BELFAST, Maine — Drivers along Maine’s coast Tuesday might have done a double take as a sleek, silver car outfitted with a “flux capacitor” and a model nuclear fusion generator in the back flashed past them on Route 1.
Yes, the DeLorean time machine from the “Back to the Future” movie trilogy was in the Pine Tree State, traveling through space — if not through time — to raise money for Parkinson’s disease research.
Terry and Oliver Holler of North Myrtle Beach, S.C., have made a replica of the movie’s automobile and stopped in Maine on their September fundraising adventure.
The couple — and the car — raised more than $1,600 Monday afternoon in Boothbay Harbor, where a special event featured a barbecue and showing of the Michael J. Fox film. Fox was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 1991.
“Our goal is to raise as much money as we can, then a little bit more,” Terry Holler said about their effort.
As they headed up the coast toward Bar Harbor on Tuesday, the Hollers stopped at the Maine Coast Welcome Center in Belfast for about an hour with the DeLorean prominently parked out front, its gull-wing doors open so passers-by could peek inside.
“I think it’s cool,” said Jim LeClair, director of the welcome center. “They weren’t here five minutes and the cameras were out.”
All money raised during the Hollers’ travels is given to the nonprofit Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, the couple said.
They volunteer their time.
“It’s not bad for weekend warriors,” she said.
Oliver Holler said he loved 1985’s “Back to the Future” and when he first watched it, he thought it would be “cool” to drive a time machine. After obtaining a 1982 DeLorean DMC-12, he and Terry added a replica “flux capacitor” — which sent the car back in time in the movies — and a reworked “Mr. Fusion” nuclear reactor, which powered the vehicle in the film.
The couple enjoyed driving their model time machine so much that they decided in 2001 to join Team Fox, the grass-roots fundraising branch of the Michael J. Fox Foundation.
Over the years, they have raised a total of $30,000 for Parkinson’s disease research and are now in the middle of a 50-state mission to bring the DeLorean across the country. Maine is No. 37, they said.
The Hollers’ nuclear reactor is called “Mr. Compassion,” and when people drop money in the top, it rewards them with sound clips from the “Back to the Future” movies.
The couple planned to spend time Tuesday afternoon in Bar Harbor, where the DeLorean would be parked by Oli’s Trolley, and then drive to a comics convention in Montreal.
For information, visit www.tothefuture.org.