This car is “Hero #3” (with the first and second cars being on set the day we visited). Picture Car Coordinator Jeff Budnick is in charge of looking after all of the Impalas on set. SUPERNATURAL has nine of its signature car in total – three “Hero” cars, three stunt cars, a few versions that are wrecked, and a cut-up car. The cup-up car is basically a shell of a car and the roof and doors are all able to come off easily so they “can get different angles” when filming.
Hero #1 has a “big block motor in it, a 502”, while the rest of them have “small block” motors. For example, Hero #3 is not a high-performance car, but it runs fine.
Three of the cars have the rearview mirrors on magnets so they can easily come off for shooting. Some of the windshields are also clear, while others have a blue-tinted band to them. They try to use the clear windshields for the “PMP shots”. Some cars also have tinted glass and those are primarily used when they have a double driving the car at night so that the identity of the driver is less noticeable.
Budnick thinks that SUPERNATURAL’s early years of utilizing the PMP technique looked a bit fake, but that the show has come a long way in achieving a far more natural look over the years.
Fans all over the world are building the cars – as far away as Brazil and Sweden, according to Budnick. Fans even contact Budnick to find out “what color I use for this [piece], or stuff like that”. But the interest in the car has made it a bit difficult to find parts, and the parts that Budnick and other fans find are much more expensive than they were when SUPERNATURAL began. “You can’t find a rusted-out basket case for under $10,000 now”, when the car used to be worth $2,500. But apparently car manufacturers are making more reproduction parts for the Impala now because the interest in the model has grown with the show, and so that is making things a bit easier for Budnick.
Back in the very early seasons of the show, the Impala used to have the “spotlights” that you can see on the side of the windshield here. But they were “taken off because the director/producer at the time, Kim Manners, [said] they were always in the way of the camera. So they were always moving them out of the way. One day he goes ‘just take them off’. So I did,” Budnick said. “And then the fans went crazy. It really showed you how passionate the fans were about the car.”
Another reason they picked the Impala (other than creator Eric Kripke’s oft-quoted desire for a cool car with a big trunk), is the fact that the cameras in the earlier years used to be very big. And so production wanted a big “four-door sedan to get in and out of.” Now they have smaller HD cameras and don’t need such a large car, and yet the car has become iconic.
Behind the scenes tidbit: apparently “Jared [Padalecki]’s hit a few things over the years” when driving the car.
SUPERNATURAL: Behind the Scenes With Set Design and the Impala (x)
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