Ghost Busters car visits The Penguin
A car that resembled the Ghost Busters vehicle from the 1984 movie showed up at The Penguin restaurant at 1921 Commonwealth Ave. on a recent Saturday evening.
A waitress said the car's owner was inside eating. She said it was fine to gawk and shoot pictures. I took a couple of shots, and then I took my warm, greasy sweet-potato fries home without stalking the owner.
But a few clues exist on who the owner might be, or perhaps we have more than one Ghost Busters car in North Carolina. A Durham blog, take the bull by the horns, took note of a very similar Ghost Busters vehicle back in March 2009. And the Hendrick Durham Auto Mall blog spotted the same car as the one seen in Durham back in January 2009.
So was the car at the Penguin the same, only new and improved? Have you seen it elsewhere? Give me clues.
The vehicle isn't the only weird, wacky car to turn up in the Plaza Midwood business district and surrounding areas. 
An Escher pickup truck showed up in September 2008 outside of Nova's Bakery at 1511 Central Ave. It didn't have an N.C. tag, and a bumper sticker touting Black Rock High School suggested the car had recently been to Black Rock City, home of the Burning Man festival. I haven't seen it lately.
And, of course, the Area Fifteen art car was parked outside of Area Fifteen at 516 E. 15th St. at Davidson Street for Charlotte's first ever Barcamp back on Jan. 24.
The Area Fifteen car appears to be the work of Jared Nicolson, profiled by Weird Charlotte awhile back. The car displayed at the bottom of the Weird Charlotte story was created for Charlotte photographer Jim McGuire, and I remember seeing him drive it around the neighborhoods.
Haven't seen it lately.
Wonder if it still runs.
Regardless, I love living in a place where crazy cars turn up. If you want more, check out the art carz archive at the House of Dioxin.
6 comments:
At one point the Area 15 car was inside the Hart Witzen Gallery in NoDa. Not sure if it is there now.
Perhaps a Charlotte business should sponsor an annual weird car contest. Seems like there are enough contenders driving around the area.
-Andrew Roman
Update on the Area 15 art car: It is owned by Carlos and is usually parked behind Area 15. It still runs, and today he had it parked at the roofless building on Parkwood.
I saw it on Valentine's Day weekend while visiting my boyfriend in Gastonia! I took a picture but I don't know if I can download it here... 8)
Mary,
You saw the Ghostbusters car or the Area 15 car?
If you can get your picture online somewhere like Flickr, Picasa, Twitpic or some other service, I'd love to link to it.
The Ghostbusters car above is not the same one from Durham, it's a different one. The one you saw at Penguin is local to Charlotte/Gastonia. Our website is CarolinaGhostbusters.com. The pic above is a Beta version of the car. Since that time, a lot of the equipment both inside and out have been upgraded.
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