The Mindel family garage may have the most unique collection of vehicles in B.C., even though most of the cars and trucks are mass-produced American vehicles from the 70s and 80s.
The Lower Mainland farmers turned their interests into a collection and that collection into a new business with one of the most accurate/wild names: . The name is about as big as their collection, which includes the actual Mirthmobile (a 1977 AMC Pacer) from Wayne's World, a replica of the Firebird in Smokey and the Bandit which was owned by Burt Reynolds and, of course, a screen accurate Back to the Future time machine made out of a Delorean.
Family passions
The Mindels have always been a car family says Brandon Mindel, 29, with the family holding onto a 1965 Pontiac his great aunt bought new. It's been with the family ever since, Mindel even drove it to his prom.
"That car has been very important in my family for my entire life," he says.
The passion for cars has grown in recent years led by Mindel's father; that includes rebuilding a couple classic vehicles like a 69 GMC truck and growing a small collection of show-worthy cars.
At the same time, Mindel has a passion for movies going back decades, particularly Back to the Future. He's been to every FanExpo except the first, and it was at one of the early events he saw a replica of the iconic Delorean turned into a time machine. A few years later another one showed up, based in Seattle and Mindel thought it'd be a fun thing to have at his wedding, though he wasn't planning one at the time.
The new collection begins
A few years later, when he was planning his wedding, that Seattle Delorean wasn't available and so the search began for a different one.
"We were looking around, couldn't find anything close to us that wasn't going to cost an arm and a leg," Mindel says. "My dad, unbeknownst to me, went out, found a Delorean and found a guy in Florida who made time machines."
As the wedding approached Mindel's dad let him know of the incoming surprise.
"He said, 'I'm having a time machine built for the collection and it's coming for your wedding,'" Mindel recalls. And the car arrived.
The car was parked near the front of the wedding, and after the ceremony, the newlyweds got to drive away in the iconic car, a memory he treasures.
"That got the ball rolling on movie cars, because that guy that was building the time machines, he had built a Jurassic Park jeep," Mindel says.
And the ball kept rolling when the same guy, Bruce, told them of someone else with a Jurassic Park tour SUV. Fans of the movie will remember the SUV, a Ford Explorer, as the vehicle from the T-Rex attack where the kids hold glass up to protect them. The Jeep is from the "Must go faster" scene.
That meant they had three movie vehicles and it's was 2020, with the pandemic in full swing.
"When you have three of anything that's a collection," Mindel notes.
The inventory
They have around 20 vehicles now, including some replicas of the most iconic vehicles from movie, including an Ecto-1 converted hearse from Ghostbusters, a VW Beetle done up like Herbie the Lovebug and a Pontiac Firebird KITT car from Knight Rider.
While they may be the easiest to recognize, some of the others in the collection have better stories.
They have another Firebird, but a la Smokey and the Bandit. While it's a replica, its previous owner was the real deal: Burt Reynolds.
Then there's their second Delorean, which is sometimes called 'the most expensive Delorean ever.' Late-night legend Johnny Carson was an early investor in the company, dropping around $500,000 into the company. As a 'Thank You' they gave him a company car. That one broke right away, so they gave him another. That one broke right away, so they gave him a third.
The Mindels have the third one.
"We actually have the paperwork that shows a checklist of the different departments all signing off that it's good to go with the VIN and the note 'for J Carson," Mindel says.
Then there's the Mirthmobile. Wayne's World isn't really considered a car movie, but the little customized AMC Pacer in the film is memorable, with little flames, a bumpin' sound system and a licorice dispenser.
The Mindels had a replica done up of the iconic car, and for a while that was good. But then the screen used car came on the market and they jumped on it.
"Now, I get to drive the replica that we built as our daily driver," Mindel says. "It's so much fun to drive."
They have two other vehicles that were used on-screen; a modified Jeep that was in Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull (Harrison Ford actually drives it in a scene) and a cab from the locally shot The Man in the High Castle.
Then there's the one vehicle from an animated movie. The Toy Story Pizza Planet truck is not as screen accurate as some of the others in the collection, but that's because it exists and is not CGI. The truck is special to Mindel as well, since he and his father worked on some of the detailing themselves, coming up with ways to add dirt and rust to the truck without actually having it be dirty and rusty (they used soot and matte finishing, for example).
And that's just scratching the surface; there's also Mr. Bean's Mini Cooper, an A-Team van, Marty's truck from Back to the Future and multiple Bumblebees from the Transformers franchise. And more are coming, including a semi-truck turned into Optimus Prime (no it won't transform into a massive talking Autobot).
Creating the cars
Not all the cars come as is, and that's where Mindel's movie mind comes into play. He's the researcher, capturing images from movies that show all the details of a car then trying to source where each thing came from.
While some cars use a lot of stock pieces, it's the extras that can really take some time to figure out, including finding obscure stereo faces for the Mirthmobile replica.
"I love doing all the research and getting as detailed as possible," he says. "Our Wayne's World replica car, as far as I know, nobody else has the correct stereo face in their car."
Right now he's looking to recreate Elliot's bike from E.T. and sourcing the right basket for the front of the bike is proving difficult.
In some cases, fabrication is needed, like the Pizza Planet rocket and food packaging for the truck.
While it is the Mindel's private collection, they have plans for showing them off. Right now they operate BC Delorean which rents out a selection of the vehicles for certain events, public or private. Since they've only built the collection over the past couple of years they haven't had a chance to get them out too often, but they're looking forward to the chance to share them more.
"That's what we enjoy the most; cars with stories," says Mindel. "Family cars or a vehicle that was owned by Burt Reynolds or driven in Wayne's World."
"I love telling these stories, sharing them with people," he adds.
