Forty Years After Ghostbusters First Hit Theaters, the Ecto-1 Is Still a Hero

Are you troubled by strange noises in the middle of the night? Do you experience feelings of dread in your basement or attic? Have you or your family ever seen a spook, specter, or ghost? If the answer is “yes,” then don’t wait another minute. Pick up the phone and call the professionals… Ghostbusters!

Forty years after it debuted in theaters to wide and lasting acclaim, this 1984 supernatural comedy holds up surprisingly well. It’s still very funny, the special effects somehow seem more authentic in an age where CGI clutters up every modern movie, the characters are great, and of course, it’s got one of the most charismatic and recognizable cars of all time. You could paint Ecto-1’s color scheme on a Subaru Outback—people do—and everyone would immediately know what car you’re referencing.

Ecto-1, a 1959 Cadillac ambulance converted for ghost removal, is part of the elite crowd of movie and TV cars—only the DeLorean time machine, A-Team van, KITT from Knight Rider, or the General Lee have this level of celebrity. And you don’t need to be an enthusiast with deep interest in the products of Cadillac’s commercial division to enjoy a solidly executed Ecto-1 replica. An Ecto-1 is just plain fun, the kind of thing to have you start quipping like Venkman and Spengler, and hitting up eBay to build out your own Ghostbusters costume.

This example is very close to the actual movie car, though it’s not entirely an exact replica, for reasons we’ll go through in a bit. It belongs to Brandon and Kevin Mindel of Chilliwack, British Columbia, a son and father who have amassed a huge collection of picture cars. The collection operates as BC Delorean, turning up at car shows and charity events, and occasionally renting out vehicles for the film and TV production industry in BC.

Kevin is more of a traditional car guy, with a varied collection that ranges from Frazer-Nash to vintage muscle to an ultra-cool customized ’60s Mercury Cougar show car dubbed the Predator. His son Brandon brought the enthusiasm for movie cars, starting with a DeLorean DMC-12 time machine, and now their storage is filled with KITT, the cars from American Graffiti, the Family Truckster from National Lampoon’s Vacation, multiple Jurassic Park Jeeps and Explorers, and even a faithful replica of Biff’s detailing pickup truck from the end of Back To The Future.

His enthusiasm for getting the details right is infectious. One of the more recent creations in their collection is a Ford Taurus done up in RoboCop fashion, and he points out how the roof-mounted searchlight is actually a marine unit paired with a rubber shifter boot. Along with the cars, their storage areas are full of rare collectibles, movie props, and licensed toys and games.

The Mindel’s Ecto-1, which includes Brandon’s own customized proton pack and Ghostbuster get-up, is based on a Superior ambulance rather than a Miller-Meteor, as was the original. It was also built as a hearse rather than an ambulance, with a higher floor, but during its conversion into Ecto-1, it turned out that space for the rear jumpseat didn’t require much reworking. The factory that built the Superior originally designed things to work for both applications.

As claimed in their on-screen TV spot, the Ghostbusters were professionals, and professional ghostbusting requires a professional car. But don’t worry, Dr. Ray Stantz (played by Dan Aykroyd) is on it. “Everybody can relax, I found a car,” he shares. “Needs some suspension work and shocks and brakes, brake pads, linings, steering box, transmission, rear end. Only $4800. Maybe new rings, also mufflers, a little wiring.”

In concept drawings, the original Ecto-1 was supposed to be a more modern Cadillac hearse, painted black for maximum spookiness. However, shooting at night meant that a black car would fade into the background, so an all-white livery with “No-Ghost” badges and red tailfins was adopted. And, fittingly, the Meteor-Miller chosen was a Futura Duplex, outfitted for dual purpose as both ambulance or hearse.

For the original movie, two cars were used. The black-primered car that Stantz brings back to their headquarters was a rental. Details on the hero car were sketched out by hardware consultant John Daveikis, then built out and tweaked by another consultant named Steve Dane. Dane also created the look of the proton pack, using random materials that fans now scour the internet to find for maximum accuracy.

Underneath the Ecto-1 is a Commercial Cadillac Chassis, a heavy-duty platform offered by Cadillac from the factory from 1931 to 1979. These were intended for car building in its most old-school form: a factory-supplied chassis, with private coachbuilders creating the rest of the body. Sold as rolling stock with bodywork from the dashboard forward only, these chassis came with heavy-duty rear suspension, heavy-duty frame, and rear frame rails that were lower than in the factory Cadillac sedans for easier loading.

Miller-Meteor started out in 1853 building horse-drawn hearses as the A.J. Miller coach company. It merged with Meteor, another professional car company, in the 1950s, and began building bodies on commercial chassis in Ohio.

Quite frankly, this thing is enormous, even bigger in person than you’d expect. The wheelbase is some 156” (later commercial Cadillacs were even longer), and the curb weight is above 7000 lbs before you throw the first proton pack in the back. Power comes from a 390-cubic inch V-8, though with this much mass to haul around, performance is more stretch limo than CTS-V.

A 1959 Miller-Meteor Futura Duplex is insanely rare. Just over 2000 Cadillac chassis were built for the entire market in 1959, and those that were sent to Miller-Meteor were divided into three styles, with the Futura getting those iconic curved rear windows. The Duplex version is a further subdivision, indicating a dual-purpose hearse/ambulance, as would likely be useful in a small town. With the bullet taillights and quad foglights being a one-year-only Cadillac feature, and many of these cars worked to death, finding one to build a replica from is hard. Estimates of how many Futura Duplexes were built ranges from a few hundred to as little as twenty-five.

Happily, sourcing a Superior or back-dating a later car provides an avenue towards building an Ecto-1 replica. However, professional Cadillac enthusiasts likely won’t sell you one if they catch wind of your intentions, as they see it as tampering with an important and rare historical vehicle for pop culture references. You get the same attitude around DeLoreans and Back To The Future replicas.

The Mindel’s Ecto-1 draws plenty of crowds wherever it goes, and was even a parade entrant during the Calgary Stampede. The 2021 movie, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, was filmed around Alberta, and even featured some input from the local Ghostbusters fan community. Alberta Ghostbusters is a registered non-profit, and raises thousands for local causes including children’s charities.

Brandon says that their Ecto-1 still draws younger fans who have been introduced to the Ghostbusters franchise through the newer movies, mostly because there are kids cast in them. He notes that this Superior-based Ecto-1 also has a small part in the more recent movies, as photos of it with a digital rust treatment applied were used as conceptual art for the Ghostbusters vehicles that appeared in Afterlife.

This Ecto-1 is quite literally enormous fun, a Moby Dick-sized monster of a car with a compelling automotive-history backstory and crammed with silver screen gizmos. Just remember, should you find yourself dealing with something strange in your neighborhood, there’s only one thing to do. Who you gonna call? You know who.