I did it. With the Ecto finally more-or-less 100% at-long-last totally “completed” in early spring, I went out and laid the foundation for my next movie car.

On Saturday I bought a 1990 Jeep Wrangler…. and hopefully sometime in July it will have made it’s transition from this:

to this:

I’ve got a lot of work to do, work that is completely unlike anything I did while building the ecto. I’ve got to swap out the rollbars, replace a side mirror, and completely strip all the paint. I’ll sell the tires I have on there and replace them with the stock set the dealer gave me, buy new seat covers, and generally restore the whole vehicle.

The mechanical parts of the jeep (engine, transmission, etc) are all in perfect working order, so at least I don’t have to worry about that part of the restoration.

Things on the to-do list include:
Rhino-coating the floor
front bumper
new rollcage
new windshield
new side mirror
seatcovers
center console
lightbar
winch
side steps
fog lamps
wheels
whip antenna

Some little fiddly bits that will be part of the car:
Raptor claw hanging from the mirror, combination-lock waterproof crates in the back that store Jurassic Park raincoats in case of weather, a crate with flares and other survival gear from the movie, mock-up nightvision goggles, and my personal favorite, a mosquito-in-amber shifter knob.

I’ll make maps of Isla Nublar and I’d like to build a mock-up tranquilizer gun to store along one of the rollbars… but the challenge I am most excited about is finding a way to produce a very very loud, very very high-quality t-rex roar as the car’s horn. I assume it’ll be a combination of a bullhorn and subs mounted somewhere inside the frame.

Of course I’ve already scoured eBay for all the cool Jurassic Park merch, like keychains, maps, resin raptor claws, park patches, etc.

So yeah.. here we go!