I’ve been casually imagining what a new Ecto 1 might look like of late, and I really think that an early 1970s Toyota Crown station wagon fits the bill. It has some subtly bizarre styling of it’s own, as with many Japanese cars of the era, in the same way the original Cadillac Hearse has the wings and quad headlights. Toyota in particular was making strange, smaller versions of American cars (the 70s Celica GT looked an awful lot like a small, Japanese Camaro), and the Crown Wagon looks kind of like a smaller version of an old Pontiac wagon or something.

CTS-V wagon would have been just as wrong a choice in the other direction. For one thing, the wagon version of the highest horsepower sedan you can currently buy is a $64,000 car. The joke with the Ecto-1 is that it is out of style, completely broken, and in all ways a terrible purchase, but somehow still a charming character on its own. It’s kind of a metaphor for the Ghostbusters themselves being a bunch of goofy has-beens suddenly finding themselves relevant again. Starting with what amounts to the highest performance wagon on the market and adding a roofrack is actually the kind of thing I would have expected they would have done.

My gripe was less about the specific car choice, and everything to do with the lame fake looking ghostbusting equipment on top.

I’ve had a coworker pick one up recently for about 14,000. It was rough, but it doesn’t matter. It ran and could be restored fairly easily. The point is the car they picked is awful beyond reason. A Expedition, Suburban, or anything that is a large SUV would be a better pick than the piece of shit they got. It is petty to say you hope a film fails, but fuck if I’m not already flirting with that idea.

Stantz: Everybody can relax, I found the car. Needs some suspension work and shocks. Brakes, brake pads, lining, steering box, transmission, rear-end.
Venkman: How much?
Stantz: Only $4,800. [$11,000 in 2015] Also new rings, mufflers, a little wiring.

In the original film, the car IS a joke. Sure, it used to be cool looking in 1959, but in 1984 it’s a hunk of junk. For a new business with limited startup costs, that much money sunk into a vehicle BEFORE repairs is really stupid. They’re literally out of cash after their first day in business. But that’s Ray’s character. He’s like a big kid. “Hey! Does this pole still work?!” Super impulsive. “GET HER!”

We haven’t seen the new movie yet. I’m sure there’s going to be a joke about how the car is ugly and clunky. You’re not supposed to look at it and think “Whoa! That’s one sexy car!”

At the end of the day, this is a reboot. Not a sequel. I don’t care if they decide to call their Proton Packs “Ghost Sticks” or anything else that wouldn’t match up with the originals. I don’t WANT the same stuff on screen. It doesn’t matter anyway. The originals will still be considered separate. Like Star Trek Into Darkness compared to Wrath of Khan.

I really hope this movie is well written, because it’s going to have to be for me to be able to get over all these design choices. The uniforms look less like Ghostbusters than Metro Municipal Ghost Collection Services.
Which is my new name for this movie. The further I keep this separate from the main universe continuity in my head, the better.
Which is what Feig seems to want us to do in the first place.
And I’m more than happy to oblige at this point.
I could honestly deal with the new Ecto 1, but I just wish the prop department would remove the metal bars going through the No Ghost logo on the doors. It looks really tacky and no real business would do that to their actual logo. After all, the company car is basically a mobilized billboard and you want it to look good in order to attract new customers.
The packs just look… bleh to me, but I’m biased as fuck, my love for the original pack design is borderline creepy to some people.
Aside from all that, ghost T-rex sounds awesome, and that’s the only actually positive thing I have to say at the moment, mostly because I’ve yet to see any kind of footage, so I can’t really cast any sort of fair judgement on the movie as a whole yet.

*adjusts glasses* Actually, Paul Feig has more professional directing experience than Ivan Reitman did when he directed the original.

Of course I don’t think that amounts to anything, but we gotta remember Ghostbusters was a huge gamble back in the day too. And while I can’t say I think a reboot is a good idea, I’m not going to fret about it. Unlike other recent “childhood favorites” coming back, I feel like this one is safe from harm. Maybe because it’s a reboot and not a direct sequel like Jurassic World or Terminator Genysis? There’s just not much to lose with this. Unlike Star Wars.

That’s a great article Cap! All of that IDW material really excites me, but I wonder if Mr. Waltz might be drinking Sony’s kool-aid, or in this case the Ecto-Cooler.
Speaking of which, I wonder why no ecto-cooler tie in? Maybe it will materialize in due course.