Behind The Scenes

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Perhaps the most repeated question I get is this one: How can I build a replica Fast and Furious car?   There isn't one answer to this question because obviously, it depends on which car you're trying to build. If you're trying to replicate one of the cars from any of the movies AFTER Tokyo Drift, it will be MUCH easier because most of the cars from Fast 4 onwards were little more than tires, wheels, mufflers and some parts needed to perform stunts.   So for the sake of this article, let's focus on the idea of building a replica of one of the cars from the first three movies. Spoiler alert: it'll be a multi-year project and will take tens of thousands of dollars and literally THOUSANDS of hours scouring the internet for every classified sale page on the internet - Ebay, Facebook marketplace, ModFinds, individual Facebook Classified pages and so on.   BUDGET: If you want to build a Supra replica (from the first movie)  or a GTR replica (from the second movie), you better have $100,000 cash in your hand, right now. And no, an 18-year-old kid is not going to get a $150,000 loan from a bank to build a 20-year-old movie

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  I've resisted the temptation to post this mostly because I don't want people to think I'm bragging. However, if you look at the list, there's hardly much to brag about.   I imagine my story isn't much different from those who follow me on social media: I started with a hand-me-down car, which I promptly modifying. I eventually learned that trying to fix up a crummy car with almost no available aftermarket parts make such an endeavor a very poor choice.   I learned quickly, however, and moved on to cars that were wholly embraced by aftermarket performance parts.   Having grown up in the 1970s, my school's parking lot was full of American iron - Chevelles, Mustangs, Monte Carlos,  Buicks, Chevy Vegas, Chargers, Satellites, Cudas, Camaros, and other cars. I've ridden in pretty much every car ever sold in America from the model year 1964 to 1988.   By the time I got my driver's license, I already knew that the 1970s and 1980s were a dark time for cars. Laden with restrictive smog equipment, these cars were choked. For the 1978 Pontiac Trans Am (from Smokey and the Bandit), horsepower came in at 185, and torque was 320-lbs.ft., measured at the flywheel (in California).   American cars of

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Superchips Calls it Quits Due to COVID 19 The Facebook that greeted me this morning had the ominous headline - Superchips calls it quits due to COVID 19. The irony was not lost on me. It just so happens that in my Instagram Live session yesterday, a follower asked me what my thoughts were on the move away from internal combustion engines. As the discussion progressed, I touched upon the future of the automotive tuning world once hybrids and fully electric propulsion systems become the only choice.   The conversation then continued when someone asked about what were my predictions for the future of the tuning hobby - the ability to modify one's vehicle through some sort of programming device. More on that in a moment.   Of course, when I woke up this morning to this note posted on the website of Superchips UK, I was surprised: ***Important Announcement*** Superchips Ltd. Due to the current COVID 19 situation, we have taken the difficult decision to place Superchips Limited into liquidation and have instructed Quantuma to assist with this process. Thank you for your incredible business and support over the years. We alongside Quantuma will be working together over the next few weeks in order to assess whether we can sell

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4 Most Common Vehicle Replacements     No matter what we buy, a time will come when it will either wear down or get too old for use. Sometimes, certain things we purchase can break (like a plate) or tear (like a piece of fabric). Therefore we always need to make sure that we are replacing old things with new things to ensure that everything is running smoothly and we face no trouble. If we consider a vehicle, it’s very likely that the paint job gets deteriorated over time or something probably breaks like a window or a door handle. This is where replacement comes in, and today we’ll discuss the 4 most common auto replacements car owners need to do.     1.   Windshields Nowadays the windshields of a car do more than just provide a barrier between you and the wind while you’re driving; they help to keep the roof of a vehicle intact and work to protect all car passengers in case of an accident. The best way to tell if you need to replace your windshield is when you notice that it is chipped or cracked, a former repair didn’t work, or when the glass seems to have changed after winter. In such

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The Future of Cars I had a great conversation with some of my closest car friends, recently. Like most people I consort with, we are all united by our love for modified cars. In my current circle, that includes a group of friends that own a list of cares that include: a McLaren 650 a 997.2 Porsche Turbo a Ferrari 458 a C7 ZR1 Corvette various R35 GT-Rs a 2018 Jeep TrackHawk and other fun cars as daily drivers. Collectively, this group of seven people has nearly 200 years of automotive tinkering experience. Many of us have owned literally dozens of cars, from analog sports cars of the '60s and '70s to today's latest supercomputer-controlled hypercars. And this is in my little Facebook chat group. Most of us track our cars on road courses. Some are championship winners. This is an educated (and opinionated group). Invariably, our conversations often turn to speculation about what cars from what manufacturers are coming next. Will they be evolutionary or revolutionary? While opinions vary on what's most important on any given manufacturer's spec sheet, we all agree on one point - we are likely in the golden age of supercars that use internal combustion engines as there primary

