‘Wisconsin Star Cars’ Clones the Legends
Wisconsin Star Cars is a free car club consisting of mostly young car enthusiasts from across the Badger State who have an interest in TV and movie cars. The club was recently at a car show in Merrill, Wisconsin, with clones of the Knight Rider Trans Am, the General Lee Dodge Charger, the Back to the Future Delorean and Herbie the Love Bug.
Corey Gleason, a member of the group, owns a close copy of the KITT Pontiac Trans Am from Knight Rider. He said his father loved Trans Ams and bought him a VHS tape with reruns of the TV show. From there he started collecting Knight Rider toys and he finally bought and restored the car he has now.
Star Cars member Matt Hissem said he “sort of started” the group along with Gleason. He owns a clone of the Back to the Future Delorean. One of his co-workers worked on the restoration of one of the actual movie cars, then helped Hissem with information and photos he needed to build his car. The car was built so that it can be put back to stock condition, though it probably never will.
Scott Buchberger brought his General Lee to the car show. He said this car was built in 1981 when the Dukes of Hazard was still on TV. Buchberger bought the car basically all done in 2003. He has only had to do a few things like change the wheels to the TV show style and redo the roll bar.
Brent Moodie owns a Herbie Volkswagen. He purchased it the way it is today.
“Basically, my kids like the Herbie movies, so I figured it would be fun to buy the car and take it to shows with the kids,” he said.
Other members of Wisconsin Star Cars own clones of the Jurassic Park Jeep and the Ghostbuster Echo 1 ’59 Cadillac ambulance. The owners of those cars from Milwaukee and south of Milwaukee. The quartet at Merrill come from the north central part of the state.
Gleason said that the club’s favorite thing is getting together at very large show where the various Star Cars get lots of attention. For more information, call Gleason at 920-378-6435.
