Custom Car Creations: Brothers Build Incredible Replica Movie Cars
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.
Category
🚗
MotorTranscript
00:0000 phon ok When someone says it can't be built, we got
00:03to build it.
00:04At Parker Bros.
00:05Concepts in Florida, the only restriction is imagination.
00:08The first rule at Parker Bros. is if we're gonna build it, it is gonna be a drivable
00:13vehicle.
00:14Their client list includes celebrities and Hollywood Movie Studios.
00:19I only see this kind of stuff in the movies.
00:23It's awesome.
00:24Mark and Shannon Parker design and build incredible concept cars, custom motorbikes and stunning
00:31drivable recreations of the most outlandish movie vehicles.
00:3502.
00:36Mark and Shannon Parker
00:40Somebody comes to us and says I want a car with some rims and a ground effects and a
00:44paint job and we're like that's boring.
00:46You know we want to show people that you can do things that have never been done before
00:51and push the envelope a little bit
00:52and create things that are kind of iconic.
00:58Shannon's the designer.
00:59I mean, he comes up with these ideas.
01:01A lot of his inspiration, I think,
01:03comes more from comic books and movies,
01:05and he'll come up with these just really outlandish ideas
01:09and then bring me a drawing and go,
01:10hey, let's build this, and I'll look at it and go,
01:14what were you thinking?
01:15He thinks if he can draw it on paper
01:16that I can build it out of metal.
01:18Unfortunately, you know, it's a little more difficult
01:20than that.
01:21Everything we build is drivable,
01:22so then I have to come up with the way
01:24of taking his idea and his inspiration
01:26and kind of turning it into something
01:28that's actually functional.
01:29It's really kind of a back and forth.
01:31We have to tweak it a little bit
01:32because, you know, a lot of times when I draw it,
01:34it's too far out there,
01:36and he has to kind of rein me back in a little bit,
01:38but it's that collaboration
01:40that makes the vehicles turn out so cool.
01:43As well as concept and custom builds,
01:45they also make replicas of famous movie vehicles,
01:48including Optimus Prime from Transformers,
01:51the Shredder from Battleship,
01:53and Ecto-1 from Ghostbusters.
01:56But the most stunning is the Assault Tumbler
01:59from The Dark Knight Rises.
02:01We had to build every inch of this from scratch,
02:03the frame, the chassis, the body, the interior,
02:07the suspension, the wheels, the glass.
02:10I mean, pretty much all we could buy was a motor,
02:13and it was pretty tricky.
02:15Now, the whole chassis and body is a tubular chassis,
02:19and it's all steel construction.
02:21Not roomy inside, but it's pretty comfortable, actually.
02:25You know, and it drives out really well.
02:27We had to add a lot of little cameras.
02:29There's a lot of tiny little micro cams all over it,
02:32and there's seven or eight video screens on the inside
02:36because there are a lot of blind spots.
02:38Yeah, the gas mileage on this thing is not the greatest.
02:41You know, it does have a Corvette engine in it.
02:44Because of the shape of it,
02:45there's not enough room to put the motor in the front
02:48where it would normally go.
02:50So what we had to do was put the motor in backwards.
02:53So the motors here and the transmission
02:55is actually inside the vehicle,
02:57and that runs into a gearbox that drops down,
03:00and then the driveshaft comes back underneath the motor
03:04and back to the rear end.
03:06The turbine here, which we originally had hooked up
03:09with a propane system to blow flames out,
03:13we realized that that was dangerous and stupid,
03:16and a lot of people almost got hurt,
03:18so we disconnected that.
03:19Normally, we can't get over about 30 miles an hour with it
03:22because all the people around it.
03:24It's kind of hard to go fast when you're being crowded in,
03:26but if you wanted it to, it could definitely move
03:28because it's got a good engine in it.
03:30How can you go wrong?
03:31This is just one of the coolest cars
03:33that was ever even dreamed up,
03:35so occasionally we get to take it out and drive it around
03:38and have some fun with it.
03:40When I first saw the Tumbler,
03:42I thought it was just the coolest thing,
03:43and I think it's awesome that it actually has
03:45a New York City Gotham tag on it.
03:47It's really, really cool.
03:48If people can look at that and go,
03:50oh, that's nice, but keep passing by,
03:53we probably didn't do our job right.
03:54If people have to stop what they're doing
03:57as they're driving down the road,
03:59yeah, we've done something right.
04:12The brothers aren't sure how much they spend
04:15building the Tumbler,
04:16but how much would they be prepared to sell it for?
04:20I really, I personally wouldn't sell it.
04:24Yeah, yeah.
04:25To me, it's that cool,
04:27and it took that much time and effort to build it,
04:29so, I mean, why would you get rid of it?
04:32What, are you crazy?