First Trailer for the New Ghostbusters Has Tons of Ectomobile
There’s a strange Cadillac in your neighborhood. Again.
Thirty years after the original shot ectoplasm all over countless childhoods, Ghostbusters is back with a new cast, new ghost-bustin' gadgetry, and a new Ectomobile. This time, it's a 1989 Cadillac Brougham hearse, square as a brick and perfect for four gals and their proton packs. There's already a Lego version coming and, now that the first rebooted Ghostbusters trailer has dropped, we have footage of Ecto-1 redux in action.
Understand that the original vehicle was special for several reasons. First, it was a very rare beast to begin with, a 1959 Cadillac Futura Duplex coachbuilt by Miller-Meteor, probably only a couple of hundred were made. Cadillac provided reinforced chassis to custom builders like Miller-Meteor, which turned them into ambulances, hearses, and flower cars for funerals. Cab Calloway drove one of the latter towards the end of The Blues Brothers movie.
The "Duplex" designation for the original Ecto-1 indicates that it was initially both ambulance and hearse, somehow especially fitting for a vehicle designed to deal with the undead. Nearly the entire customization process was done by Steven Dane, a hardware consultant who also game up with the design for the proton packs. The movie employed just the one hero car; the black-primered machine Ray Stantz originally buys is a rental. The studio neglected the hell out of the Caddy, leaving it on a back lot somewhere until the second movie came out. The smoke billowing from the battered Ecto-1's blown piston rings in the opening shots of Ghostbusters II is real.
Comparing this beat-up heroism to the shiny new machine from the reboot casts a bit of doubt as to how good the new Ghostbusters will be. They'll have better effects, better production values, and probably a whole squadron of Cadillac hearses for getting the perfect shot. But will the flick have the same heart and humor as the original? Maybe. Or maybe we're all just gonna get slimed.
