Ever wonder what it takes to build the fast and flashy cars that headline Hollywood's mega-buck movies? We did too. So last week we went to E.P. Industries in El Segundo, CA, to meet master inventor and Hollywood car customizer Eddie Paul.
Paul has been building movie cars and rigging stunts for over 35 years, building props for some 250 movies. Our favorites? He created those cool hot rods for Grease in the '70s, the '50 Merc for Stallone's movie Cobra in the '80s. And most recently he built the custom '67 Pontiac GTO in Triple X and the cars from The Fast and the Furious franchise. For 2 Fast 2Furious, he built over 200 cars in just two months—that's some fast and furious wrenching.
When we stopped by E.P. Industries, Paul and his crew were working on the real-life incarnations of the vehicles from Pixar's new animated movie Cars that will be used to help promote the film when it opens in June. The cars in the movie have a cartoonishly shortened look because, well, it's a cartoon. So Paul's team had to cut excise a section of frame from each donor car. For the car by the name of Sally Carerra, that meant cutting 7.5 inches out of a '99 Porsche 911. The red racer Lightning McQueen lost 3.5 inches from a '78 Trans Am donor chassis and assembling the tow truck Toe Mater required trimming a whopping 25 inches off a '71 Chevy dually chassis.
To get the job done quickly and keep the frame alignment true, the team built a trolley system. The front and rear ends of each chassis were mounted on separate trolleys. Once the cars were cut in half, the crew could simply slide the two halves apart, shorten the frame and then slide the parts back together—keeping everything straight for welding. The bodywork for the Porsche and the truck are both metal designs and the toughest to construct. For the racer's complex curves they used ¼-inch ABS plastic molded from wood bucks.
Paul isn't all about cars. He rides Boss Hoss motorcycles to unwind—just like our own Jay Leno. He even built a 2000 horsepower, twin-supercharged and nitrous oxide injected Boss Hoss he calls Chopper One. Now that must be one scary ride.
If he gets the green light, Paul's next project will be a new movie starring Jim Carrey. And it promises to have some truly wild vehicles. Stay tuned.—Ben Stewart
