Jurassic Park Cars

Since I've been shopping around for a better car, I've of course been checking out the specs on the cars from Jurassic Park. I was never really into cars, but if you asked the 8yo Me what my favorite car was, I probably would've said "the Jurassic Park car", and since there were two great cars in Jurassic Park, let's see how they stack up.

They see me rollin'...

By "Jurassic Park car," I probably meant "the one with the no doors." They were just so cool and rugged, and door-less, and could purr away through the mud and ferns quite nicely when outrunning a T-Rex. They were actually Jeep Wranglers, and yes some of them had little doors, but any car that was rugged and could outrun a T-Rex would've had me sold, and I'm apparently not the only one. It seems that turning your Jeep Wrangler into a JP Jeep, with decals and all, is an official hobby, and there's even a fan club about it. "What dinosaurs does it outrun? Perfect, let's sign the papers!

It was the other JP car though that made the better toy... that being the tour cars that drove themselves. "Look it! A ghost! Ahh!" These turned out to be Ford Explorers, and boy did they shine up pretty in the movie with that yellow-green fade and the red "Dino" paint on the hood. Plus they had that awesome sun roof that was just like one big window. They also had the miracle of "INTERACTIVE CD-ROM! Just touch the right part of the screen and it talks about whatever you want!" Join the future... these were the original touch-screen "smart cars!"  Unfortunately it didn't hold up against the T-Rex very well, but it was a damn tough nut to crack! People also deck out their Ford Explorers to look like the Jurassic Park tour car too.

The reason I said that the tour car was a better toy was because they merchandised it (like anything they could slap a JP logo on). The toy came with a cool rocket launcher on the back and a front section that could pop off.. (No mom, I didn't break it, that's "Dino Damage!"). It was called the Jurassic Park Jungle Explorer set, and I definitely wanted it, just like I wanted anything with a JP logo, but I never got it. You can find it though at this really cool collector's site JPtoys.com, where I also quickly learned how much money these things were, and why "spare no expense!" didn't work on my parents.