{"id":383657,"date":"2026-01-01T00:44:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T00:44:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/383657\/"},"modified":"2026-01-01T00:44:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T00:44:13","slug":"jurassic-park-fan-fulfils-childhood-dream-of-recreating-jeep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/383657\/","title":{"rendered":"Jurassic Park fan fulfils childhood dream of recreating Jeep"},"content":{"rendered":"

Zakary Weyer’s obsession with Jurassic Park began before he was even born.<\/p>\n

“My parents actually went and saw it in the cinema when my mum was still pregnant with me. So I think that’s probably where it started,” he said.<\/p>\n

When he grew up, he turned his childhood dream into a reality and built his very own Jurassic Park Jeep.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Zakary Weyer’s Jurassic Park Jeep turns heads whenever he drives it. (ABC News: Brant Cumming)<\/p>\n

“It’s always been a dream of mine, since I was a kid, to have one of these,” he said.<\/p>\n

It took a while to find the right car, and while it is not perfectly accurate to the movie, he was still able to make it look as detailed as possible.<\/p>\n

“I’ve done a few different professions in my time and sort of picked up a lot of different skills that I needed,” he said.<\/p>\n

“So welding and the metal bending and electrical work for the lighting and all that kind of stuff. [I] just picked it up over the years.<\/p>\n

“There’s always some little thing you want to change or make better.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Zakary Weyer developed the skills needed to build his very own Jurassic Park Jeep. (Supplied: Zakary Weyer)<\/p>\n

A T-rex sized hit<\/p>\n

Jurassic Park premiered in 1993 and quickly became the highest-grossing movie of all time, dethroned five years later by Titanic.<\/p>\n

For a generation of dinosaur-mad children it remains a cornerstone of pop culture, with six sequels and numerous books, TV shows and video games released in the three decades since.<\/p>\n

The dinosaurs are the stars of Jurassic Park, but vehicles play a major role in many of the film’s iconic moments.<\/p>\n

There’s the scene where Dr Alan Grant \u2014 played by Sam Neill \u2014 and Dr Ellie Sattler \u2014 played by Laura Dern \u2014 watch in awe from a Jeep as a Brachiosaurus walks past, or when a Tyrannosaurus rex breaks free and attacks the park’s tour cars.<\/p>\n

Mr Weyer no longer uses his Jeep for the daily commute, but whenever he takes to Adelaide’s roads he can expect the same reaction.<\/p>\n

“Every time I park somewhere basically I get people coming up asking for photos,” he said.<\/p>\n

“One guy nearly actually crashed his bike getting a gander [as] he was going past.”<\/p>\n

Fandom finds a way<\/p>\n

There is a global community dedicated to recreating the cars from Jurassic Park.<\/p>\n

Byron Phillips is from the Australian branch of the Jurassic Park Motor Pool.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Byron Phillips has also recreated the Jurassic Park Jeep. (ABC: Peter Sanders)<\/p>\n

“We drive all around Australia … doing events and charity work as well,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It’s all about making people smile at the end of the day. And creating those memories for people when they see the vehicle and they have a photo or they see it drive past.<\/p>\n

“For those few moments, you’re really tapping into the fandom of whatever that car is, and whatever it belongs to.”<\/p>\n

He loves the thrill of being spotted on the roads, but there is a deeper meaning behind the Jurassic Park tribute.<\/p>\n

“My son has a disability so a big part of the reason that I went with the Jurassic Jeep is because he can say ‘Jeep’ and ‘dinosaur’,” he said.<\/p>\n

“And so whenever I drive around town, he knows where I am. So it takes away the anxiety of ‘where’s Dad?'”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Byron Phillips and his Jurassic Park vehicle on a visit to Tamworth.\u00a0 (Supplied: Byron Phillips)<\/p>\n

Unlike Mr Weyer, Mr Phillips had zero mechanical knowledge when he first started putting his car together around a decade ago, so he was reliant on other members of the Motor Pool offering their advice.<\/p>\n

“There’s an online resource and a group where they can compare notes and give guidance on certain parts of the Jeeps,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It’s always there. And people learn from each other. They learn from their mistakes. There’s been many mistakes made.”<\/p>\n

From the road to the big screen<\/p>\n

Several cars from the Jurassic Park Motor Pool made it to the big screen in 2024, when amateur filmmakers in regional Victoria released a shot-for-shot low budget remake of the original film.<\/p>\n

Loading…<\/p>\n

John Roebuck, who directed Jurassic Park: Castlemaine Redux, said the production value from having Hollywood-accurate vehicles was immense.<\/p>\n

“It definitely felt like it was a level up in terms of production value,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I think the cast and crew were used to me turning up to set with spray-painted Super Soakers or these very flimsily-made velociraptor pens that I’d spent weeks building that fell apart as soon as we finished shooting.<\/p>\n

“The day the cars turned up there really was an air of excitement. It felt like a level up.”<\/p>\n

He even got to outrun a T-rex in one of the vehicles, in his on-screen role as game hunter Robert Muldoon.<\/p>\n

“We had the actors dressed up as Ellie Sattler and Ian Malcolm in the back of the Jeep and it felt a little bit like Jurassic Park virtual reality. It was a bizarre but exciting feeling,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The crew film a scene near Castlemaine in Victoria. (ABC Central Victoria: Shannon Schubert)<\/p>\n

‘Not as hard as you think’<\/p>\n

Zakary Weyer said building the Jeep had been a “life changer”.<\/p>\n

It was also a lot cheaper than he expected, costing around $10,000 for the Jeep, and a further $2,000 on the Jurassic Park fit-out.<\/p>\n

\"Large<\/p>\n

Zakary Weyer learned metalwork and electrical work to make his own Jurassic Park Jeep. (ABC News: Brant Cumming)<\/p>\n

Whether it’s a Jurassic Park Jeep, a Back To The Future DeLorean, or a Batmobile, he has a simple message to anyone wanting to recreate their favourite movie vehicle.<\/p>\n

“Just do it. It’s actually not as hard as you think once you get started,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It’s always just taking that first small step like getting a set of wheels, painting them. That’s a pretty simple one.<\/p>\n

“And then from there, you’ll realise, it’s actually not that bad. It’s bit by bit.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zakary Weyer’s obsession with Jurassic Park began before he was even born. “My parents actually went and saw…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":383658,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[64,63,206282,206285,206281,134,206286,20754,206283,61071,206279,206284,141357,206280],"class_list":{"0":"post-383657","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-byron-phillips","11":"tag-castlemaine-redux","12":"tag-dinosaur-fandom","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-john-roebuck","15":"tag-jurassic-park","16":"tag-jurassic-park-motor-pool","17":"tag-laura-dern","18":"tag-motoring-euthusiast","19":"tag-movie-remake","20":"tag-sam-neill","21":"tag-zakary-weyer"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383657\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/383658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}