Morning all, thought I'd share this, it's not mine but some might find it interesting. Years ago my father received a call from someone making a movie and they needed a bunch of cars ASAP. The car the were after was a 67 Plymouth Satellite GTX convertible. They had gotten his name from a car club and wanted to buy his and any others they could get there hands on. Having finished a couple of GTX's and putting in the ground work required to search out parts, he was able to buy up a few cars that he was aware of and resold them to the movie. The movie was Tommy Boy, Chris Farley and David Spade, and was made in part in Toronto, Hamilton and I believe the Walker Exhaust plant in Cambridge. My parents were able to visit the set during shooting a couple of times. At the end of it all there were two cars left that were properly restored for the shooting. One was claimed by a movie exec and the other went back to LA for promoting the movie. During the shooting they destroyed the rest. If your familiar with the movie they wrecked 3 or 4 cars alone for the scene were the characters hit the deer and put it in the car. My father reclaimed what he could out o f the wrecked movie cars
Over the years he used what parts he could to restore a couple of cars. In the pile of scrap metal was one car that had had the roof removed to make it a convertible for the movie, what was tragic was the condition of this car before getting chopped. It took 2 donor cars but the following pics show some of the rebuild.
Gone is the Baby gate drivers door.
donor #1
Donor #2 on the right
Got a few second looks going down the road with this
That is really cool story as I am a huge movie buff. My son and i watched Tommy Boy waaaay to many times...
I was in Toronto a few years ago buying some parts. I went to this guys warehouse, and he had bought the wrecked 69 Yenko Camaro clone from fast and furious franchise(the car that jumped onto the boat). It was still destroyed and he bought it as a keep sake.
Love to have the wooden gate from the GTX....your dad still have it?
Sorry, no parts left. I remember there was a trunk lid that they had welded stuff onto it so the deer could have some footing while it stood on the car after it came thru the roof
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Sorry, no parts left. I remember there was a trunk lid that they had welded stuff onto it so the deer could have some footing while it stood on the car after it came thru the roof
That would have been cool to hang in the garage! Wish I could have gotten that,
We watched the movie last night as my son has it on DVD. Boy I tell ya the average person unless looking at things carefully doesn't notice how well Hollywood disguises things. One of the first few scenes you see Cambridge On. I notice the Scotia Bank, the TD Canada trust bank....since when does Sandusky Ohio have a Scotia and TD???
I remember doing a Warner Brothers tour in Burbank 3 years ago this month. My wife, son and i were in the "Center Square" and just about everything under the sun was filmed there....Dukes of Hazzard, The Muppets, 2 1/2 men, Mike and Molly, Big Bang Theory, and many movies. They disguise it well. I am always fascinated by the lighting, buildings that are fake etc. After watching Tommy Boy again now knowing...I recognise many roads I have driven on. Glad your dad has a piece of history.
thanks for sharing. Looking forward to the car completion.
What drivetrain is he going to use? 440, 727,8 3/4?
I remember driveing past stansard auto wrecker's one morning and seeing 3 "gtx" ragtops on trailers parked to either side of the road just north of the tracks
I remember thinking who would think "that" green was right for those cars
it was a shade or two off from sassy grass green
first time I saw the movie I reconized the cars - later rereleases of the movie have the colour tint adjusted somehow to make the car blue
if you look at the pic above of the car driveing through the gate at the factory you can see the green colour at the bottom edge of the quarter panel
gas station scene looks a whole lot like the little gas station on the main drag in stouffville - I'm quite sure that was the location they used
I just searched google earth street scenes for it but couldn't find it