Screening Green
April 1, 2008
At EcoManiacal, a production company blooming in the bowels of Los Angeles’ gritty warehouse district, even the resident dog is recycled. Shambles, a tan-colored, shin-high, former stray scampers around EcoManiacal’s wildly environmental 24,000-square-foot studio, oblivious to the hive of activity buzzing around his new home. Corrugated metal form the walls and roof, while stained concrete makes up the flooring. Offices have been erected in one corner of the facility from remnants of this once dingy and forgettable repository for plastic bags.
"We’re not just out to do a TV show," says John "J.C." Caldwell, EcoManiacal’s COO (Note: At press time, Caldwell was no longer working for EcoManiacal). "We want to run a company that thinks completely outside of the box."
That company was recently founded by Rick Underhill, a veteran L.A.-based producer and music video director who’d had enough of the Hollywood scene and was aching to make a difference and a splash. His idea was radically simple. Create two television shows: Ultimate Green Machines would take high-end cars and replace their petroleum-based power plants with green engines, while Finding Green would, reality TV-style, chronicle the trials and tribulations of running a production company whose goal was to do everything with eco-standards in mind.
Since Underhill knew L.A.’s ropes well, he thought he’d quickly find takers, particularly for his Pimp My Ride meets An Inconvenient Truth auto-makeover show. Wrong.
"I was a bit disgusted, to be honest," says Underhill, sipping a Diet Coke. "I actually had execs say to me, ‘So, you think global warming is real?’ I was going to throw in the towel. Maybe this was too much to take on."
But fate intervened in the form of Kyoto Planet, a Canadian investment group committed to pursuing projects with positive environmental impact. Seed money quickly fell into Underhill’s lap, allowing him to buy the Studio G warehouse as well as a stable of cars—including a Ferrari 612 Scaglietti, Maserati Quattroporte and an old 1957 Chevy pickup—that would serve as the show’s first stars.
Today, Underhill’s wrenches are busy putting the final touches on the pickup, which will run off a series of batteries that are also used to power a fleet of PT Cruiser taxis in New York. Having shed its heavy, traditional motor and transmission, the newfangled hauler will weigh less than 2,000 pounds. "With about 500 horsepower, it should be pretty fast," says Heidi Van Horne, who has both the technical skills and physical charm to be a breakout star of Ultimate Green Machines. "We’re definitely all learning as we go. It’s exciting."
The cars arrayed around the Chevy will soon get their moment in the green spotlight. Although specifics are still up in the air, the idea is to have each car serve as a guinea pig for a specific type of technology. To that end, a Jaguar XK8 could get a biodiesel engine, the Maserati could see a bolt-on hydrogen-based engine—the same technology that the group will apply to a personal water craft. Meanwhile, an older Acura NSX and Lotus Super 7 are candidates for new cylinder heads that drastically reduce emissions without compromising power—so much so that Underhill hopes to enter both cars in racing events.
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