Another Way Tony Stark Can Save the Planet

Famous actor Robert Downey Jr. AKA Iron Man, had a car collection. You would, too, if you made $80 million in just one year (2014-2015). And he amassed a collection not unlike what you or I might amass: a beautiful 1965 Corvette Stingray, a K/10 pickup truck, and a Mustang Boss 302, among many others.

Let’s let R.D. Jr. himself explain:

“Really what I am is a red-blooded American boy who grew up in New York watching The French Connection and Bullitt... and man, I wanted in,” he said.

But that was 42 years ago. Now, things have changed.

“Click to 42 years later, I had actually amassed a collection, which is what I thought you were supposed to do when you become successful, you know, you’re supposed to collect things, you’re supposed to have artifacts of your success. You’re supposed to be able to drive these symbols of how you succeeded in America.”

And had he ever succeeded. He’s one of the top-earning actors in Hollywood—ever—best known for playing superhero Tony Stark in the Iron Man and Avengers movies. So, sitting on that nice collection of artifacts, he noticed the world around him had changed in the 42 years since he started wanting to collect cars: Global warming and climate change had become an increasingly bigger concern. Suddenly his big brute muscle cars and monster trucks had became a contradiction.

“My priorities are in a completely different place now. And yet, I still love these cars. I feel like they represent something uniquely beautiful about the past. So I want to bring them into the present. Maybe even the future.”

What he wanted to do was take these cars he loves, and make them less polluting, more eco-friendly, smaller emitters. But while he can turn a phrase well, he didn’t necessarily know how to turn a wrench. How would he convert his fleet?

“Luckily I knew a guy.”

That guy was Chris Mazzilli of Dream Cars Restorations, a place that specializes in Corvettes. He knew that Mazzilli could either do the work for him or find someone who could. Six of those restorations are featured in the six-episode documentary Downey’s Dream Cars, available now on MAX. And all six are being auctioned off in a sweepstakes that you can enter.

The show is not your typical Man Vs. Screwdriver car-build docu-drama. There are no large, fat guys screaming and throwing wrenches at each other and panicking as an artificial deadline looms. There is instead a lot of thought-provoking dialogue about whether the future can have these same cars Downey and so many others grew up loving and lusting after, a future that must be cleaner and sustainable.

So, we see six of his collected cars transformed. No, they’re not all Tesla swaps, though the first one, the K/10 pickup is. It was already beautifully restored with a new LS swap, perfect paint and a smooth and perfect interior. The car was so nice when they got it that the guys at Mazzilli’s can’t believe he wants to tear it all apart to make it a Zero-Emission Vehicle. Plus, they’re not experts in electric powertrains. But they know a guy. They bring in YouTube sensation—with more than a million followers—Rich Benoit, who has spent his entire, very successful YouTube career converting all kinds of vehicles to electric power.

“I think the show is going to convince a lot of people that electric cars aren’t so bad,” Benoit said to us at the series’ premier Friday at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. “Because what I’ve been seeing recently is, people have been really conflicted about, ‘Hey, you’re taking these classic cars, you’re destroying them, you’re not preserving their integrity, you’re making them electric.’ And I think after they see the show, they may be like, ‘Wow, it could be kind of cool, actually.’”

That first episode ends with a very convincing finale that proves just how well an electric K/10 can perform.

Episode 2 features the conversion of a perfectly restored, numbers-matching 1965 Stingray to electric power. The guys at Dream Cars Restorations were not only shocked by this blasphemy, but chagrined to find that Robert, as they call him, wants to “destroy” this very rare and beautiful car. But it’s not their, rare and beautiful car, it’s “Robert’s,” and that’s what he wants. The finished product was parked at the Petersen Museum the night of the premier and it looked beautiful. (Plus, the guys at Dream Car Restorations kept the original drivetrain, “just in case.”)

Other classics get different treatments. Sometimes it’s simply putting in a new, modern, more efficient internal-combustion engine, doubling gas mileage and halving emissions. One car gets an air-pollution monitor on top that sends data to a research center to better understand different levels of air quality in different parts of New York City. There’s a bio-diesel Mercedes swap.

It’s all entertaining and Downey is the glue that sticks it all together.

Will it make a difference?

“Because there’s never been another show like this one, I hope it will start a dialogue and maybe someone else will have a better idea,” Downey told us on the red carpet at the Petersen premier. “For me it’s something that I would like to learn more, go deeper with, maybe do a few more seasons, but I’m also really happy just with what it is and what it represents right now.”

What do you think? Are they coming for your Camaro? And if so, will it be more fun with fewer pollutants spewing out the back? Or can they have your Chevy small block when they pry it from your greasy, busted-knuckle fingers? Let us know in the comments below.

* All six cars are being given away in a one-year national sweepstakes beginning Friday, June 16 via www.rdjdreamcars.com. Proceeds from the sweepstakes will benefit Downey’s FootPrintCoalition, a nonprofit organization focused on the adoption of technologies that will advance human systems toward a cleaner environment.