Jared outside his Thames workshop with his '69 Charger. Photo / Geoff Lewis
Jared outside his Thames workshop with his '69 Charger. Photo / Geoff Lewis
Thames-based panel beater, mechanic and speed-nut Jared Fisher has built a business and lifestyle around providing movie sets with replica vehicles and hopes to have examples at this month's Frankton Thunder automotive and community festival in Hamilton.
As a boy, Fisher would bicycle around town searching out blokes in shedsrestoring cars. He had a fascination with old Holdens and anything mechanical. He restored his first, a Ford 10, before he got his driver licence. HQ Holdens, Valiants and a customised HT Holden wagon followed.
Nearly 20 years ago he trained as a panel beater with a local firm, spent a couple of years working in the Thames Toyota Signature-class plant, got into auto repair, glazing and swinging a hammer.
Two decades on and working out of his own business, he has raced cars across the USA and rubbed shoulders with movie stars – as a matter of luck and by taking the opportunities.
These days Jared leads Jared Fisher Automotive in Thames which is located in the rustic old Bella Street Boiler House.
The core of the business is restoring classic cars for clients, sometimes lists of them from all over the country, and finding, preparing and organising period vehicles for movie sets and television series.
For three years, from 2017-2019 before Covid slowed things down, he competed in the Cannonball Run, an-all-out, drive-what-you-like, 2904-mile (4673km) speed-blitz across the continental US with the first run starting at the Red Ball garage in lower Manhattan, New York and concluding at the Coit Tower in San Francisco.
One of the Dodge Monaco's raced across the US outside the Red Ball garage in Manhattan. Photo / Supplied
In 2017, other than stopping for gas, driving was non-stop with Jared and his co-drivers sleeping in the car and taking turns at the wheel of a 1974 Dodge Monaco, the same model of 440 cubic inch (7.2 ltr) V8-powered vehicle used in the classic 1980 Blues Brothers movie.
The run was completed in 39 hours and 46 minutes at an average speed of 80mph. The team placed third. The journey required 13 fuel stops with an auxiliary tank. Many started, 16 finished.
Racing fields of more than 40 entrants use a variety of high-tech law-avoiding technologies and on-the-ground cop-spotters in this unsanctioned speedfest.
Jared did the same again in 2018 in a 1975 Dodge Monaco and in 2019 in a 1991 Cadillac limo averaging 86mph.
Both these Cannonball Runs started from New York and Connecticut and concluded at the Portofino Inn in Los Angeles.
Following the 2017 and 2018 events the Monacos were shipped back to New Zealand and recently converted into replicas of the sort of police patrol cars so copiously demolished in the 1980 Blues Brothers movie. The Cadillac limo was shipped in November 2019.
Fisher got into the movie scene through meeting people in the industry at car events and on trips.
"I'd wrangle cars for them, do them up and organise them on set.''
He has built replica Kiwi police cars for television series such as Westside and Shortland Street and more recently provided two replica US police cars – 2007 Ford Crown Victorias as set cars for a movie set in the US but made in New Zealand and Australia.
"We're into providing cars for our eighth movie or television series both in the US and in NZ. Right now it's all taking off. The biggest challenge is the short time-frames we have to work in. We've provided an HQ Holden Belmont and a couple of VP Commodores as replica New Zealand police cars.
"The Crown Victorias were a bit of luck, we had them in the shop when they called. Our current movie involvement will take three years to film and our workshop will become a prop-shop.''
Building replica police vehicles requires a good deal of research – studying clips out of old movies, images from the era, especially with US police cars as all the states vary and each local police department had its own detailing. It is often hard to find bits and pieces, some are non-existent. We have had to fabricate our own light-bars for US police cars out of stainless steel.''
The Thames workshop is crowded with a variety of classic vehicles.
"We've got more work than we know what to do with, there's a lot of work coming from out of town, customers with car collections and soon as one is finished then another arrives for restoration.''
One of Jared's more recent acquisitions has been a 1969 Dodge Charger which he found in Detroit. Again powered by the renowned 440 V8 engine, the car was brought into NZ in November 2019.
The vehicle is a rare model, partly because this type featured in the cult television series Dukes of Hazzard, where many were wrecked.
This example is even more special in sporting a four-speed manual transmission. Fisher plans to turn the car into a Dukes of Hazzard 'General Lee' replica. The car is in original condition and needs some panel work. It came with manual drum brakes and without power steering. An upgrade is on the cards for the sake of safety and driving comfort.
Jared's team also gets into the local steampunk culture and enjoys building cars in their own Mad Max-dieselpunk style. "We're the wild cards,'' he says.
All going well, Jared plans to have at least one of his replica police cars and the steampunk engine at the Frankton Thunder automotive and community festival on March 14, in Frankton, Hamilton.
