Massachusetts Man Turns His Car Into Ecto-1 From 'Ghostbusters'

What Ghostbusters Ray Stantz or Egon Spengler would have described as a “focused, non-terminal repeating phantasm, or a Class 5 full roaming vapor” would likely have a much simpler name in Massachusetts: “A wicked Slimah.”

And just in case Gozer turns his gaze on the Bay State and a ten-story Ernie Boch Jr. begins a path of destruction down Boylston Street, a New Bedford man has taken matters into his own hands. Ethan Tripp has decked out his once-normal SUV to be a replica of the famed Ecto-1 that has been featured on multiple New England newscasts.

But he’s not just using it responding to calls from a haunted house in Fall River or the mysterious Bridgewater Triangle; as Tripp tells WHDH, this is his everyday car. He ordered everything on Amazon and Etsy as part of a post-pandemic project, and drives the homemade E1 regularly.

Tripp tells Channel 7 he’s been invited to participate in parades and events for Halloween. I wonder if anyone has introduced him to our friends from Northeast Region DeLoreans.

Though set in New York, Ghostbusters has a few New England connections. Sigourney Weaver attended Yale in New Haven, Connecticut, Louis Tully’s blonde neighbor Jean Kasem (wife of Casey) was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and William Atherton – who played the Ghostbusters’ nemesis Walter Peck – was born in Connecticut.

And, if you really want to stretch things, Slimer himself was based on the late John Belushi, who spent summers in Martha’s Vineyard.

More recently, the 2016 reboot Ghostbusters: Answer the Call was filmed in and around Boston University.