dan Akryod and Harold Ramis, and may even get a chance to get Annie Potts' autograph when she is in the area next spring for a sci-fi convention.
#Best ecto 1 model movie
Hudson's signature adorns the dashboard, as does that of anyone else in the movie who has been around the car. "That was high praise indeed, because he rode in the real thing in the movie," Baldwin says. Baldwin says Hudson, who played the fourth Ghostbuster "Winston" in both movies, raved over the car, saying it was the closest replica he had ever seen. One includes actor Ernie Hudson, who saw Baldwin's version of the Ecto-1 up close when in town two years ago for a horror/science fiction movie convention. In the end, he feels it was worth it, especially based on the feedback he's gotten from other car and Ghostbusters fans. "But to be honest, people just went crazy over it." there were a lot of sleepless nights getting this thing on the road," Baldwin says. "We were all scared to death that it wouldn't run or it would break down. But he also says that the first time he put it on the road, he didn't know what to expect. "You can tell how much love went into this vehicle, and I've seen a lot of restoration projects," says Kesselring.Īll told, Baldwin says he put about $20,000 of his money into the project, but it probably cost more than $100,000. Shop owner Terry Kesselring says the project is certainly one of the more unusual he has helped on, and he has done everything from antique fire trucks to the first production car manufactured by Henry Ford. The Ecto-1 currently sits at The Antique Auto Shop in Hebron, Ky., where it received new brakes, not an easy task given its age and rarity. Baldwin even found an old gurney of the same model to hold those proton packs, although he is still working on creating those. It stands more than 8 feet tall, is 21 feet long, and weighs nearly four tons (7,300 pounds). Fabrication shops from throughout the area helped create some of the "devices," and others were adopted from old military equipment. Indeed, the vehicle itself features recreations of all of the gizmos on top, including a "storage tank" for captured ghosts and ghouls, as well as working blue lights and the unique siren heard in the movies. "This is just a huge hit for us," Byrd says. Byrd estimates that he was paid about $5,000, but probably put about $25,000 worth of work into the project, including body, chassis, paint and final assembly.
"We knew this was going to be big for us, and we had just opened, so we threw ourselves into it," says Cliff Byrd, who owns the paint and body shop where the work was done. Baldwin explains that since the Ecto-1 relies on trademarks, he can't charge or profit from it. That also extends to anyone who did work on the vehicle during its restoration, including a fledgling paint and body shop in Hamilton. Where he couldn't find parts, he had local fabricating shops make them in exchange for promotional consideration (he displays a sign that shows all the people who helped him any time he shows the car). "But now I can say that everything on my car is within an inch of the original." "It took a lot of convincing to get in there and to show that I wasn't just a random fanboy," Baldwin says. Prior to construction, Baldwin spent an entire day with the original in California to take pictures and measurements, a day he calls "one of the happiest in my life." (The original is stored at a repair/storage facility on behalf of the movie studio.) Baldwin is a car buff as it is he owns 18 cars due to what he calls "a sickness I learned from my dad."īaldwin spent two years transforming that original $2,500 purchase of the disassembled car into the iconic Ecto-1. "So when I found it, it was all or nothing," says Baldwin, now 30 and an engineer/captain for the U.S. When I found it, I completely freaked, as did anyone who knew me because everyone knew what it meant to me. "I was just out on the Internet looking for another car and just happened to come across this one. "I had always wanted to do this but had given up on ever finding a frame of the car after looking for nearly nine years," says Baldwin of Loveland. Many fans consider Baldwin's version to be one of the most exact replicas of the real thing, and it almost didn't come to be. especially the car.īut unlike other fans of the movie, Baldwin kept his passion alive for nearly three decades, finally turning that love into the real thing: a modified 1959 Cadillac/Miller Meteor combination ambulance/hearse re-created by Baldwin and a team of area businesses as the beloved Ecto-1. CINCINNATI - Like any other 3-year-old boy, Loren Baldwin fell in love with the movie "Ghostbusters" when he first saw it.
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