Where musclecars go to become famous!

Ted Moser and Picture Car Warehouse built there reputation in Hollywood for the amazing ability to build cars that get the job done, building anything required from “DragonBallZ” off-road trucks to Cobras for “Charlie’s Angels”. His specialty is musclecars. The picture Car Warehouse has its own painting and upholstery shops – required since many of the cars must be prepared quickly for work. A car that might be green in the morning could be blue in the afternoon. Picture Car Warehouse built this off-road vehicle for “DragonBallZ”. As per usual, a rendering is created after countless meetings about the final appearance. Then its up to Ted’s group to make it happen.

It’s an interesting place to be certain. Surrounded by the LA skyline is a parking lot filled with classic and current cars and trucks. Most folks don’t notice the semi-paved lot when they drive by the intersection of 6th and Bixel streets, but for movie transportation folks, the lot is filled with the stuff they need – and generally need it with lightning speed!

Ted Moser has provided movie cars for approximately 20 years. A guy with a true passion for musclecars, Ted has become Hollywood’s go-to guy when it comes to placing high-powered cars in the movies. Case in point, the second movie in “The Fast & the Furious” series, “2Fast 2Furious” and the Orange Hemi Challenger vs. Blue Yenko Camaro, Ted and his talented team prepped both cars (with duplicates!). Guess where the Year One stickers on the windshields of the feature cars came from? Ted did that to help the Year One folks who supplied him with countless components for these star cars.

 In addition, it was Ted who helped save a “solid” ’69 Camaro from total destruction by convincing the director to kill off one of the “Swiss cheese” rusted out Camaros for the final flight on to the boat scene. Not since the Ferrari flew out of the glass garage in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” have we cried so hard about the wrecking of a classic performance machine. Rest easy, the dead Camaro in the final scene wouldn’t have made a good shotgun-shooting target in Mississippi; no good car was harmed in the filming of that movie.

(LEFT)”2Fast 2Furious” made Challengers famous once again. Ted’s supply seems endless with cars changing from one movie role to another with a simple paint swap and some fresh tires. (RIGHT) This 70″ Challenger is one of several made famous by the movie “The Bucket List” built by Ted’s Picture Car Warehouse. It now sports a late-model 5.7 liter hemi engine and a change-over of the front K-member to a more modern suspension system – chiefly for action driving scenes.

Mopar Mayhem

Ted’s passion has to be the Mopar musclecars; although he commonly places ’69 Camaros in everything from “After the Sunset” to the TV show “Vegas” (remember the yellow convertible?). His favorite personal car is a 1969 Plymouth GTX convertible. During the summer you can count on Ted making his LA studio tours behind the wheel of the Midnight Blue convertible.

Along with a host of other cars at his disposal (600 cars total, including police cars, taxi cabs and other background vehicles) are a number of other vehicles that he created or purchased for movies, commercials, music videos, etc. Chrysler, as part of its promotion for the SEMA Show to push the Dodge Challenger model some years ago, commissioned several 1970 Dodge Challengers for construction and placement. Actually, three Challengers were built, two to be outfitted with late model 5.7-liter hemi engines, the final one a 540cid Keith Black hemi powered monster.

 A walk around the lot is like a walk through time. While an assortment of finished cars is present, there are a number of cars that are yet to be touched, great cars set for restoration at some time in the future. From ’69 Roadrunners and ’68 Olds 4-4-2 convertibles to rust-free GTOs and Firebirds, this place has plenty of raw material.

SAVING THE LEGACY

Like Jack Nicholson’s character in “A Few Good Men”, standing on the wall to protect us from our enemies, Ted Moser protects musclecars from impending doom from directors and producers who carelessly kill them off for “the shot.” Case in point, he saved Yenko in “2Fast 2Furious”. But sadly that is not always the case. Take the real GTOs in “XXX2”. While the original GTOs used in the first “XXX” were not destroyed, the second set was highly modified for the movies despite their original GTO tagging. For a semi-recent Justin Timberlake/Scarlett Johannsen music video, a real ’65 Corvette small-block coupe with matching numbers bit it big — a shameful waste.

 Not to fear, Moser continues to love and protect musclecars whenever possible. Thank the lord of protect-o-plates for that. See you at the movies!

(LEFT) This is the remnant of a Corvette coupe used in a Justin Timberlake music video. While Ted was away on vacation, his crew got a call for a mid-year corvette. Unfortunately, they grabbed the wrong one to wreck, and this was the result. Sad, but true. (Right) This is one of several GTOs created by Ted for “XXX2″ with Vin Diesel. Heavily modified these GTOs were built to fill different scenes in the movie, some with articulated headlights that split open to fire missiles (no they didn’t really operate) or other assorted duties. Regardless of their assigned task, some sported Chevrolet engines to make finding parts easier should they need maintenance during filming in Prague, Czechoslokakia where the movie was shot.