'Supernatural' Impala Is A Big-block Powered Demon Hunter | Driving

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Somewhere out beyond the small town of Ashcroft, B.C., a winding, lonely canyon road runs through hilly ranchland like a mountain creek made of sun-baked tarmac.

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Stand here on the scrubby grass and gravel of the shoulder, and listen carefully. Something is coming: an approaching roar. It sounds like thunder. It sounds like the battle-cry of an archangel.

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It sounds like Armageddon.

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Suddenly, there it is, with a glint of chrome and the dusty black paint of an old road warrior. It’s 18 feet of badass – a 1967 Chevy Impala hardtop powered by a 502-cubic-inch big-block, slammed down on a built Hotchkiss performance suspension. The V8 rumbles like a bowling ball stuck in an industrial dryer and there’s a guy at the wheel with a grin so big the top of his head might come off. He stomps the throttle, the big-block howls and the Impala lunges forward. It’s the best job in the world.

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“They strapped on a camera and told me to just go drive around,” says Jeff Budnick, picture car co-ordinator for the filmed-in-B.C. television show Supernatural, “Most fun two weeks of my life.”

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We’re standing next to the Impala in question, hunkered down on its tuned suspension and oozing charisma despite slightly shabby paint. Budnick found it in Colorado, with just 12,000 original miles on the clock, and built it into a monster. It’s what the film industry calls a “hero car,” used for closeups, and it and its siblings are tucked away on an industrial lot in Burnaby, B.C.

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Supernatural has been filming in B.C. for about a decade now. Over the years, the film crew has gone from a tight professional group to something approaching a family. About 85% of the original core staff still remain, and Budnick’s been there since the beginning.

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The story of his start in the business is equal parts luck, hard work, and sheer destiny. A car collector since the tender age of 14 – his first classic was a Ford Galaxie – Budnick’s always had something interesting in the garage. He made a decent living running his own neon sign company, and started putting together a personal fleet, just for fun.

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