The 18-inch wheels are inside 265/65R18 BFGoodrich All-Terrain radials. So CVS had wheels custom-made by a company called Intro Wheels and painted them black except, of course, for the Acura logo on the center caps. Wheels that looked right and had the correct offset for the Acura MDX also proved impossible to locate. A Whelen Engineering LFL Liberty LED light bar is mounted atop each MDX. The sidestep bars also came from Go Rhino! and were cut down to fit the MDX. The front push bar started life as standard pieces from the Go Rhino! catalog, with an upper bar added and LED foglamps bolted. Once the prototypes were stitched together, molds were made from them and fiberglass flares were fabricated for all 10 of the vehicles. Not finding any aftermarket fender flares readily available for The Avengers Acura MDX, Salerno and his crew took flares originally intended for a Ford truck and cut them up to fit the Acura. graphics weren't applied by CVS but were later painted on by the film company's art department. All but one of the MDXs got a complete color change. Most movie cars slam through the CVS shops so quickly there's no time to paint the door jambs. And then we painted all the chrome parts a black tint to get a black chrome effect." "The finish has a soft-touch feel to it," described Salerno. There the paint applied by Acura was sanded down and PPG flat black was applied. duty each Acura MDX was first sent to the CVS paint shop. Just because you're fighting super-villains doesn't mean you shouldn't be super-comfortable.īefore S.H.I.E.L.D. And they weren't stripped-out MDXs either, as all were equipped with the Technology package and full leather-lined interiors. Everything had to be custom-made."Ī total of 10 MDXs were built for The Avengers, with most coming brand-new straight off the production line in Alliston, Ontario. "There are a few accessories available through Acura, but they weren't right for what we were doing. "You can't buy anything for the MDX," says Sam Salerno, the shop foreman for CVS. Literally thousands of cars move through the CVS shops every year, getting everything from a coat of mud to a full rebuild for their screen appearances. The Shelby GT500 Mustangs used in 2000's Gone In Sixty Seconds were fabricated here, as were all the dozens of Volkswagen Beetles that died portraying the title character in 2005's Herbie: Fully Loaded. Started in 1975 by Ray Claridge, it has been the go-to facility for movie car preparation for decades. And it turns out that's exactly what it is. On first sight it looks like a few fabrication shops floating in a sea of fake cabs and phony cop cars. duty.Īt the heartless center of unglamorous North Hollywood, California, lies Cinema Vehicle Services' (CVS) 7.5-acre facility. So the movie's producers decided the MDXs needed to be dipped in positive male essence for S.H.I.E.L.D. Which is smart, since the Acuras came with a lucrative product placement deal.īut a plain Acura MDX right off the showroom floor would be way too tame when your brothers-in-arms include Hulk, Black Widow and Iron Man. backs up Thor and the gang with a fleet of these modified MDXs. Besides the Helicarrier, which is basically a flying Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, S.H.I.E.L.D. stands for Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement Logistics Division, which means it's the not-so-secret organization that supports the superheroes. law enforcement agency that uses the MDX as its utility vehicle. In The Avengers, which opens May 4, it's the globe-spanning S.H.I.E.L.D. Suddenly, no question deserves more than a single-syllable answer, and in your mind you develop plans to kill anyone you meet. Just sitting behind its steering wheel unleashes your inner superhero, or at least your inner Rambo. Flat black and jacked up, The Avengers Acura MDX looks like the fighter it's pretending to be.
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