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In widely reported articles, the rumor seemed to have some teeth. As reported "The "Fast and Furious" franchise seems to have done it all after churning out eight movies in the span of nearly 20 years. "The Fate of the Furious" director F. Gary Gray has spoken about how heading into space would ramp up the ninth movie but actor Tyrese Gibson wants something else to happen. So, what will "Fast and Furious 9" be about?" This excerpt comes from an article written in 2017, but if you Google the topic, you'll see that there are many reports suggesting that it was being considered. But what's really happening? As of late 2019, we have already seen footage on social media of the production taking place in England, Tblisi (Georgia, previously part of the USSR) and other places. In October 2019, they were filming at Irwindale speedway. I received multiple reports and even photos of NASCAR style cars at the speedway. This suggests that there will be a flashback scene to when Dom's father was killed at a "stock car" event. Further reports of parts being ordered for a red FD RX7 suggest that we may get a glimpse of the RX7 back when

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Cardi B Joins Fast 9 - Dumpster Fire Ensues   In what can only be interpreted as an attempt to appease a certain subset of the population, Cardi B has been added to the roster of transient (hopefully) "actors" of the franchise. As Cardi B joins Fast 9, I have to ask myself (like so many others), 'what the hell is Universal doing?'   Universal has been cunning (and in some cases, brilliant) in their choices of "talent" throughout the franchise. They've examined their audience demographics carefully and for the most part, have brought audiences some amazing talent. Whether or not they've made the best use of this talent is debatable, but the fact that none of these movies have even been nominated for an Academy Award is telling. The Academy doesn't pay much attention to box office results, so Fast's box office draw has done nothing to influence their consideration for an Oscar. More likely, the contrived scripts, razor-thin plotlines, and confusing timelines have contributed to continued snuffs.   I have to think that Vin Diesel was a club in New York and ran into Cardi B. His entourage and her entourage were popping bottles and Vin leaned over to Cardi and said, "hey, we should

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Building a Fast and Furious Replica Car can be a fun but challenging endeavor. The enthusiasm is understandable, given the excitement that still exists for these movies. It's the same type of enthusiasm I had for cars as a teenager.   In fact, I couldn't until I got my driver's license before I started working on cars, so I worked on friend's cars. My buddy had a '78 Ford pickup with a 351C and I changed the carb on that. Another buddy had a 69 Mustang and I installed a Paxton blower on that. And so it went for the next 20 years. I had a day job, but after work, I was tinkering on cars.   At 18, I rebuilt my first engine by myself using nothing but at Chilton's repair manual. The car was a 1973 V6 Capri with siamesed exhaust ports and nylon teeth cam/crank gears instead of a timing chain. That was fun!   I learned a couple of things early on: 1) If you don't have the money to do it right the first time, you sure as hell don't have the money to do it a second time. 2) If you don't know what the fuck you are doing, hire someone WHO

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Why street racing needs to come back for Fast 9 In September, 2018, I wrote a post outlining why street racing would likely not be making a comeback to the franchise. In the past paragraph of that article, I also outlined how street racing could be a part of the movie. (READ THE ARTICLE HERE). Let's look at some of the reasons street racing needs to come back for Fast 9.   In essence, I said that street racing movies don't sell movie tickets, actions movies do. Hollywood has known for decades that any movie they produce must appeal to the widest range of audiences possible. This is the reason why movies like TopGun have men's volleyball scene and why every freaking movie around has some sort of love story in it.   As I write this article, the Hobbs and Shaw film just released. Although the global opening isn't for two more weeks, the opening box office weekend here in the USA was mediocre - at $65 million, its a fraction of what Fast 7 brought in on its first weekend, but we must remember that this is a spinoff film. $65 million is actually pretty good, but a bit less than the $75

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You want Fast and Furious videos? I've got 'em. I've now posted a dedicated page just for video content I'm producing related to the "making of" the movies.   The idea is to put all the content in one location for easy reference. Enjoy!