If there’s something strange
In your neighborhood
Who you gonna call?
Ghostbusters!
If you’re a “mature” gentleman like me, there’s no way you can read that without singing the official song. Ghostbusters was a massive hit, so lets see if the ECTO-1 matches the lofty heights of the original movie.
It’s no secret I love LEGO vehicles, and particularly those built out of LEGO bricks rather than Technic. The level of detail is often amazing. This set comes with a single chunky manual. The first ten pages have great trivia about the movie and the ECTO-1 design process. Alas, the instructions are with a black background which can be difficult to read.
We’ve since built a newer set, the mighty Titanic which we’ll review soon, and the manual background is grey rather than black. It’s a huge improvement. We start this build with the ECTO-1 chassis and it’s pretty long! Even at this stage you can see the length of the model.
Like most of the Creator Expert vehicles and some of the Technic sets, the steering shaft is setup to allow the steering wheel to turn the wheels. It’s a relatively small feature, but we feel it makes a big difference in swooshability.
We recently finished and reviewed the Ford Raptor, which had crazy suspension travel. By comparison, the ECTO-1 has none. I suppose a modified ambulance isn’t really made to go offroading…
We’re barely a third of the way into the build, and the first awesome feature arrives. There is a ghost catching seat with the vital ghost busting equipment attached to the rear. When you press a special panel on the opposite side of the car, the seat shoots out and rotates ready to catch the evil spectre. The mechanism, including the rotation is epic. The detail on the rear of the chair to capture the ghosts looks great. The circle tile is also printed and the ghost capture hose nozzle can be removed to wave around sucking up the ghosts.
The rear lights look fantastic. There is also a new element that I’ve not seen before – The Technic Turntable Small Bottom. This allows the red lamp to be attached to a goblet to great effect.
It turns out this has been around since 2012, so I need to get with the times!
As we build the sides of the ECTO-1, we start to notice there will be a LOT of stickers. Suprisingly most of them are the same. The vast majority are mud patches and often exactly the same. Given they are stickers and not printed pieces, it would have been good for some variation to be added to the sticker sheet.
But who knows, maybe ghost impacted mud is exactly the same in their realm?
The door mechanism is double hinged and works really well with the other suicide door.
The manual notes that the No-Ghost logo is a powerful marketing tool for the franchise, and it certainly is. As soon as you see it, you know exactly what it is. It’s quite striking on the side of the ECTO-1.
Building the engine bay and front fender was both tedious and awesome. The front grill looks amazing. It’s built from a NPU of many roller skates. There’s quite a few to put together, but it’s hard to argue this looks anything other than fantastic.
Inside the cabin looks suitably retro and a the inclusion of the tape recorder tops if off. Like I mentioned earlier, it’s great that turning the steering wheel, turns the wheels.
We finish the build by completing the side panels, and building out the ghost detection equipment on the roof. It’s really quite detailed including high power sirens and two great looking police lights. The best part is that the red tube like ghost detector and clear radar dome rotate automatically as the car move. It’s another great swooshable feature.
Overall Thoughts
We really enjoyed building the Ghostbusters ECTO-1. Not only does it look superb as a display piece, but it also has great swooshable features. It’s an amazing set that we recommend to any LEGO fan. In short, if definitely meets the lofty heights of the original movie. It’s a fantastic creation.
But wait, there’s more! At the rear of the ECTO-1, pulling out a hidden lever in the rear wing allows a mobile ghost trap to shoot out and start chasing wayward ghosts. It’s great fun speeding along and ejecting the ghost trap.
A special thanks to our friends at Zavvi who supplied this set for us to build. Check them out for some great deals on LEGO sets.
Set: Ghostbusters ECTO-1
Theme: Creator Expert
Set #: 10274
Number of Minifigs: 0
Number of Pieces: 2352
RRP: $299.99
Overall: 93%
