Above: It’s wired, piped, and jammed with
gadgets, but the engine is only a shade of
the Cadillac 390 V8 that would have been
placed under the hood in 1959; maybe
the demands of production dictated more
modern equipment —a distinct possibility.
Above right: ;e Ecto’s dash is decently
detailed with a few Hollywood add-ons
that check out against video we’ve seen
of the real car on a promo tour. You can
almost hear that wailing siren.
Above: A pair of jump seats and row after
row of F/X electronics jam the rear section, and those tracks hold the removable
gurney in place.
Below: Wild fins, two-tone paint, all the
hard ware we remember—and under it all,
a nicely done, perfectly scaled model of a
classic coach. We can’t wait to see where
this mold set goes next.
onto the car into precisely placed
holes.
;e most impressive thing
about the model is its foundation.
;is thing scales exactly to 1: 18,
unlike prior releases of a few
years ago, and we were taken
by the quality of its execution.
;e chrome is very good, as is
the slice-tinted butyrate side
and rear glass. ;ere’s some
photo-etched metal at work,
for the wiper arms and the cowl
vent, and the castings for the
Caddy’s massive front end and
high-finned rear are sharp and
accurate, wearing carefully
etched and placed lenses. Inside,
in addition to a well-done dash,
door panels and seats, Hot
Wheels has installed all kinds
of electronica; we scoured
the Internet and found promo
footage of the actual movie car
that detailed these areas, and it
checked out fine.
;e Ectomobile doesn’t
fare so well under its hood,
however, and unless the movie
car had major pieces of its
original 390 V8 replaced or
swapped out—entirely possible,
given the demands of movie
production—the engine beneath
the giant louvered bonnet,
though wired and plumbed, is
almost completely fictional. Add
points for the soft vinyl wiring
harnesses that run to a brace of
control boxes behind the grille,
and the red boots on the spark
plug leads. Add more points for
the removable gurney—notched
to fit the “Proton Packs” the
Ghostbusters wore (not included
in this release; maybe slated for a
Super Elite?), and for the overall
fidelity of the model’s display
from every angle.
As with the recently released
1: 18 A-Team van, that’s what this
one’s really all about, and it sure
does the job. It’ll be interesting
to see what Hot Wheels does
with this mold set, going forward;
there are more versions of
the movie car still to be done
(they’ve already announced
the revamped “Ecto-1A”, from
Ghostbusters II). And, of course,
once the movie license passes,
there’s a pretty good ’ 59 Caddy
ambulance/hearse under all
that Hollywood stu;. In the
meantime, if you’re a fan of the
movie—like we are—this one’s
a no-brainer, and it’s available
virtually everywhere on the
planet. So ... who you gonna call?
Shu;e
Early in the film, a black 1959
Cadillac Miller-Meteor is seen
parked in the Ghostbusters’
headquarters. Contrary to popular belief, this car—which was
leased to the film production
company—is not the car that
got restored for the film. But
once the movie proved a hit, that
same black car got purchased by
Universal Studios. It’s currently
on the back lot, done up as—you
guessed it—the Ectomobile.
Double Duty
;e car that was used for
Ghostbusters is actually
pretty rare—and rural; hence
the “Duplex” in the car’s name.
In outlying villages and towns,
duplex bodies allowed the same
vehicle to act as an ambulance
to bring the sick to medical at-
tention … and a hearse, if things
didn’t end well. Some cars even
had detachable “formal” panels
for the latter situation, and were
usually dispatched from the local
funeral home. ;e practice all but
disappeared once well-equipped
medical response units, based
on truck and van chassis, be-
came widespread.
