Official Subaru Ghostbusters Ectomobile Thread

[Boomerjinks]

This thread will be home to all news updates and pictures of the Adventures of the EctoCar.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYwR9bZntRQ

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*

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[Boomerjinks]

After the accident the Fort Collins Coloradoan took interest and did a short article on the car, which got a large color picture in the local section.


The internal damage to the frame, bumper, side panels and rear hatch equaled over $5000 in repair work, so my insurance counted it as totaled and paid me the difference. I was able to coax out a little more money from them due to all the extra work done on the car in terms of the modification. Local radio stations and fans of the car donated almost $200, which was enough to pay for reprinting the graphics for the car. In November I found a 2003 Outback for sale in Colorado Springs, which I bought on the 22nd. By the first week of December the new Ectomobile was back on the road.

Here is a video from our first test of the lights and siren... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKY9C2__4ow
Also, a video tribute to the first car... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ie1uYznOm




During the december blizzards we drove around pushing and pulling people out of the snow. Our actions out and around Fort Collins during the blizzard got us into the Coloradoan once again, this time landing us on the front page of the second section.




In mid-january we started making regular appearrances at Magic Cyclops' 80s dance parties at various bars and clubs around town. We had the car on display in Old Town on Valentines Day for his opening performance at Hodi's Half Note. We got a permit to block traffic and park the car on College, went all-out to put the bugger on display so of course it snowed...




Towards the end of February, local radio big-cheese Louis Fowler wrote an article about us for the local alternative news weekly, the Rocky Mountain Chronicle. We were to told it would be a cover story, much to our surprise!

Louis with Austin and I during a ride-along for the interview. We drove him around one friday night in costume, terrorizing the drunks and bouncing from party to party.


The whole article can be found here.... http://www.rmchronicle.com/index.php...sk=view&id=628

[Boomerjinks]

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



Pictures taken in... February at Horsetooth Res.

[robbieshonda]

Dish on demand FTW! I like it.

[Boomerjinks]

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!



----------------

[Boomerjinks]

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

[wrxzboost]

haha...nice. i assume your not afraid of no ghosts?

[roccer]

Awesome. if i may be so bold as to make a suggestion to this awesome project, ya need the logo on the hood too

[Boomerjinks]

For Easter, we were invited to a Denver Hearse Club meet today. Basically a bunch of people were getting together and having an easter egg hunt in the Boulder Cemetary. I thought it sounded like a ton of fun.

After assurances that the meets happen regardless of weather, I pursuaded Austin to help me mount up the roof rack again for the day. I got all decked-out in black for the occaision. Trench coat, combat boots, purple tie, the woiks. I found it fun because I sooo much a hawaiian shirt and tevas kinda-guy.

It was quite a bit of fun, and I want to share some pics with you.


This is ALEXI, a hearse owned by Zachary Byron Helm, one of the coolest guys on the web (http://www.evilkicksass.com). Decked out with a pair of machine guns, a flame-thrower, an 8-rotator lightbar, and HUUUGE ****ING WINGS, this car is insane.







Just a few more...











The LOOKS we got... freakin awesome.

[Boomerjinks]

[Sev]

good read sounds like fun...

[Boomerjinks]

CU SPORT CAR CLUB SHOW!
Little story about the Colorado University Sports Car Club Show... April... 4th?




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.

[nhluhr]

awesome!

the siren sounds exactly like I remember it in the movies

I just emailed Subaru Of America and pointed them to this thread, suggesting they do a feature on your project for the Subaru owners' magazine "Drive"

[Boomerjinks]

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.

[Boomerjinks]

Originally Posted by wrxzboost

haha...nice. i assume your not afraid of no ghosts?

Nope... just giant, mutant killer bees.

Originally Posted by roccer

Awesome. if i may be so bold as to make a suggestion to this awesome project, ya need the logo on the hood too

We thought about it, but in all the photoshops we did, the result was incredibly gaudy.

HA! As though the satellite dish isn't.

[roccer]

Originally Posted by Boomerjinks

Nope... just giant, mutant killer bees.

We thought about it, but in all the photoshops we did, the result was incredibly gaudy.

HA! As though the satellite dish isn't.

makes sense. still a great project. and as i said, maybe the new GB game developers will take notice. definately a better platform for an updated ecto than a Chrysler 300C

[robbieshonda]

for real.. you need to get an air horn from a train..youl love it haha

[Boomerjinks]

Originally Posted by robbieshonda

for real.. you need to get an air horn from a train..youl love it haha

I've seen videos of that sort of thing. RIDICULOUSLY powerful. Maybe not this car... maybe when we build our Optimus Prime replica... hmmm.

[turbokonejo]

I Ain't afraid of no ghost

[LastResort]

That's pretty ****ing awesome.

[CF-Ninja]

wow! I am a huge GB geek as well. I would totally rock that thing.

[cppchrisdh]

great car!!!!!!!

[kennyvb]

neat.

[Hanger]

Originally Posted by LastResort

That's pretty ****ing awesome.

+1

God!! i love Ghostbuster when i was a kid!!! Still get excited when i see the movie rerun too!!!

[gmodc7]

umm...ghost ride the whip? haha, thats cool!