| Ab. Velasco | |
| National Post |
|
Ian R's fire-engine red Gran Torino is parked at the Silver City cinema entrance of Yorkdale Mall, next to a poster for the upcoming movie Starsky & Hutch. Shoppers and moviegoers pause on their way by, staring back and forth between the car in the mall and the one on the poster.
Sam Costa gets up close and examines the distinctive white stripe that smoothly curves from the roof down and along the side of the car. He turns to Ian and asks, "Is this the real thing?"
"It's just a replica," a beaming Ian responds, but he could hardly be prouder if he had the real car.
The Montrealer is here at the request of Warner Bros., the studio behind this Friday's tongue-in-cheek movie adaptation of that '70s show. As part of its promotion, the studio searched for replicas of the show's signature vehicle. Ian's was on display at www.starskytorino.com and led to a meeting with Warner Bros. Having already displayed his car in Montreal, Barrie, Ont., and Syracuse, N.Y., he was keen to make the trek down the 401 last weekend.
The 38-year-old printer's Gran Torino was an obsessive labour of love. In the spring of 2000, he found the car in a body shop and purchased it for $800. "It was in good condition -- very little rust. It was medium metallic brown, and the original interior was beige," he recalls.
Working only with photographs he snapped from his TV screen and an old poster from the show, he meticulously recreated the car over the course of a year. He even changed the original straight-spoke steering wheel to a bent-spoke to better match the show's model.
Some parts of the entire package were hard to come by, which led Ian on a scavenger hunt through eBay and flea markets. Some of his prize purchases include a deluxe dome light from e-Bay for $40 and the federal fireball at a flea market for $15.
Of course, all this passion and precision weren't intended for the general public, and he was enthused in 2002 when he heard the movie was in production. Now, everyone's noticing his attention to detail.
"Now that the movie is coming out, I get looks," he says. "People honk at me."
He's also made a decent return on his investment. There are only 200 known Gran Torino replicas on the road today, and on eBay last week one was fetching bids of US$30,300 three hours before the close. Ian, who plans to attend the Starsky & Hutch reunion this June in Pennsylvania, insists that money will never sway him. "I put so much work into it, and it's a reasonably good driver."
He has seen the new film and likes it, though he notes that it's more spoof than homage. But such incidentals as plot and acting will always be mere frills for him.
"The car definitely made the show. The writing was poor at best, and
the plot lines were ridiculous. There was chemistry between the two actors.
But the vehicle -- it was really unique."