The Fast and the Furious movie series. In fact, they may view the films just as their parents expressed their disdain for all those now-classic hot rod movies of the 1960s and ’70s:
Bunch of crazy kids setting bad examples while joyriding at ridiculous speeds on public roads…
But think back to what American Graffiti, Thunder Road, Bullitt, Gone in Sixty Seconds, Two-Lake Blacktop, Vanishing Point, or even earlier films, often films with more grainy and grimy production values, meant to you when you were a teenager eager for your driver’s license.
Now consider that The Fast and the Furious franchise launched in 2001, which means that the teenagers now getting their own driving licenses have no memory of a world without Brian O’Conner, Dominic Toretto and their friends and foes.
“The Fast and Furious movies are a huge staple in my generation’s automotive world,” ClassicCars.com’s 22-year-old blog staffer Nicole James responded when this subject was brought up in the newsroom.
“This new movie is all we have been talking about for a while,” she added. “And with the death of (movie star) Paul Walker, it rocked our community. A significant number of young people have RIP stickers on their cars for him.
“There are a ton of local clubs and groups going to see the movie at the drive-in for the premier and lots of small local events all week celebrating it and remembering Paul Walker.”
All of that to get to bring us to this: Did you know that in addition to all of those high-revving, gaudily painted and bewinged Japanese cars in the Fast and Furious movies, leading roles in the movies also were played by a 1970 Dodge Charger R/T, a 1969 Yenko Chevrolet Camaro, a 1987 Buick Grand National, a 1972 Ford Gran Torino, a 1963 Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport, a 1973 Jensen Interceptor and other classic cars, including a 1970 Ford Escort Mark I Mexico.
And you don’t even have to sit through all the movies to see those cars, because three car-enthusiast web designers and developers who work for skyrange.net have put together an interactive graphic display that not only includes all the cars in the movie’s franchise to date, but with information and, in some cases, links to film footage.
Skyrange.net is a Florida-based company that provides satellite web service to people living in rural areas. After Sam Buckworth, Travis Smith and Jordan Martin put the graphic together, their bosses offered to provide space on their server so everyone could see their work.
Oh, and while we’re at it, here’s the trailer for Furious7.
Did they actually wreck that Charger, or was it a digital thing?
That is a 70 charger
How the car cost