Brandon Mindel loves classic movies so much he’s built himself an entire replica Blockbuster Video store. His father, Kevin Mindel, loves building hot rods so much he owns a customized 1968 Mercury Cougar that has won awards as far away as Detroit, the birthplace of automotive muscle. One fan of the silver screen, one fan of well-polished chrome. To each his own.
Happily, for both the cinephiles and gearheads, these two passions have significant overlap. John Venn’s eponymous 19th-century circular diagram might as well have been invented for their private collection in the Fraser Valley. On one side, cars. On the other, movies. And in the middle, movie cars—where you find the magic.
“I kind of learn a little more about the actual cars by talking to people each time we’re showing our collection,” Brandon Mindel says. Behind him, a freshly restored green International Harvester, ready for Michael J. Fox—who grew up next door in Burnaby—to reprise his roof acrobatics from Teen Wolf.
Parked in a couple of sprawling warehouses in Chilliwack, B.C., is pretty much every car you remember from your favourite childhood movies, and maybe a few you forgot. Mr. T’s van from The A-Team. Jeeps and Ford Explorers from Jurassic Park. Knight Rider’s KITT. Even the huge and horrible wood-panelled Family Truckster from National Lampoon’s Vacation.
You name the star car, the Mindels have found it, restored it, or in several cases recreated it from scratch. The collection is not ordinarily open to the public, being tightly packed alongside a galaxy of film memorabilia and Kevin’s collection of vintage collector cars and customized hot rods. It comes out to car shows in the area: the most recent, Chilliwack’s Village Classic Car show. In July, the Mindels’ replica of the Ecto-1 (the 1959 Cadillac Miller-Meteor Futura from 1984’s Ghostbusters) also lent its charisma to a children’s charity event in Mission.
However, you can now see examples of the Mindels’ movie car collection in the showroom at Stones Speed Shop in Chilliwack, just off the highway. There are currently a Smokey and the Bandit-style Pontiac Trans-Am formerly owned by Burt Reynolds, a Ford Taurus Robocop police car, KITT, a crimson-red Plymouth Fury from Christine, a couple of A-Team cars, and a rare Canadian-spec Starsky and Hutch Ford Torino. The Ecto-1 will rotate in sometime in October, just in time for Halloween.
The aforementioned Michael J. Fox is, in a way, responsible for planting the seed of the Mindels’ collection, evidenced by the Instagram handle Brandon uses for its social media posts: @bcdelorean. If it weren’t for 1985’s Back to the Future, the DeLorean DMC-12 would be just a little-known 1980s oddity, interesting to some collectors but about as obscure as the similarly gullwing-doored Bricklin SV-1. The movie made it a star.
Becoming a star did require a costume change. Instead of a plain stainless-steel wedge, the time machine DeLorean needed glowing cables, dual heat exchangers, an engine bay that looked as if it had a nuclear generator on board, and of course a flux capacitor.
As a longtime fan of the film, Brandon had collected all manner of BTTF-related merchandise and attended a number of fan expos. While planning his wedding, he began searching for a replica time machine DeLorean for the event. Unbeknownst to him, dad Kevin had commissioned just such a car for the newlyweds to drive off in, and it arrived just in time. Of course it did—it’s a time machine.
This DeLorean now forms the nucleus of an entire collection of BTTF cars, from Doc Brown’s panel van to Biff’s little yellow Ford work truck. Obviously, Marty’s Toyota pickup truck is there too, complete with its row of KC HiLites. Nearby, Brandon has built a replica of the model that Doc Brown makes to figure out how to catch the electricity of the lightning bolt that strikes the clock tower and sends Marty McFly back to the future.
Around the corner is a brace of Jurassic Park Jeeps, a Herbie Volkswagen, a Dukes of Hazzard General Lee Dodge Charger. A velociraptor lurks out front of the replica Blockbuster storefront, seemingly ready to pounce on anyone headed down to see what new releases are out. Clever girl.
“That’s the actual guitar display case from Wayne’s World,” Brandon says, pointing past a sky-blue AMC Pacer with flames painted on it. “And this is the guitar that Wayne uses to play the ‘May I help you?’ riff.”
There’s a measure of art and obsession to what the Mindels do. Brandon’s interest in getting the details right on something like the Wayne’s World Mirthmobile Pacer replica dovetails beautifully with his dad’s interest in fabrication and automotive restoration. Movie cars are often rushed to production by the crew, and it takes painstaking research to go frame by frame and get the details right.
For the Mirthmobile, that effort resulted in museum-quality craftsmanship and the preservation of a comedy icon. The blue Pacer sitting in the collection in Chilliwack is a replica, but the Mindels were also able to acquire the genuine car used in filming the movie back in the early 1990s. The reason it’s not here today is because it is on display at the Peterson Automotive Museum in Los Angeles.
That Pacer was given to a fan as part of a promotional effort accompanying the film’s release. But before it came into the collection, it suffered from a slapdash restoration that traded on-screen accuracy for speed. Under the Mindels’ care, it was returned to faithful reproduction.
Currently, the collection has a number of projects in the works, including a re-creation of the Chrysler LeBaron from Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. Wandering through the rows of vehicles—all the cars from American Graffiti, a second DeLorean once owned by Johnny Carson, a pristine GMC pickup with a stereo taken from Brandon’s grandfather’s beloved work truck—the work on display is deeply impressive.
As a final example, take this battered yellow Toyota pickup truck, seemingly menaced by a grinning Tyrannosaurus rex. It’s a recreation of the Pizza Planet delivery truck from the first Toy Story movie, a movie icon in its own right that Pixar now tucks away as an Easter egg in almost every film the studio has since produced.
This truck doesn’t even exist outside digital form, yet here is a faithful replica that captures the form and spirit in sheet metal. With the fifth film of the Toy Story franchise now in theatres, it’s worth considering that an interest in movie cars goes beyond just collecting them. It breaks the fourth wall and brings passion from a fictional realm into the real world.
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