NEWNAN, Ga. — If you've driven south of Atlanta lately, maybe you've spotted the Mystery Machine cruising the streets, the Batmobile motoring around town or the General Lee laying some rubber.
All three are part of Jerry Patrick's car collection of famous TV and movie vehicles.
"The crazy story about (the General Lee) is that is was found literally up in the woods deteriorating down to absolutely nothing," Jerry Patrick told wsbtv.com's Nelson Hicks. "It was then bought from someone else, bought and sold for scrap iron, locally to a scrap iron dealer here in Newnan. As luck would have it, he let us acquire it from him and we transformed it back into its orange glory here."
The General Lee was a recent addition to the collection.
"The Batmobile had to be the first car that we brought on board," Patrick told WSBTV.com's Nelson Hicks. "We saw the movie, obviously back in 1989. We wanted the car for years and years and years. Followed it. Studied it. Thought that we finally had enough information to put one together."
Patrick built a replica of the Batmobile from the 1989 movie "Batman" starring Michael Keaton from scratch. There aren't plans to built a Batmobile online and you can't go down to the local automotive store and pick up a bumper or window for a Batmobile. Nearly everything on Patrick's Batmobile was custom built for the vehicle. It took nearly three years to build.
From there, Patrick's car collection has grown. The collection now include Bumblee from "Transformers," KITT from "Knight Rider," the Mystery Machine from "Scooby Doo," the General Lee from "Dukes of Hazzard," Tow Mater from "Cars," Eleanor from "Gone in 60 Seconds," Herbie from "The Love Bug," a Landspeeder from "Star Wars," and the Muster's Koach from "The Munsters."
"I really didn't think starting off with the Batmobile we would grow the collection to this size," Patrick said. "I must say that when the fever gets to you, it's crazy. When you start off with the Batmobile, you really want something iconic to sit next to it. A typical mustang or camaro just isn't going to make it happen."
Patrick has been in the car restoration business for years. And those years of experience come in handy for his crew when creating these masterpieces.
"Most of the cars, we don't buy as-is," Patrick said. "We buy what we would call total junk, hence our name AKA Junk. We'll buy what's supposed to be screen-correct and we mold it, bend it, weld it, beat it, hit it and get it back into shape and get it to where it's somewhere very screen-accurate."
Patrick takes part of his collection to corporate events, festivals around town, birthday parties and fan conventions all over the east coast.
And while he's headed to the next event, Patrick will be on the lookout for a new edition.
"The whole collection has been acquired, anywhere from Craigslist, word of mouth, we've actually had to travel a few states over to pick up a car."
Patrick's on the lookout for a DeLorean for a "Back to the Future" car and a 1959 Cadillac for an Ecto-1 vehicle from "Ghostbusters."
Check out AKA Junk on Facebook to see more from his collection.
WSBTV
