The cars are the stars

The telephone’s ringing at Cinema Vehicle Services, which only means one thing. Someone from the movie or TV industry has an urgent need for vehicles, lots of vehicles, and they don’t want to mess around.

“I think I know who that is,” says Cinema Vehicle Services (CVS) boss Manny Demelo.

“Right now we have over 300 cars in Vegas on Bourne [The new Jason Bourne action thriller]. We’ve got guys working all weekend because that shoot just keeps killing our cars, and they keep ordering more.”

The vehicles – cop cars, civilian cars, special builds and more – aren’t dying in vain. The car chase in the new Bourne is expected to be the biggest in movie history. Bigger than either the monster pile ups in the Blues Brothers and Gone in 60 Seconds.

Which might sound like the biggest automotive insurance claim in history, too. But not to Manny... This is business, great business, as usual for the team of 32 talented mechanics, engineers, paint shop and graphics guys at CVS.

Situated on over three hectares of light industrial land in North Hollywood, right next to the I-170 freeway, which links northern LA to the Interstate 5 that funnels traffic towards San Francisco and beyond, CVS is a movie and TV business institution.

CVS was created in 1975 by Ray Claridge to serve the growing need for cars in film and TV at the nearby studios – Warner Bros, Disney, NBC, Paramount studios are just 15-20 mins or less down the freeway over the hill from CVS’s front door. Since then the company has grown to become the industry’s main supplier of all things vehicle for on-screen work.

Today there are over 1700 cars, buses, vans, trucks, etc on the lot, and “another coupla hundred,” Manny adds casually, “In New Orleans. Plus we are getting ready to open near Pinewood Studios in Atlanta.” Another massive change from the company’s humble beginnings!

Back in 1975 the company was called Sepulveda Auto Clinic and was based in Van Nuys, a few miles away. Claridge got his start in the movie car business purely by being a good businessman – and a couple of lucky introductions.

“It was just a little shop,” says Manny, who took over as boss of Cinema Vehicle Services this year.

“Business was booming in the ’70s with all the TV shows that were being made. Some of the [TV] transportation guys came by and saw Ray could fix cars quickly, that he could do a little bit of paint and body. So from there his business just blew up.”

There have been many landmark moments in the years since then. But one of the first big ‘uns was being asked to start building whole cars, not just fixing up smashed and crashed models. None more iconic or memorable than the first four orange, be-flagged 1969 Dodge Chargers nicknamed The General Lee from The Dukes of Hazzard.

So what was it that propelled the business from small-time car prep shop to the massive multi-discipline operation it is today?

“It was the Teamster’s [America’s largest trade union, which crucially here includes the two leading driver associations] who helped build this business,” says Manny, who was himself a captain in the local 399 division of the union.

“The 399 are all motion picture guys, so it was all in-bound traffic,” he continues.

“Ray didn’t have to go and get it. You know, art departments design cars with the directors. But very few know about us and where the cars are built. It’s amazing.”

That’s changing now that CVS is operating more and more on the US east coast – thanks to filming taxation credits being handed out by states keen to bring in big budget movie production.

But a majority of the business is – and always will be according to Manny – based out of Los Angeles.

“Atlanta’s huge right now. But Los Angeles dominates the market, because you’ve got photo shoots, commercials, the weather, everyone shoots here. You only go to New York to shoot New York.

“It’s so expensive and they have a rebate, but New York is busy, LA is busy, and then the rest, it kind of balances. You know, Michigan for a while was giving 42 per cent -- but that dried up, because they don’t have the money to pay their debts.”

Away from the spreadsheets, of all the other famous TV and film cars CVS has built over the years (which includes such oddities as Barney Rubble’s wheels in The Flintstones through to all the cars for the Marvel films via the black Charger from The Fast and Furious), the number one star has to be Eleanor, the ‘67/’68 Fastback Mustang from Gone in 60 Seconds.

“There were 11 original cars, four were destroyed [during filming] so there’s only seven remaining on the planet,” says Manny.

“We have three on site here, Ray has one, Jerry Bruckheimer has one in his vault down in Santa Monica, and one was sold a couple of years ago at Indianapolis for a million dollars.

“It’s the most expensive movie car ever sold. The Batmobile, the original car for the TV series, sold for more, but that’s a TV car. It’s not something you can drive around town. It’s not even a real car.”

The talk of George Barris’s creations touches a nerve with Manny and his team.

“There’s a couple cars that George Barris built, got credit for building…That [in fact] our fabricator in the shop, his father built and George bought from them. The Munstermobile was one of them, so it kind of irks him when you bring it up,” Manny says.

But as high profile and carefully built as the special builds are (the team has just built a bubble ship for a new series, Divergent – “we’ll build anything,” says Manny), it’s the basic cop cars and ambulances that are its real daily bread and butter cars… Those, plus CVS’s ability to turn them out and around so quickly.

The company has up to 600 cars out at any one time, mostly emergency response teams – cop cars, ambulances, taxis, etc – but the number can fluctuate wildly according to seasons and filming schedules. It’s not uncommon for studios to call and order 10 cop cars and say they want them in Boston PD colours and lighting packages. Oh, and they want them tomorrow.

Because of these compressed time schedules, CVS has racks and racks of lights and a massive coachbuilding dept which can turn out detail specific cars in hours not days. Things that help make this possible include a dedicated glass-making dept and a double paint booth plus a drier that can blast the vehicles dry in just 20 mins.

“The cars don’t need to be perfect,” says Manny.

“You’re just tricking the camera. These are picture cars. You make them look right as cheaply as possible as they might be only on screen for a few seconds. But our thing is our turnaround time. We painted, in two weeks for one movie, I think like 70 cars with two painters.”

And where do they get all the cars?

“We get a lot of our cop cars from auctions, when we have the time,” says Manny.

“We also have a connection where we get real cop cars with the P Package, because basically, you can make anything a cop car. But, when you get to the interior, you need the P package… Cop cars have the shifter on the steering column, regular cars have the shifter on the floor.”

You’d think with all this running around and storage that movie and TV cars would cost a fortune to rent. But that’s not the case. Your average cop car goes out to the set for just $US350 a day. But, says Manny, if there are any changes to the lights or sticker packages the price rises accordingly.

It’s still a price-driven business, however.

“I’ve never met a producer yet that says, ‘I really have the money to do this one right’,” he says.

And if you’re thinking about asking to hire one instead of troubling Hertz the next time you do a fly/drive to LA, Manny has some advice for you: don’t if you want to have a cop-free experience.

“If you have all the proper documentation, you can rent the car, he says.

“But the tricky part is these are picture cars. Some cars’ airbags are not working, because you can’t come up and slide and hit something [with them on]; you don’t want the airbags going off. You got line locks for stunts for sliding cars and stuff.

“None of these are registered for the road, so a guy doing a personal rental for a spot in their wedding, sure. But to drive around, cruise around LA, you know, I’d be leery of doing that.”

So how come CVS has stayed ahead of all the other – much smaller – picture car companies dotted around LA?

“Because Cinema Vehicles delivers,” says Manny.

“Because, as a picture car guy, you don’t want to be wrong on set on day one.

“Some guys wake up and quit the business entirely because of the stress. I tell you something, you ever call Ray Claridge, you guarantee it will be right. It will be there. That goes for me, too.

“We might be more expensive. I mean, we got guys working all weekend, because Bourne just keeps killing our cars. He [the director] keeps ordering more. They’re tearing up the Las Vegas Strip right now.

“They don’t have confidence in other people to supply the right cars on time every time.”

And right on cue, as if to prove the point, Manny’s phone starts ringing again…

Images: Barry J Holmes