Latest news with #DantesPeak
Yahoo
18-07-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
The 'Dante's Peak' Chevy Suburban Is Getting The Restoration It Deserves
The 1997 disaster movie "Dante's Peak" had three main characters: USGS volcanologist Harry Dalton, played by Pierce Brosnan; Mayor Rachel Wando, played by Linda Hamilton; and Harry's decked-out 1987 Chevy Suburban, played by itself. After the movie, the human actors continued their successful careers, while the big red Suburban movie car faded into obscurity -- until now. After rusting away in a Massachusetts barn for ten years, Greg Ward of Greg's Restorations has found the Suburban, bought it, and will be giving it the restoration it deserves. If you don't remember, "Dante's Peak" was a disaster movie set in a fictional town in Washington. Loosely based on the events of the 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens, the film follows volcano expert Harry Dalton, who tries his best to warn the residents of a charming Pacific Northwest town that a local volcano is about to blow. Of course, nobody listens to Dalton, because otherwise there wouldn't have been a disaster movie. He drives a bright red Chevy Suburban with a lot of custom off-road equipment that the United States Geological Survey would never have paid for in real life, but looks really cool in the movie. About four or five Suburbans were used in the filming, depending on who you ask. One was destroyed while filming a river crossing scene, and others went their separate ways. The Suburban being restored somehow became a daily driver in Massachusetts. It then sat in a barn for ten years until Greg Ward recently acquired it, intending to return it to its former glory. Read more: These Are The Worst American Cars Ever Made In Rust We Trust To say Harry's Suburban is in rough shape would be an understatement. As a literal barn find, it doesn't run, despite the help of a jump box. The real issue, though, is the rust. Any daily driver in Massachusetts suffers from the dreaded winter road salt cancer. Having spent much of my life there, I learned to devote 80 to 90% of my time for any repair to busting those old rusted parts loose, or breaking them and dealing with the aftermath. This Suburban shows all the classic signs of this type of rust in the rocker panels, rear quarter panels, and pretty much anywhere that salty, slushy snow gets sprayed on the body while driving in it. Fortunately, the underside looks quite good for a New England car. The frame and floor have only minor surface rust, which is easy to remove. It's easy to find replacement body panels from LMC Truck and the original wheels and other parts were included, which should make this an easy restoration. This isn't Greg Ward's first rodeo; he's already restored a "Back to the Future" DeLorean as well as Marty McFly's Toyota Tacoma, so he ought to do well. But first, he wants to get it running, take it off-roading, and get the full Harry Dalton experience, hopefully without the volcano eruption. Want more like this? Join the Jalopnik newsletter to get the latest auto news sent straight to your inbox... Read the original article on Jalopnik.
The Drive
16-07-2025
- Automotive
- The Drive
Volcano Vehicle: The ‘Dante's Peak' Chevy Suburban Is Getting Restored After Years of Rotting
The latest car news, reviews, and features. I can't be the only millennial car dork who developed a reverence for the Chevy Suburban after watching Dante's Peak in 1997. In fact, I know I'm not, because Greg Ward of Greg's Restorations just posted about how excited he was to find it, in a barn in Massachusetts, of all places. Now, it's getting the restoration it deserves. America loved disaster movies in the late '90s ( Deep Impact, Twister, Armageddon, and Volcano all came out around the same time), but Dante's Peak remains my personal favorite. For those of you who might need a little memory jog, Dante's Peak was a fictional story but drew inspiration from the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption, which killed almost 60 people in Skamania County, Washington. In the movie, there's this little mountain town threatened by a volcano that nobody believes is going to erupt, then it erupts, and a hunky USGS volcanologist played by Pierce Brosnan swoops in to save some folks in a spectacularly over-accessorized seventh-gen Chevy Suburban. Movie scene of the truck in action. Universal Pictures The truck gets quite a bit of screen time and is very distinctive with bright orange paint, a huge lift, a big array of lights, a winch bumper, and, of course, oversized tires. I can understand why the studio wanted to use this older model instead of the GMT400, which would have been the current body style in '97—the seventh-gen truck shares a design with the decidedly more rugged K5 Blazer. A video that popped up last year shared some facts about the movie vehicle, including insights into the production (worth checking out for the mini model of the bridge alone). If you'd like to take a brief contextual detour, give this a quick watch: One more sidebar before we get to today's news— Dante's Peak also featured an '80s-era Chevy truck with a service body that's also super cool. You can see it in action heroically crossing lava right here: Anyway, what happened to the Suburban immediately after the movie was wrapped is still kind of a mystery, but apparently it was sold on eBay about a decade ago, ultimately ending up in a barn on the East Coast. And just a few days ago, the truck appeared again, on Greg Ward's YouTube channel, Greg's Restorations. Ward does all kinds of classic car work out of his Rutland, Massachusetts, shop and has a pretty deep catalog of completed projects. He's no stranger to working on movie trucks in particular; his shop worked on a screen-used Back To The Future Toyota, and he'll build you a clone of the black Marty McFly 4×4 if you want one. In the first few minutes of the video, Ward pokes around the Suburban in the dark corner of an anonymous barn where he says he found it. Apparently, it took 'a couple of months' to get a deal done where he could get it to his own place. You can tell that the weather's a lot more pleasant in the last few minutes of the clip. Ward says he plans to get the truck running and have a little fun with it before diving into a full restoration, which makes sense. 'We have a lot of experience with stuff like this, especially here in New England, everything rots out. So a lot of our projects are rust- orations.' In other words, once work starts, the truck's going to be in the shop for a long time before it can come out again. Man, do I hear that. Moving back to New York from California has been such a bummer every time I climb under a car frame. Greg's Restorations/YouTube This old 'Burb does look pretty rusty, but as Ward points out, pretty much every body panel is obtainable from an LMC Truck catalog. And most importantly, all the goofy movie accessories are still there. The only thing that looks like it's missing is the winch, which should be easy enough to source a replacement for. The front brush guard is probably the weirdest accessory to me. It's rocking some bizarre louvers I've never seen in such a spot before. In the comment section under Ward's video, somebody mentioned that they thought they recognized the rig from having worked on it. The vehicle was reportedly sourced by Cinema Vehicle Services, but it looks like it might have been set up by an Arizona shop. From @jdunereaper1 on YouTube [sic]: 'Pretty sure i worked on that suburban right after it was sold when the movie wrapped. It was brought to the offroad shop i worked at in Cave Creek, Az for a suspension lift. The production team had used stock leaf springs with welded blocks under the front end to lift it, which was completely unsafe. I believe we ended up installing a 6' lift with 35' tires and the wheels that are now on it. It originally had the factory rallies with 33' goodyear m/t's from the movie. Everyone there thought that it was awesome that we were working on a 'movie' truck, but also bummed that the snorkel was only for visuals and was never hooked up.' Take a look and see the current state of the Dante's Peak Suburban yourself: I'm really excited that this vehicle was found, and even more stoked that it's in the hands of someone with both the skills and passion to bring it back to life. Here's hoping we get to see the truck brought to better-than-new glory. Seen any other epic movie cars hiding in barns? Tell me about 'em at
