Some film fans collect memorabilia. Others re-create costumes and do cosplay. Well, Edmonton residents Michael Betton and Colton Taylor build Jeeps. Not just any Jeep — exact replicas of the ones used in the movie, Jurassic Park.
Betton built one of the early ’90s Jeep Wranglers used in the sci-fi adventure film a few years ago, to include in his car club’s Stollery Children’s Hospital fundraiser.
“I wanted to get more of the movie cars out to the car shows — you don’t really see a whole lot of them,” Betton said. “So it was either find a ’63 Bug and do Herbie, which is next to impossible to find because nobody has one, or do a Jurassic Park Jeep, which you don’t really see a whole lot of in Edmonton.”
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Betton got lucky and found the exact model used in the movie: a 1992 Jeep Wrangler Sahara in Sand Biege.
According to a fan site, the model is rare because 1992 was the only year that specific colour was produced and it was only available on the Sahara package.
“So I didn’t really have to repaint the Jeep all that much,” he said, explaining he got the vehicle as close to the movie specs as possible.
“All I really had to do was sand it down, get rid of a little bit of glue and stuff like that, do a little bit of rust repair, do the stripes and decals for it, and then, of course, change the soft top.”
The process took about five months to do on evenings and weekends, with the help of friends and family. In the end, Jeep #18 helped to raise $1,000 for the Stollery.
Colton Taylor has been a fan of Jurassic Park ever since it came out when he was in Grade 1. When he found out about Michael Betton’s Jeep via a Facebook post, he knew he had to build one too. He tracked Betton down and they got to work on Jeep #29.
If Betton’s build was easy, Taylor’s was anything but.
“It was a complete, full rebuild. A real undertaking,” Taylor said. Not only was the Jeep the wrong colour — hunter green instead of beige — but it was consumed by rust.
“Once we took off the trim and started dealing with the fenders and what not, it was a nightmare with all the rust.”
He bought the vehicle for $3,500 and put another $4,000 into it. Taylor and Betton started working on the vehicle in January of this year and finished last month.
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“We had to get a lot of friends involved to weld up patches and we did a lot of fibreglass and bondo. There were a lot of hidden demons in this one that we didn’t know about at first until we started working on it, taking it apart and it was like, ‘oh no!'” Taylor laughed.
The vehicle required some engine work and and other repairs. With some help they repainted the body, replaced the winch, stripped and repainted the tire rims, rewired the electrical and installed new rear fog lights — which turned out to be more difficult than first expected.
“Those are a highly collectable item that I found in Nevada actually, sealed from 30 years ago. They cost a fair bit, but that was a detail that all the Jeeps in the movie had and that was a difficult item to find, but thankfully I got lucky.”
Taylor said all the hard work is worth it when he sees people’s reaction to the Jeep. “Just a happy, fun reaction. Puts a smile on people’s face. They think it’s really fun, they like to ask for a ride, they want pictures, take videos and stuff.
“It’s really been quite a fun endeavour.”
The 1993 film tells the story of a fictional dinosaur theme park set to open off the coast of Costa Rica. After the death of an employee killed by a velociraptor, two paleontologists and a chaos theorist are flown in to assess the safety of Jurassic Park. During a preview tour, the facility suffers a major power breakdown that allows its cloned dinosaurs to run amok.
The two Jeeps built by Taylor and Betton are featured in a pivotal scene in which the visitors (and the audience) get their first stunning view of a dinosaur.
The film is considered a cinematic masterpiece for its seamless integration of new CGI technology and animatronic special effects. The film won three Academy Awards, including for best visual effects.
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