ULTIMATE Jurassic Park 1993 Ford Explorer (Tour Vehicle)

[Ramphastid]

Like many of us, I grew up with Jurassic Park and it has been one of my favorite movies (if not favorite over all) ever since. My love for the movie never seemed to die so when I was financially sound enough (and had a good excuse) to make one, I jumped at the opportunity.

My search started with initial research on what others had done previously. Although many people have decent replicas of the tour car, very few have the modified interior and bubble roof like the movie vehicles did. I knew this would be expensive so my first step was finding a suitable Explorer to build off of in the best condition possible.

After searching for several months, I finally found it.A1993 Ford Explorer XLT 2WD with tan leather interior AND the original wheels! And that's not even the best part- It was in pristine condition with only 38,000 miles on it and only 3 hours away from where I lived. Aside from a small ding in the side and on the front bumper (both of which can be easily fixed), it is in flawless condition. There is also a tear on the driver seat but it wasn't a big deal considering that was all going to be replaced anyway.




Mine will be number 04, based off of the Explorer Lex & Tim rode and and was eventually trashed by the T. rex.


(so far this is all I have)


Lastly, the hard part- The bubble roof. This will probably be more expensive than any other part but I am told that it is possible. It's just a matter of finding somebody to make the mold and everything for it. I will update this thread with more info as I am presented with it.



EDIT: I changed and deleted a lot of misinformation that came from my own research. The entire interior is custom and Cherokee seats were definitely not used. I've been away from this thread until I had some major updates and I now, in fact, do. This has been quite a handful and a lot more work than I ever thought. The Jeep guys have it easy!

First, I've found all accurate exterior parts save for the front fog lights. This includes Running Boards, Tail Light Guards, Brush Guard, and fender/roof lights. I even managed to find extras of almost all of these in case they were to ever get damaged. The 'Radial' All-Terrain BF Goodrich tires are the same model as the film, however they no longer say 'Radial' on them. Which is fine because I'm never going to even try to drive on vintage tires. Most of these parts require a lot of hard work and dedication to find. There are very few who have all of them and the brush guard is especially hard to obtain.

I've also been wrestling with the interior over the past year. The dashboard, center console, and seats are all completely custom made for the production. This makes recreating them to the proper dimensions a huge pain. Most people have taken two OEM dashboards and just mended them together to make something similar to what's seen in the film. That wasn't good enough for me though so we created something that would resemble the dash in the film as close as possible. Right now, the texturing and color are not quite what I would like so we are going to go back and redo a lot of it. But here is what I have so far.

I'm also having the seats redone (again) because I was not happy with the last two attempts. Once everything is more presentable, I will show more pictures. For now, this will serve as a rough idea of what's been done. I am also having the Explorer completely repainted again.

 

[ambulanceartist]

Super cool! Can't wait for future updates. Looking forward to seeing how it turns out.

 

[NathansPROPS]

YES!!! Another Explorer Build! Cant wait to see the progress photos!

 

[Mike J.]

This is one of my wildest, win-the-lottery fantasies... Every time I see a Ford Explorer of about the right age, I scope it for the correct wheels.

Best of luck to you!

...Though I am a little curious as to why you chose to wrap the whole car, rather than getting it painted and just adding cut vinyl logos and stripes. Was it cheaper? Are you drawing the art yourself?


-MJ

 

[Ramphastid]

According to the people I talked to it was the best way to maintain accurate colors and I a good portion of it would have had to be vinyl decals anyway so it would be cheaper in the long run.

This is one of my wildest, win-the-lottery fantasies... Every time I see a Ford Explorer of about the right age, I scope it for the correct wheels.

Best of luck to you!

...Though I am a little curious as to why you chose to wrap the whole car, rather than getting it painted and just adding cut vinyl logos and stripes. Was it cheaper? Are you drawing the art yourself?


-MJ

 

[MEOWorksCreative]

You've spared no expense! Will be watching this closely.

 

[kruleworld]

That is so cool!!!!

 

[vitacura]

Ambitious project, I will be keeping an eye for updates!

 

[scoodidabop]

Good luck on the guards man. It took me a few years to find mine! Also the film featured the '92 model that didn't have the plastic flare on the side/bottom area, where the running boards go. Mine is a '93 as well - I just removed the plastic flares and the mounting holes with fibreglass before putting on the black running boards.

Another area of great debate is the colors of the car. Most people look to the DVD/HDTV/Laserdisc (and probably VHS but I haven't confirmed) version of the film since it's most common. The trouble with this version is that the color timing is a bit skewed and everything is highly blue-ish. This was corrected (or OVERcorrected) in the 3D BluRay release of the movie. When making the 3D release of the film the 3D team rescanned the original color negative as a 4K scan and redid the color timing to Spielberg's liking. Unfortunately they overdid some aspects of the coloring and the film wound up too pink.

Anyway what does all this mean? Being very brightly colored the two Explorers in the film tend to look very different between the versions. Check this out:

DVD:

And here's the 3D BluRay:

Pretty different, right?

