As it is 30 years this weekend since Ghostbusters hit the movie theaters we at the Order of Trinity are celebrating by having a Ghostbusters weekend with at least one post a day over the coming days on our favorite paranormal investigators and eliminators. Kicking us off is Tony Wilkins counting down the top 5 alternative vehicles to the classic Ecto-1 that have appeared in the animated series.
5. Ecto-Junior
It might not be the most practical ghostbusting vehicle but I bet it is the one you’d have the most fun driving. It was built by a group of children who wanted to emulate their hero’s exploits and to that end the animators were instructed to make it look like it was assembled using glue and sticky tape rather than nails in case children tried in reality to build one.
4. Ecto-Garbage Truck
What do you do when you have a really big ghost to bust? Easy; convert one of the city’s garbage trucks in to a super ghost trap. That’s effectively what this is. It was one of a number of vehicles built to battle the powerful S.I.D.N.E.E. while an earlier version was used to rid a town of its ghost population. Would have been useful against Mr. Stay Puft surely.
3. Ecto Fire Truck
Since Ecto-1 was a former ambulance then a fire truck was the next logical choice for a vehicle. Built to battle S.I.D.N.E.E. it was developed for situations where very heavy proton streaming was required and mounted a proton cannon where the fire hose used to be. The vehicle had a sophisticated array of advanced targeting equipment for aiming the powerful proton cannon and was normally operated by a minimum of three people. Because it was a rush job the fire truck remained red rather than the more traditional white and had a single no-ghost logo applied (on the driver’s cab).
2. Ecto-Ichi
How cool would this look in real life? Ecto-Ichi (Ichi is Japanese for “one” so this translates in to “Ecto-one”) was a vehicle provided by the Tokyo police when a number of Japanese TV and movie monsters were brought to life forcing the Ghostbusters to travel to the land of the rising sun. Looking like the love child of Ecto-1 and the Mirthmobile from Wayne’s World, the biggest problem the Ghostbusters encountered with this beast was that all its cutting edge technology was labelled in Japanese forcing them to simply press buttons and see what happens. It probably won’t win over any Ecto-1 purists but you have to admit there is a part of you that wants to see Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray and co. drive this thing in Ghostbusters III.
1. Ecto-2
This is the one most fans would have liked to see in live action not just for its role in the series (which was far more frequent than any of our other entries) and not just because it flew but because many of them played with their Ecto-2 toy as a child. Yes it was introduced primarily as a gimmick to expand Kenner’s toyline but we didn’t care and while some people don’t like it being a patchwork of parts they tend to forget that Ecto-1 was a patchwork job too. Ecto-2 had some notable appearances in the series with even Slimer getting the chance to fly co-pilot in one episode.
There’s more posts to come as we celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Ghostbusters hitting theaters. In the meantime please feel free to view our previous Ghostbusters articles by clicking on “Ghostbusters 30th Anniversary” link in the menu bar above. Ghostbusters.wikia.com was a big help for this article; check it out.
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