'Ghostbusters' Themed Car Found Stripped And Inoperable After Theft From Garage

LOS ANGELES, CA — Decked out to look like the iconic "Ghostbusters" Ecto-1 car, Erica Nese's Kia was no ordinary vehicle. That was until it was stolen from her garage, stripped of its ornaments and found this week.

Nese discovered Monday afternoon that her custom-made, bright-green Kia Soul was stolen from the garage of her Silver Lake apartment building. The next day, one of her neighbors spotted the car parked on a Westlake street, KTLA reported.

Most of the custom features that Nese had lovingly added to the car were gone — its stickers, extensive rooftop decorations and the sign that bore its name, Ecto Kia. And the vehicle was not in drivable condition, Fox 11 reported.

After the theft, she told KTLA the vehicle was "like my child."

Nese is a film prop artist whose credits include "Guardians of the Galaxy" and "Dune" who grew up watching her dad work at his auto body shop. Out of work during the pandemic, Nese turned to her own vehicle as a creative outlet, she told Fox 11.

"I thought, my car is green, so what can I turn it into?" Nese said. "So I thought of Ghostbusters' Slimer," she said.

Nese told Patch on Wednesday her car was impounded and she was waiting to hear if it was totaled, or could be fixed. She's still waiting to be able to take inventory of what was stolen out of the car.

Nese hasn't been able to get much work over the last year after Hollywood was upended by the writers and actors strikes; she said she doesn't expect she'll be able to afford to bring Ecto Kia back to its former glory.

"I haven't really worked in a year because of the strikes and everything," she told Fox 11. "All the shops have closed down. It's really hard to find even a normal job because I don't know how to do anything else."

Kia and Hyundai cars are among the most stolen vehicles in Los Angeles. Among vehicle thefts in the city last year, 17 percent were Kias and 17 percent were Hyundais, according to a Los Angeles Police Department report.

View photos of Ecto Kia on the car's Instagram page.