Movie Car Magic
FEATURED IN THE NORTHLAND LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE JUNE 2025 ISSUE
It’s about more than the movie cars. It’s about the smiles.
As I follow behind the Ghostbusters Ecto-1 with the movie theme music blaring, it’s easy to see how much joy it brings to the community. Every car we drive past is filled with faces pressed against the windows - their smiles wide across their faces. Even I have a grin from ear to ear and occasionally laugh at the pure fun of the whole situation.
Ecto-1 pulls into the parking lot next to the other movie cars, and several people drive by to take pictures while landscape workers walk over to ask questions. Russ Dameron, the Movie Car Man, couldn’t be nicer as he answers their questions and waves to those passing by.
By day, Dameron is an attorney. By night, he’s a musician in a couple bands (The True Tones and the Blues Masters). By weekend, he’s the Movie Car Man.
Russ began building movie cars in late 2021 - sort of by accident. He and his brother-in-law were looking to rent a Blues Mobile to accompany their Blues Brothers Halloween costumes. However, the car they found was only for sale. The price was right, and the car became Dameron’s first movie car. Since the car had been sitting in a barn for a few years, it needed a lot of work. They repainted it inside and out, built and mounted a fully-functioning (enormous) speaker to the roof, put on new tires, and rolled into Halloween with the most elaborate costume accessory in the KC metro. After that, Russ was hooked.
His second movie car was none other than the infamous Ghostbusters Ecto-1. Dameron stumbled upon a 1961 Cadillac hearse ambulance on Ebay and began the renovations, which would take two years to complete.
He wasn’t alone in that project - or the many others that followed. His brother, Rod Dameron, spearheads the bodywork on the movie cars while his cousin, Rodney Creed, works on the engines, wiring, and mechanics. Russ’s specialty is researching the parts that are needed to make the cars accurate replicas. Ecto-1 was the most challenging because the parts are hard to find and there are a lot of details.
“The blue lights are extremely rare to find, and those who have them know how much they’re worth,” says Dameron.
The end result of their Ecto-1 renovation efforts is that it’s one of the most accurate replicas you can find.
In order to locate the parts they need, movie car builders around the nation rely on online groups, such as Facebook groups, to share details such as paint codes, fabric, materials, and where to locate the vehicles. Also, there are subgroups for each type of movie car. There are online groups for the Blues Mobiles, Ghostbusters Ecto-1, Jurassic Park vehicles, Pizza Planet Toyotas, Herbie the Lovebug, Scooby Doo Mystery Machines, and Back to the Future’s DeLorean.
According to Russ, “There are DeLorean lovers and DeLorean Time Machine lovers, and they don’t cross over,” he laughs.
What makes Dameron unique is that he has built all of those movie cars!
Russ and his team have built two Blues Mobiles, the Ghostbusters Ecto-1, Toy Story’s Pizza Planet Toyota, a Jurassic Park Explorer, a Jurassic Park Jeep, Herbie the Lovebug, a DeLorean, and a Scooby Doo Mystery Machine.
Sometimes his cars come from someone’s barn, and sometimes they come from the movies themselves. His Mystery Machine was created by Hollywood for Hollywood. It was intended to be an elaborate prop at the Scoob! premier in 2020. Since the release of the film was scheduled during COVID, the premier was canceled. The van was ditched and ended up in the hands of Dameron.
Every car, even those from Hollywood, need some kind of work done. The Mystery Machine doesn’t drive over 30 miles an hour and there was initially no radio in it, which is unacceptable to Dameron since every car blasts the movie’s theme music as he drives it around, as I witnessed before our interview.
The music is a huge part of the experience. It amplifies the nostalgia when you hear Back in Time rocking out from the DeLorean or You’ve Got a Friend in Me blaring from the Pizza Planet Toyota.
You might be wondering, “Where does he drive them?” For the most part, the cars are featured in parades and at parties. Since 2022, they have been featured in parades at Gladfest, in Parkville and Smithville, and at the Independence Halloween parade (one of the biggest Halloween parades in the nation). Additionally, they are occasionally rented for parties.
However, sometimes he and his wife, Lori, drive them around town to run errands or to go to the grocery store, which adds 20-30 minutes to the trip. People drive, walk, and run across parking lots to take pictures, talk to the Damerons, and even sing and dance. One elderly lady who was pushing a walker came across a parking lot as fast as she could to get to Ecto-1.
“The closer she got, the more excited she got. By the time she reached the car, she had let go of her walker and had her hands in the air singing, ‘Who you gonna call?’” Russ remembered as he acted out the woman’s dance moves.
Lori added, “I wondered what was taking him so long until I walked out and saw the crowd. I just walked myself with my groceries across the parking lot to join them.”
Building and sharing these cars is a family affair. Lori is intricately involved in the planning and organizing of their events.
Russ explains, “She is in charge of organizing all of the events and appearances that we attend. She recruits people to dress up as characters from the movies and pass out candy at events. We have an entire room that is taken over with plastic bins filled with costumes and props that she has organized and collected. She also dresses up in costumes for shows. She has her own Ghostbusters outfit, as do all our kids and their significant others!”
Their daughter, Natalie, is their social media publicist, and, of course, Rod and Rodney are essential to the creation of each movie car.
“My brother and cousin do a lot of work for nothing. You ask them why they do it, and they say because of the smiles.”
I witnessed and experienced the joy of the movie cars first hand. You can call what they do impressive or any number of things, but this is what it comes down to for all of them.
Their cars bring pure happiness to people.
The team has plans to keep building. Russ says he would like to build the DeLorean Time Machine, a Batmobile, and Barney Fife’s patrol car from the Andy Griffith Show.
You can see their cars and the reaction they get on their social media. And you never know, you might just see Ecto-1 cruising to a grocery store near you!