Well it gets better. If you take a scan off the film itself it's actually different (and most accurate) to those two above. Direct from filmstock even shows the sky in the (surprisingly accurate? lol) blue color! Look:

Notice how the direct scan looks a little different in terms of the colors. That being said there's no true accurate color nailed down for the red, green, and yellow so just have fun with it and do what you like! Good luck man. Let me know if you have any questions about the JP Explorer details.

 

[Ramphastid]

Thanks for that. The colors in that picture are much closer to what the explorer at Islands of Adventure looks in person- Though, there are a lot of inaccuracies now from 'restorations' from idiots vandalizing it. I should have more updates on the explorer later this week.

Good luck on the guards man. It took me a few years to find mine! Also the film featured the '92 model that didn't have the plastic flare on the side/bottom area, where the running boards go. Mine is a '93 as well - I just removed the plastic flares and the mounting holes with fibreglass before putting on the black running boards.

Another area of great debate is the colors of the car. Most people look to the DVD/HDTV/Laserdisc (and probably VHS but I haven't confirmed) version of the film since it's most common. The trouble with this version is that the color timing is a bit skewed and everything is highly blue-ish. This was corrected (or OVERcorrected) in the 3D BluRay release of the movie. When making the 3D release of the film the 3D team rescanned the original color negative as a 4K scan and redid the color timing to Spielberg's liking. Unfortunately they overdid some aspects of the coloring and the film wound up too pink.

Anyway what does all this mean? Being very brightly colored the two Explorers in the film tend to look very different between the versions. Check this out:

DVD:

http://i.imgur.com/QPaXd9Vl.jpg

And here's the 3D BluRay:

http://i.imgur.com/Oge2K67l.jpg

Pretty different, right?

Well it gets better. If you take a scan off the film itself it's actually different (and most accurate) to those two above. Direct from filmstock even shows the sky in the (surprisingly accurate? lol) blue color! Look:

http://i.imgur.com/ArSuTZ1l.jpg

Notice how the direct scan looks a little different in terms of the colors. That being said there's no true accurate color nailed down for the red, green, and yellow so just have fun with it and do what you like! Good luck man. Let me know if you have any questions about the JP Explorer details.

 

[frank7467]

no way.. would be cool to see the final product at a con. .

 

[Ramphastid]

Small update...The guy doing the wrap turned out to not only being completely incompetent, but a liar and a thief. If you live in the Shreveport/ Bossier City, Lousiana area NEVER go to Witt's Elite Graphics or Witt's Powder Coating. Over the course of a month (even though he told me it would only be a week and then said the same thing pretty much every week after that) and a half he dodged my questions, cursed me out (after I just asked what was going on), hung up on me, and was just an over-all liar and a jerk. I had to beat the powder coat on the wheels out of him as well. He told me they would be done a certain day which i took the day off for so I could take them to get new tires but when I called they acted like they had no idea what I was talking about. I eventually gave him an ultimatum where he needed to have it done by this past Friday and obviously he did not so I took it somewhere else. The funny thing was that apparently he wasn't actually doing any of the work but instead another person in the area was- so he lied to me about that also. On top of that, when he reinstalled the powder coated wheels he did not even screw the nuts on all the way so a couple came off and the rest are loose which was pretty much a danger to my life. I wont go into too many details since it's not important to the thread- but after a day of taking it somewhere else this is what I got for color testing


As you can see, the color and pattern are slightly off. This should be corrected tomorrow morning and the wrap should be done about a day after that. Amazing how fast something can happen when they aren't lazy and moronic.

And here's all I have to show for a month and a half of waiting on Witt's 'Elite' Graphics:


The interior should also be happening simultaneously. They are taking the seats out in the meantime while it is being wrapped and starting work on them.

 

[scoodidabop]

That's crazy. Good luck with the new place dude.

You should take of the bottom plastic skirts to make room for the running boards before you do the wrap. If you want to do the running boards, that is.

 

[Ramphastid]

That's crazy. Good luck with the new place dude.

You should take of the bottom plastic skirts to make room for the running boards before you do the wrap. If you want to do the running boards, that is.

I already mentioned that to them actually. Now if I could find the right running boards... I believe they were deezee, right?

 

[scoodidabop]

Deezee, yeah. Hard to find though. Luckily any extruded aluminum running board will be very similar.

 

[Ramphastid]

Deezee, yeah. Hard to find though. Luckily any extruded aluminum running board will be very similar.

I'm keeping an eye out. Might have to go to some junkyards in Texas though. The ones here hardly have anything.

 

[Ramphastid]

The explorer is now wrapped (for the most part). They ran out of vinyl and had to overnight more to finish up the logos & hood stripes. Right now it is having the brush guard put on (with the lights) and the tail light guards fabricated and installed, then it will be off to get the bumpers and grill painted to match. I'll update the thread once the logos are all installed.

So far, I think the colors are probably the most accurate I have ever seen on a replica. Pretty much every one so far has had the green or yellow slightly off or more neon. This is just about as perfect as you can get!

 

[Onkelpsycho]

Thats just awesome... :thumbsup

 

[nathanial91]

Awesome man, when I reach a point in my life where I am financially stable I will either make myself one these or one of the jeeps!

 

[DRay1218]

That's cool