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What Is the Ghostbusters Car and Where Is It Now?

  • Halloween
  • Silas Smith
  • 5 minutes

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There have been many legendary wheels on reels, making us go, “There’s something you don’t see every day.” The numerous Batmobiles, the DeLorean DMC-12, and the iconic Ghostbusters car- so goes the list of rides in pop culture.

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The ghostbuster car is one of the oldest among the list of popular movie cars and is still a mystery to many. Apart from the hardcore fans of the franchise, many don’t know what kind of car is the ghostbusters car. From the movie that started everything to the latest Ghostbusters: Afterlife, this car has played a major role by itself.

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So if you have questions about the strange original ghostbusters car, What you gonna read?- This blog!

What is the Ghostbusters car?

Popularly known as Ectomobile, aka Ecto 1, is the original card used for the first Ghostbusters movie in 1984. The Ghostbusters team used it to travel around the city on their missions to bust ghosts and other villains. The vehicle was originally written to have powers including interdimensional travel and dematerialization.

What is the Ghostbusters Car

When most movie cars were chosen based on how cool and powerful they looked, the creators decided to go with a mix of hearse and ambulance. What seemed to be a weird choice then turned out to be the birth of a four-wheel movie icon later.

What kind of car is the ghostbusters car?

The base of the ghostbusters car is the Cadillac Miller-Meteor. You wouldn’t have believed it if you had heard the name in the 50s. The Wayne Corporation bought A.J. Miller Company and Meteor Motor Car, who were actually competitors. With both of these assets, Wayne Corporation released the Miller-Meteor in 1959.

Only 400 models were made, and by the 80s, when the movie made the car popular, it was extremely hard to get your hands on one. Cadillac Miller-Meteor was a heavy car, a bulky machine with some of the longest tailfins in the automobile industry. It was not known for its driving comfort and was not reliable either.

What year was the first appearance of the ghostbuster car?

The first movie of the Ghostbusters franchise released in 1984 featured the Ecto-1 for the first time. But the Cadillac Miller-Meteor was not the first choice to become the Ecto 1. Ghostbusters! Writer Dan Aykroyd wanted a 1975 Cadillac to be the ride in which the ghostbusters cruised through the streets.

What are the specifications of the Ecto 1?

The car is long- which is an understatement. It is 21 feet long and 7 feet wide and was designed with the intention to be used as an ambulance/hearse. The Cadillac Miller-Meteor weighs close to 3.5 tons and is also 8 feet tall.

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Even though it is equipped with a 6.3-liter V8 engine, the ghostbuster car was not built for speed. But, credit to the engine that generated 320 horsepower, the heavy machine moved the ghostbusters team and their proton packs around New York City.

Later the car was modified to have a ladder on the sides for the team to get on top. The rood of the Ecto also had a few gadgets that were not explained in any of the movies. In Ghostbusters: Afterlife, the Ecto 1 also had a jump seat that could seat one person to hunt ghosts on the go.

Is the ghostbusters car a hearse?

The basic idea for the first movie was for the car to be a black hearse. Modifications were made on the 1959 Cadillac ambulance-hearse combination to give birth to the Ectomobile you saw on screens. The original design of the Ecto ghostbusters car had a black paint job with purple streaks running across the doors.

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The vehicle was also planned to have strobe lights, but the familiar white car was later used. Since there were many scenes shot at night, the decision to go white was a more practical thought.

See Also: The Best Car Movies of All Time

Where is the ghostbusters car now?

Two cars were brought in for the shoot of the Ghostbusters (1984), of which one stopped running. Throughout the rest of the movie, the replacement car was used to complete the shoot. The same car can be seen in Ghostbusters II and in the most recent Ghostbusters: Afterlife that came out in 2021.

You can actually see the first one in the scenes where the Ghostbusters are redesigning the car and wondering what was wrong with it. One of the Ectomobiles is in the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, along with other iconic movie cars, including Michael Keaton’s Batmobile. Many other replicas were made as exhibits for promotion, touring, and theme parks.

Disclaimer: The images are for representational purposes only. The actual cars used in movies may be different. 

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