We are pretty sure you guys are as big Fast and the Furious fans as we are. The fact that you clicked on this link even after watching the movie on the first day of its release shows how you can’t get enough of the all the action. A movie to be remembered not just for its cars and action sequences, the Furious 7 will always hold a special place in the heart of every car fanatic as we bid adieu to Paul Walker who made his last appearance on celluloid.
That being said, there is a whole lot of interesting trivia that the franchise lovers should know about the latest Fast and the Furious installment making it even more special and memorable than ever.
1. The car diving scene is for real
While original The Fast and the Furious movie started out as a movie about fast cars, illegal street racing and heists, the franchise has moved on to become one of the biggest icons in terms of action movies and also serves as the benchmark for several physics-defying action sequences. In its latest edition, the Furious 7 has a scene where the Dom and his ‘family’ skydive from a cargo plane in cars. A familiar scene for those who’ve watched the movie, the car diving scene isn’t CGI you see there, those are actual cars jumping off a plane with the footage recorded with the help of professional skydivers and helicopters.
Making this fact interesting further is that the stunt cars used for filming weren’t just body shells but were fully built units for this sequence. In fact, the drop sequence was so well choreographed that the cars landed with the parachutes opening and were reused again for two or three additional jumps. Of course, the actor clips were added later but the entire scene is nothing short of badassery.
2. Jack (Brian’s son) throws a Porsche before the explosion scene
Here is something we personally noticed while watching the movie. In the scene before Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) blows up Dom’s house ‘1327’, Brian is seen playing with his son Jack as he puts him in the mini-van. The kid then throws a red coloured car on the ground with the camera pausing at the same for longer than a split second. Incidentally, the toy car shown in the scene has an uncanny resemblance to the red Porsche which crashed on the ill-fated day of November 30th, 2013 killing Paul Walker and his friend and partner Roger Rodas. Whether the inclusion of this particular scene was a pure coincidence or a subtle hint by the makers towards Paul’s death has not been confirmed yet. As a coincidence though, it was surely a big one.
3. All stunt cars were equipped with a Dodge or Chevrolet V8 big block
The entire Fast and the Furious franchise revolves around fast cars and filming cars includes crashing several of them during stunt sequences (over 1500 throughout the entire franchise). Hence, the film crew had several units of the same model available on the sets in order to keep the shooting running at all times. In a bid to keep things simple, the makers of the stunt cars ensured that most vehicles used were equipped with either a Dodge or a Chevrolet V8 engine under the hood that was tuned to produce a standard 500 HP of power. This was done to ensure that parts could be replaced more easily in between stunts and creators also went out to make sure that the cars maintained as many common parts as possible to reduce breakdown hassles.
4. All stunt cars were scrapped to avoid reuse
So you mean to say, the iconic cars with overwhelming amounts of power were just scrapped after the filming was complete? And we will tell you that is absolutely true. The production guys need to follow a particular procedure keeping a check on all the cars involved and its aftermath and made sure that the wrecked cars from the shoot were scrapped and not sold to unsuspecting individuals by replacing the exterior parts that would hide the structural damages from the crashes during the shoot. They may be furious, but the F& F guys are surely responsible.
5. The Lykan Hypersport scene is actually possible
We are pretty sure that you guys much like us were in awe of Middle-East’s first and the very exclusive Lykan Hypersport sports car that featured in the gravity-defying, Vin Diesel’s upper strength testing, cross-winds friendly scene as it made a jump from one tower to the other and then another. While we all at some point went “this isn’t realistically possible but looks amazing and totally fits into the storyline”, a physicist concluded that given the Lykan’s 750 HP of power, the distance between the two towers and wind resistance, the entire stunt could theoretically be possible to execute.
6. The last scenes of Paul Walker for the movie were created by CGI
We are sure you may know this by now and although not a car thing, we can’t stop applauding the immense effort the creators put in to bring Paul back to the mega screen. Paul Walker’s siblings Cody and Caleb stepped in as body doubles while CGI and some adjustments to the lighting made them look close to their late brother. It surely made the last ride a truly memorable one.
7. The white Toyota Supra is from Paul Walker’s personal collection
Who can forget the now iconic drag race in the first installment of the Fast franchise? From then on the Dodge Charger and the Toyota Supra have been closely related to its characters Dom and Brian making an appearance time and again throughout the series. As we bid adieu to Paul Walker in the final scenes of the Furious 7, you can see his character pull up in a white Supra to say goodbye. Making the scene even more special was the fact that it wasn’t just another Supra, but the one from Paul’s personal collection. The movie’s car coordinator Dennis McCarthy explained that they wanted to give the scene a personal touch and the team wanted to get a Nissan GT-R first but when that didn’t work, the Supra was brought in. *Get up, get box of tissues, cry a lot*
8. Paul Walker had a car customization business called Always Evolving (AE)
There is a reason why Paul Walker could relate to Brian O’Conner so closely. A car guy himself, Paul owned a car customization shop called ‘Always Evolving’ co-owned with Roger Rodas and regularly participated in track races on behalf of his company. The actor was also part of several philanthropic activities and was known for his generous side.
9. Fast 8 could be set in New York
The future of the F&F franchise was uncertain after Paul Walker’s death, but that also became the reason for cast and crew to complete the movie in honour of the late actor. As Paul’s character was retired in the post-climax scenes of the Furious 7, the F&F franchise will live on and Vin Diesel recently hinted towards the next edition being set in the big apple ‘New York’. Incidentally, the makers of the first movie had lifted the concept of street racing from newspaper reports of illegal street racing going on in New York back in 1998. This in a way brings the fast and furious world to a full circle.
10. Henessey Venom could feature Fast and Furious 8
Car coordinator Dennis McCarthy has been wanting to get the Hennessey Venom, the only car to beat the Bugatti Veyron’s record (not officially) as part of the Fast franchise for quite some time. Originally, wanting to get it as part of the seventh edition, the dates didn’t work out and the Venom had to be let go. Nonetheless, Dennis is optimistic that the beast of a car will feature in the eighth movie. If anyone needed a reason to wait for the next movie, this is it!
If you still haven’t, check out the tribute by Wiz Khalifa to Paul Walker in this video. Teary eyes is just normal.
We’ll miss you Paul.
Images Courtesy: Universal Studios
I noticed the red toy car as well you can also hear paul say “cars on fire” at the same time crazy