Fan Expo Canada is drawing thousands of costumed fans to downtown Toronto this weekend to check out celebrity panels, family activities and pop culture memorabilia — including a replica of what may be the world’s most famous time machine, the DMC DeLorean, on the 40th anniversary of the film that made it famous.
The iconic sports car, with sleek grey design and gull wings, belongs to Samantha Frank and her husband, who say they revamped an old DeLorean to mirror the time machine used in the Back to the Future films, which first came out in 1985.
“We bought this car 15 years ago as a stock DeLorean and my husband wanted to sell it in order to buy a Viper,” Frank said on Saturday. “I wanted a time machine.”
Samantha Frank says she convinced her husband not to sell the DeLorean, which they bought 15 years ago, but to instead work on it to make it resemble the time machine used in the Back to the Future franchise. (CBC)
So the two of them scoured for parts from all over the world, and Frank’s husband welded on the components specific to the movie-version of the car, including a dashboard with time co-ordinates and a Flux Capacitor.
Many of the stars of the 1985 smash hit were on hand at the expo Friday to talk about the film and answer questions from fans, including Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd, who played Marty McFly and Doc Brown respectively.
Christopher Lloyd and Michael J. Fox attended a panel at Fan Expo Canada in Toronto Friday to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Back to the Future. (CBC)
But the DeLorean proved equally popular Saturday, with fans lining up for a photo in the time-travelling sports car.
“People are just really excited to get into the nostalgia,” Frank said.
Just a few blocks away, the Mirvish Theatre is hosting Back to the Future: The Musical until the end of the month. But while the DeLorean in that production is a prop, Frank says hers is fully functional — minus the time travel.
“This is a car that we drive around. We don’t just keep it in our garage,” said Frank, who lives in Bowmanville, about an hour east of the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.
“We had someone who said today that they’ve seen us drive it locally around our town, which was really great,” she said.
“All the time we see a lot of photos pop up of us driving. You see people get really excited, high fives, thumbs up, honking.”
The Franks made several modifications to their DeLorean to make it resemble the time machine used in Back to the Future. (CBC)
Frank says she and her husband were inspired by a friend from Burlington, Ken Kapalowski, who worked on restoring the original Back to The Future DeLorean with the film’s creator, Bob Gale, at Universal Studios.
Fellow DeLorean enthusiast Ken Kapalowski, who built his own model in Burlington, was also at the convention centre Saturday and said the enthusiasm for the unique vehicle and the Back to the Future franchise has created a small, tight-knit community.
“They were like, ‘If you can make yours look so good, maybe you can help this one look good again,'” said Kapalowski, who was also at the convention Saturday.
“The reward’s in the journey, like, you build the thing that you love. We love the movie. We love the car. We met each other because of DeLoreans,” he said. “It’s just so much fun to hang out with everybody, be with friends again, get to meet all the lovely people at the show. Just such a positive, fun energy to be here. I love it.”
The pop culture convention, beloved by fans of comics, sci-fi, horror, fantasy, anime, cosplay and gaming, got underway at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre on Thursday and ends Sunday.
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‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.cbc.ca ’
