TWO BROTHERS are building and driving custom cars straight out of the MOVIES. Marc and Shanon Parker have a street-legal Batman Tumbler, Optimus Prime and Ecto-1 parked inside their shop in Port Canaveral, Florida. The duo started their business four years ago, and already have an incredible fleet of cars straight out of movies like Batman, Transformers and Ghostbusters.
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MotorTranscript
00:00 00;01;10;12 00;01;12;12 When someone says it can't be built, we've got to build it.
00:04 00;01;12;12 00;01;15;12 At Parker Brothers Concepts in Florida, the only restriction
00:07 is imagination.
00:08 00;01;15;12 00;01;18;12 First rule at Parker Brothers is if we're going to build it, it
00:11 is going to be a drivable vehicle.
00:13 00;01;18;12 00;01;21;12 Their client list includes celebrities and Hollywood movie studios.
00:17 00;01;21;12 00;01;29;12 You only see this kind of stuff in movies. It's awesome.
00:24 00;01;29;12 00;01;33;12 Mark and Shannon Parker design and build incredible concept cars,
00:29 custom motorbikes, and stunning drivable recreations of the most outlandish movie vehicles.
00:36 00;01;33;12 00;01;44;12 Somebody comes to us and says, "I want a car with some rims and
00:43 a ground effects and a paint job." And we're like, "That's boring."
00:45 00;01;44;12 00;01;50;12 You know, we want to show people that you can do things that have
00:49 never been done before and push the envelope a little bit and create things that are kind
00:54 of iconic.
00:55 00;01;50;12 00;02;00;12 Shannon's the designer. I mean, he comes up with these ideas. A lot
01:02 of his inspiration, I think, comes more from comic books and movies.
01:05 00;02;00;12 00;02;04;12 And he'll come up with these just really outlandish ideas and then
01:09 bring me a drawing and go, "Hey, let's build this." And I'll look at it and go, "What were
01:14 you thinking?"
01:15 00;02;04;12 00;02;08;12 He thinks if he can draw it on paper that I can build it out of
01:17 metal. Unfortunately, you know, it's a little more difficult than that.
01:20 00;02;08;12 00;02;11;12 Everything we build is drivable. So then I have to come up with
01:23 the way of taking his idea and his inspiration and kind of turning it into something that's
01:28 actually functional.
01:29 00;02;11;12 00;02;17;12 It's really kind of a back and forth. We have to tweak it a little
01:32 bit because, you know, a lot of times when I draw it, it's too far out there and he has
01:36 to kind of rein me back in a little bit.
01:38 00;02;17;12 00;02;21;12 But it's that collaboration that makes the vehicles turn out so cool.
01:42 00;02;21;12 00;02;26;12 As well as concept and custom builds, they also make replicas
01:47 of famous movie vehicles, including Optimus Prime from Transformers, the Shredder from
01:52 Battleship and Ecto-1 from Ghostbusters.
01:55 00;02;26;12 00;02;30;12 But the most stunning is the Assault Tumbler from The Dark Knight
01:59 Rises.
02:00 00;02;30;12 00;02;37;12 We had to build every inch of this from scratch, the frame, the
02:04 chassis, the body, the interior, the suspension, the wheels, the glass. I mean, pretty much
02:11 all we could buy was a motor and it was pretty tricky.
02:15 00;02;37;12 00;02;45;12 Now, the whole chassis and body is a tubular chassis and it's all
02:19 steel construction. Not roomy inside, but it's pretty comfortable actually, you know,
02:25 and it drives out really well.
02:27 00;02;45;12 00;02;50;12 We had to add a lot of little cameras. There's a lot of tiny little
02:30 micro cams all over it and there's seven or eight video screens on the inside because
02:36 there are a lot of blind spots.
02:38 00;02;50;12 00;03;00;00 Yeah, the gas mileage on this thing is not the greatest. You know,
02:42 it does have a Corvette engine in it.
02:43 00;03;00;00 00;03;04;00 Because of the shape of it, there's not enough room to put the
02:47 motor in the front where it would normally go. So what we had to do was put the motor
02:52 in backwards. So the motors here and the transmission is actually inside the vehicle and that runs
02:58 into a gearbox that drops down and then the drive shaft comes back underneath the motor
03:04 and back to the rear end.
03:06 00;03;04;00 00;03;10;00 The turbine here, which we originally had hooked up with a propane
03:11 system to blow flames out, but we realized that that was dangerous and stupid and a lot
03:17 of people almost got hurt. So we disconnected that. Normally we can't get over about 30
03:21 miles an hour with it because all the people around it. It's kind of hard to go fast when
03:25 you're being crowded in, but if you wanted it to, it could definitely move because it's
03:29 got a good engine in it.
03:30 00;03;10;00 00;03;22;00 How can you go wrong? This is just one of the coolest cars that
03:33 was ever even dreamed up. So occasionally we get to take it out and drive it around
03:38 and have some fun with it.
03:39 00;03;22;00 00;03;29;00 When I first saw the tumbler, I thought it was just the coolest
03:43 thing and I think it's awesome that it actually has a New York City Gotham tag on it. It's
03:47 really, really cool.
03:48 00;03;29;00 00;03;36;00 If people can look at that and go, oh, that's nice, but keep
03:51 passing by, we probably didn't do our job right. If people have to stop what they're
03:56 doing as they're driving down the road, yeah, we've done something right.
04:00 00;03;36;00 00;03;50;00 The brothers aren't sure how much they spent building the tumbler,
04:16 but how much would they be prepared to sell it for?
04:19 00;03;50;00 00;04;00;00 I really, I personally wouldn't sell it. To me, it's that cool and
04:27 it took that much time and effort to build it, so I mean, why would you get rid of it?
04:32 What, are you crazy?
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