MARC: When someone says it can't be built, we've got to build it.
COMM: At Parker Brothers Concepts in Florida, the only restriction is imagination.
SHANON: First rule at Parker Brothers is if we're going to build it, it is going to be a drivable vehicle.
COMM: Their client list includes celebrities and Hollywood movie studios.
WOMAN: You only see this kind of stuff in movies. Its awesome!
COMM: Marc and Shanon Parker design and build
incredible concept cars, custom motorbikes and stunning drivable recreations of the most
outlandish movie vehicles.
MARC: Somebody comes to us and says I want
a car with some rims, great effects and a paint job and its boring. You know? We want
to show people that you can do things that have never been done before and push the envelope
a little bit and create things that are kind of iconic.
MARC: Shanon is the designer, he comes up
with these ideas. A lot of his inspiration I think comes more from comic books and movies
and he'll come up with these really outlandish ideas and then bring me a drawing and go "hey
let's build this" and I look at it and go "what were you thinking?" He thinks that if he can
draw it on paper that I can build it out of metal. Unfortunately it's a little more difficult
than that. Everything we build is drivable, so then I have to come up with a way of taking
his idea and his inspiration and kind of turning it into something that's actually functional.
SHANON: It's really kind of a back and forth.
We have to tweak it a little bit because you know a lot of times when I draw it, it is
too far out there and he has to kind of reign me back in a little bit, but it's that collaboration
that makes the vehicles turn out so cool.
COMM: As well as concept and custom builds
they also make replicas of famous movie vehicles including Optimus Prime from Transformers,
the Shredder from Battleship and Ecto-1 from Ghost Busters. But the most stunning
is the Assault Tumbler from the Dark Knight Rises.
MARC: We had to build every inch of this from
scratch. The frame, the chassis, the body, the interior, the suspension, the wheels, the glass. I mean
pretty much all we could buy was a motor. And it was pretty tricky now that the whole chassis
and body is a 2 wheeler chassis and it's all steel construction. It's not roomy inside
but it's pretty comfortable actually, you know, it drives out really well. We had
to add a lot of little cameras, there's a lot of tiny little micro cams all over it and
there's 7 or 8 video screens on the inside, because there are a lot of blind spots.
Yeah the gas milage on this thing is not the greatest, you know, it does have a corvette engine in it.
Because of the shape of it, there's not enough room to put the motor in the front
where it would normally go. So what we had to do was put the motor in backwards so the
motor is here and the transmission is actually inside the vehicle and that runs into a gear
box that drops down and then the drive shaft comes back underneath the motor and back to the rear end.
MARC: The turbine here, which we originally
had hooked up with a propane system to blow flames out, but we realised that was dangerous
and stupid and a lot of people almost got hurt so we disconnected that. Normally we
can't get over 30 miles and hour with it, because all the people around it. It's kind of hard
to go fast when you're being crowded in, but if you wanted it to it could definitely move,
because its got a good engine in it. How can you go wrong? This is just one of the coolest
cars that was ever even dreamed up, so occasionally we get to take it out and drive it around
and have some fun with it.
WOMAN: When I first saw the Tumbler I thought
it was just the coolest thing and I think it's awesome that it actually has a New York City Gotham
tag on it. It's really, really cool!
MARC: If people can look at that and go "Oh
that's nice" but keep passing by, we probably didn't do our job right. If people have to
stop what they're doing as they're driving out in the road, yeah we've done something right.
COMM: The brothers aren't sure how much they spent building the Tumbler,
but how much would they be prepared to sell it for?
MARC: I really.
SHANON: I personally wouldn't sell it. To me
it's that cool and it took that much time and effort to build it, so I mean why would you
get rid of it? What are you crazy?