For four decades, Mario Sciortino has worked behind the scenes to design, build and rigging cars with pyrotechnic devices for some of the best-known movie and television productions of all time. 

On the movie side, his list of feature-film credits includes the “Indiana Jones” franchise, all of the “Back to the Future” movies, “Lethal Weapon,” “A Few Good Men,” “Bugsy,” “Cannonball Run,” “Days of Thunder,” “Smokey and the Bandit” and “Dick Tracy.” 

TV titles includes “Viper,” “The Fall Guy,” “Wonder Woman,” “The Incredible Hulk,” “Baretta,” “Columbo,” “Nash Bridges,” “M*A*S*H,” “Happy Days,” “The Waltons,” “Hardcastle and McCormick” among many others. (Refer to the Filmography section below for a more complete list.)

READY FOR THEIR CLOSEUP 

It may be surprising to learn that most of these “star cars” are built for the sole purpose of being destroyed once the cameras start rolling. 

“That’s the nature of the business,” Mario says. “It’s why I always look at what our team does as a job, and not as a car. There’s a lot that goes into rigging a vehicle to blow it up precisely how the director envisions that it should. Whether that happens as part of a fiery explosion or by launching a car off of building, safety is always top of mind for us.” 

Oftentimes, Mario says, he and his team will duplicate a specific vehicle, adding identical dents, scratches and such as those that appear on the original vehicle so that the latter can remain pristine and unscathed. 

For the film “Last Action Hero,” starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mario and his team built three principal cars as well as a trio of duplicates. Similarly, for the Jim Carrey comedy “Dumb & Dumber,” he says, “We built the principal car and three duplicates.” There were a dozen “KITT” cars used in the classic ‘80s series “Knight Rider,” including a fully functional promotional car that went out on tour. 

“We handle the paintwork end of the business as well as the fine details, such as making a car look aged. We also build miniatures,” he explains, including one that was the centerpiece of the former Stardust Las Vegas’ 45th anniversary celebration. He designed a blue aluminum rocket-shaped time capsule that was painstakingly constructed entirely by hand before being pinstriped and hand-painted with the resort’s iconic logo. 

A FAMILY BUSINESS

Unique Movie Car’s history is a lengthy one that began more than a century ago. Mario’s grandfather, Sam, built stagecoaches and buggies in Italy before emigrating to New York. He   brought the business with him to the United States.  

Meanwhile, Mario’s love affair with cars began when he restored his first ride at age 15. In 1973, he opened a custom motorhome business with his father, Dick, in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley. Father and son built custom coaches for celebrities that were outfitted with dressing rooms or used as mobile offices on movie-set locations. “The Vogue Coach,” as it was called, became the top motorhome in the nation. Actors Lynda Carter, Robert Blake and Lyle Waggoner were among the notables who owned one of these luxurious coaches.

The business evolved to include crafting cars and props for Hollywood’s motion picture and television studios. In the late 1970s, Mario was called upon to build the cars, trucks and all other motorized vehicles featured on the hit television series “The Waltons.” 

THE VEGAS CONNECTION 

One decade – and hundreds of big- and small-screen credits later – Mario and his family relocated to The Entertainment Capital of the World, Las Vegas, where he opened a second location of Unique Movie Cars in the fast-growing suburb of Henderson, Nevada. 

It’s not uncommon for Mario and his skilled team to work on several sizeable projects at a time. “We’ll sit down and have meetings and figure out what we need to do and how best to make it happen,” he says. “We stay in close communication with the studios throughout the production. After receiving the storyboards, we formulate ideas for how the cars should look and perform. Over the years, we’ve built such tremendous relationships with the studios that they’ll often leave it up to us to fine tune the details.”  

That may include putting squibs (small explosive devices) in a vehicle’s door panel so that when there is an onscreen gunfight and the car is shot at, a bullet hole can be blown out – complete with smoke effects. Sharing one of his trade secrets, Mario explains that he’ll drill the bullet holes before filling them with explosive material and sanding them (which can be dangerous since any amount of friction can set off the charges). The door is then painted to camouflage the holes, rendering them undetectable to the naked eye, as well as the camera.

It’s not unusual for Mario to install dozens of squibs in a single vehicle. He recalls that the 1989 made-for-TV movie “L.A. Takedown,” directed by Michael Mann, called for 250 squibs to be placed within a station wagon. 

Other effects have included painting massive patterns and even murals on cars, including colorful flames. With paint, a few lightbars and sirens, Mario once transformed a several old taxicabs into a small fleet of faux police vehicles that were used as part of a potential television pilot that was filmed at the former Palms hotel-casino in Las Vegas. (Unique Movie Cars is the only business of its kind sanctioned to duplicate police vehicles in Southern Nevada.) 

ALL IN A DAY’S WORK 

The workload at Unique Movie Cars can be daunting at times. Mario and his team are no strangers to working the long hours necessary to ensure that their builds turn out precisely as planned and, most importantly, are as safe as possible. The best part about the business, he says, is that it’s never the same job twice and that he doesn’t know what to expect when he walks through the door each day.

Because of the reputation he has built for Unique Movie Cars, the work seeks out Mario. He has consistently worked with several of Hollywood’s most-celebrated directors, including Steven Spielberg and Oliver Stone.  

Although he has a number of employees, depending on the size and scope of a project, he may hire additional crew members to assist. He built the namesake vehicle for the television series “Viper,” and had little more than a month to complete work on 14 principal cars as well as prep another 200 vehicles for production.

“We took these cars, figured out what each car was going to do in the series and then stripped them to their bare chassis,” Mario says. “We then took them apart and handcrafted another body and interior for the chassis. We also changed the drive train cases and some of the motors so the cars would perform as needed.” 

Dubbed “The Defender,” Mario and his team created an entirely new vehicle that was quite literally the star of the show.

In fact, he is also responsible for having designed the first removable hardtop for the real RT10 Viper that was used in the Eddie Murphy remake of comedy classic “The Nutty Professor.” The top that Mario designed became the one used by Chrysler ended on its commercial GTS models.

Mario owns hundreds of vehicles – from Volkswagens to Rolls-Royces as well as trucks, vans and motorbikes. They often lease or sell to the studios those that were built for productions. Cars featured in one film or series are frequently refurbished for use in another. Such was the case with a 1930s Packard, Ford Model As and old mail trucks that were used in ’80s-era miniseries “The Thorn Birds.” 

CUSTOM DESIGNS

Aside from vehicles with four wheels, Unique Movie Cars also builds boats and jet-skis. It has also constructed such unlikely objects as a faux-ATM machine, duplicated the famous gates of Graceland for the TV miniseries “Elvis and Me,” and has even crafted sofas. The instantly recognizable Dog Van from the “Dumb and Dumber” movies was also one of their creations. 

Celebrities – including rock legend Bruce Springsteen, actors Mark Harmon and Danny DeVito, comedian Richard Pryor and rockers Vince Neil – are also fans and have had their personal vehicles restored by Unique Movie Cars. 

One thing is certain: If you’re watching a movie or television show in which someone is driving off into the sunset, chances are that vehicle was unique-ly made for the scene by the Mario Sciortino.  

Abridged from Las Vegas Style Magazine (October 2003).