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Kotzin got into the business through his buddy Chuck Shubb, who calls himself a picture car supplier. Shubb owns some 60 classic cars and belongs to six car clubs, including the Lincoln Club, where he serves as a judge. He collected cars as a hobby while running his construction company until a chance meeting with an art director in 1985. She borrowed a few of his cars to use in commercials and music videos, and soon after, Shubb's movie-car business was born. He keeps his vehicles -- from a 1914 Ford Model T to a 1929 Packard to a 1963 AMC Rambler
-- at various locations around the city and still gets under the hoods regularly. His staff includes a mechanic and a driver who moves the cars on a flatbed truck. A soft-spoken 72-year-old who recites his cars' years and makes like the names of beloved children, Shubb shops swap meets for rare parts and has a machinist make the ones he can't find. He travels with his cars, though he lamented that so much production has moved out of the area in recent years. Still, there's one thing he won't accept: "I don't do wrecks." "They're my babies," he said. "They're not replaceable." As the picture car coordinator, Woods has to do wrecks. They wrecked four classic 1949 Cadillacs in "Gangster Squad," along with eight other cars. "We blew them up, crashed them and destroyed them," he said, adding that there was also "one unforeseen accident where we hit a real 2010 Ford taxi in the middle of the night." With rare exception, though, his team buys junkyard cars that don't run, then modifies them for stunts
-- and destruction. Still, Woods hates to see such classic beauties wrecked. "The integrity of these cars is too much," he said, adding that none of the working, cared-for vehicles was harmed during the making of the film. "We never ever shot a hole in a single fender," he said. "Those cars are down here in my office and they're not even scratched or hurt. All bullet holes were CG." That's good news for Kotzin, who draws the line at "no dancing on the hood." ___ Online:
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