In July the first Back to the Future film marked it’s 30th anniversary— as when released theatrically— and the celebrating continues. Yesterday evening my brother Shawn passed through the Puente Hills Mall, a key filming location for the franchise, and made an interesting discovery. Parked in the southern-most edge of the lot was a recognizable vehicle that was surrounded by standing, orange cones without any yellow tape or rope to specifically cut off an area. It was Doc Brown’s white Step Van just like it was seen in the films. My brother scoped it out for a while from a safe distance, and found that several folks with cameras and lighting were either filming or taking pictures. He later got out and ventured over to see what’s doin’ and sent me a couple of pictures.
I did a quick search online and found that this appeared to be a viral marketing campaign at it’s finest— to spread the word about We’re Going Back. As Shawn was taking his pictures he noticed a couple gentleman setting up some action figures and small toy model of the trademarked DeLorean, which appeared to him that they were going for the whole forced perspective thing. A quick search on Twitter appears to show that this shot and that one are it. Pretty impressive.
Today Shawn and I, while en route to a nice afternoon/very-early evening in Sierra Madre, stopped over at Puente Hills Mall and found that Doc’s truck was still there. I took these shots of which you can click each one to enlarge. If you’d like to use these on your blog, site, Twitter, IG, Facebook, etc… fine by me and just credit @trdonovan as the source. It’s all about spreading the BTTF love my friends…
At first glance it looked like the real McCoy, but I soon discovered it was a replica (not that this was disappointing— because it wasn’t). The initial indication, from a quick search on my phone, was the the fuel door on the left side. In the film it was in front of the left-rear tire, but on the replica it was behind it. There were also differences in the body styles and lengths between the two— leading to show two different models of Step Vans. But none the less… the person(s) who worked really hard in this great replication surely went all-out with details. The dust along the bottom sides, the dirty windows and the lettering on the sides was spot on. Kudos to them, seriously.
We were there for about ten minutes and we didn’t see anyone else come up in that short span. However, it sure drew some double-takes from those who were parking nearby and heading into the mall. As my pictures show there are bumper stickers indicating #docstruck, and one for the We’re Going Back 30th celebration. As of this writing, on Twitter alone, there have been at least 192 posts by 180 users of which have been seen by 180K other users almost 220K times!!!
Time travel… I never would have thought back in 1985 I could go to “Twin/Lone Pine(s) Mall” in 2015 to see Doc’s Step Van!
I’m not sure how long it’ll be out there, but it is on display with the Puente Hills Mall’s approval, encouragement and cooperation, and has been there since Tuesday night the 22nd. Despite the orange cones it doesn’t appear folks are being kept away from looking into the windows. I assume it’s locked up pretty good and mall security, I’m sure, has one of their PTZ cameras trained on it 24/7. I should add that security does a fine job making periodic passes on by ensuring all is kosher.
If you’re not able to make it out there— famed YouTube blogger Adam The Woo ventured out there yesterday morning and did an excellent vlog on location. In case you’re curious about the letter “P”… it was back up there today!
P.S.— I am a huge BTTF fan…
Tommy R. Donovan 