The Cars of "Fast & Furious 6"

[King T]

Fast & Furious 6 Cars: Custom-Built Ramp Car
Not Just Evil, Not Just a Car, a Weapon

In any movie, the heroes can only prove their goodness by going up against truly nasty villains. In Fast & Furious 6, what the truly nasty villains are driving is this: a custom built, wedge-shaped, tube frame, midengine, four-wheel-steering monster. Call it the "ramp car" or the "flip car" or whatever. What it ultimately is, well, is evil.

But even evil deserves its due.

The Story's Needs
Over the previous five Fast & Furious films it's been established that Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and his adopted family of good guy thieves are likely the best driving crew on earth. But likely isn't certainty and in Fast & Furious 6, Toretto's bunch meets its evil twins. That is, evil twins as in a squadron of drivers that parallel Toretto's group, but are evil.

And evil people do evil things. Like drive into other cars, forcing them to fly up in the air and crash spectacularly. So that's what the ramp car is designed to do: get underneath other cars and throw them up into the air. So it's not just a car, but a weapon.

When originally conceived, says picture car coordinator Dennis McCarthy, the ramp car was going to be something massive: a big truck with some sort of foldable contraption on its nose. But director Justin Lin thought, since the story took place in Europe, the ramp car should be something closer to a Formula 1-style car. So McCarthy went back and designed something from scratch. It would work with the story and look something like an F1 car, but it really has nothing to do with F1 at all. In the end, he built seven.

Truck Meets Ferrari
An F1 car is, by its nature, a high-tech machine. Dennis McCarthy's ramp car, on the other hand, is built to be rugged, reliable and simple. After all, it's not built to race; it's built to perform in the fantasy world of a movie.

So forget exotic materials like carbon fiber or a power plant that spins up to some five-digit number. The ramp car is built around a ladder frame made from 3-by-6-inch rectangular steel tubing with a lattice of welded steel tubes above that. The front suspension comes from a 3/4-ton mid-'80s GM pickup truck with air springs replacing the original coils. In back there's a Dana 60 solid rear axle held up on another pair of airbags and located by three links. The steering is hydraulic both front and rear, with the front operated by a conventional steering wheel and the rear by a lever similar to that used on a monster truck.

There are three separated passenger pods on the ramp car, but only the center one has driving controls. The other two pods were supposed to be used by supplemental bad guys in another chase scene that was eventually cut from the script and wasn't filmed.

"I used to stick with carbureted engines because I thought they were simple," said McCarthy. "But then I realized that the young mechanics I was hiring didn't have any experience with carbs anyhow. So I've been going with fuel-injected crate engines ever since."

So the ramp car uses the same 6.2-liter LS3 V8 from the GM Performance catalog that McCarthy has installed in other vehicles for the film. Rated at 430 horsepower in the catalog, it's essentially the same engine that powers the Chevrolet Camaro SS.

But the LS3 is mounted backward in the ramp car. It sends power into a GM Turbo 400 three-speed automatic transmission that in turn churns a Casale V-drive gearset that's mounted just behind the driver. The V-drive reverses the power flow so a small driveshaft can then feed the rear axle. It's almost ridiculously simple.

Big and Brawny
While the ramp car is very low, it's also very long and very wide, stretching out about 160 inches over a 130-inch wheelbase. It's so big overall that its massive Hoosier 31-by-16.5-inch Pro Street rear tires (think 419/55R17) look almost modestly sized. And the front tires (315/35R17 Hoosiers) are the same size as the rear tires on the old 1995 Corvette ZR-1.

This car isn't built for convenience. Getting to the driver's pod means stepping around a bunch of tubing, stepping past some Plexiglas, and then lowering yourself into the narrow seat. And you have to be careful, too, because the steel is bare and unpainted; it's rusty and if you scratch yourself you're going to need a tetanus shot. Your legs straddle a hydraulic ram that operates the "kicker" that, at least in the context of the story, knocks cars up and over the cockpit. The OMP steering wheel is attached after your body is in place.

The cockpit is strictly business, more open-air fighter jet than car. A Racepak digital dash sits behind the steering wheel just above Autometer oil pressure and ammeters. Your right leg bounces up against the transmission's ratchet shifter while your left knocks on the Eaton lever that controls the hydraulic rear-wheel steering. This is an open car that somehow feels claustrophobic.

The Roar
The ramp car's custom headers have individual pipes for each cylinder that snake over the engine and wind up in two collectors just under the rear wing. From an ultimate efficiency standpoint it's probably not ideal to have the exhaust surround the air intake, but this isn't a car built for efficiency; it's built to look wicked cool onscreen. That it achieves.

And when it's running, it roars. Considering the exhaust system, it's probably not surprising that it sounds more like an offshore boat than a car, but there's a rumble aboard that announces it as a large-displacement American V8. Not that you'll hear that in the film.

Virtually none of the cars in Fast & Furious 6 supply their own voices. It's simply a matter of not being able to record usable sound during filming and the ambition to make sure every vehicle sounds extraordinary. So in the film, the ramp cars sound like F1 cars... even though its engine is clearly an LS3 in several shots.

And almost no one is likely to notice.

[lscamaro]

I completely fell in love with that "charger daytona". It's an absolutely beautiful car! It also sounds amazing in the movie! I saw a superbird conversion challenger at texas mile and man do they look cool... this one just takes the cake though!

[lscamaro]

Originally Posted by jlugo

What happens to the 2nd Gen Camaro???

If I'm not mistaken, it's either in the street race gathering scene or in the final scene as one of the cars that's bought at the end.

[Brian 1LE SS]

That Camaro belongs to a guy I race with. He drives the hell out of that car. He drives it in C prepared at the local autox. It only had one quick shot of it in the movie.

[King T]

In the structured world of Fast & Furious movies, the endings are now foregone conclusions. After all the action is over, Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and Brian O'Conner (Paul Walker) will be left alone at the end with two nasty-ass supercars. Beefy Dom's will be some sort of insane Mopar, and super-dreamy Brian's will be a Nissan GT-R. And at the end of Fast & Furious 6 this is Brian's GT-R: quite likely one of the meanest on earth. And yet, still super-dreamy.

"When I saw this car at SEMA in 2011," said picture car coordinator Dennis McCarthy, "I knew it was going to be in the movie. It was just a question of where."

Built by The R's Tuning shop in Irvine, California, the most obvious element in this R35 GT-R's ludicrous visual assault is a full BenSopra body kit that includes a tilt front end and the sort of overkill detailing that would have it kicked off Venus for being unrestrained. But that's just the matte metallic blue cover on the Superball underneath.

This thing is seriously monstrous. No, there weren't any replicas built for the film. Yes, the single 2010 Nissan GT-R that is in the film survived intact.

Brute Force
Go to a Nissan dealer and buy a 2031 Nissan GT-R and you instantly own one of the quickest cars on earth. Just make the payments and don't screw with it and you'll enjoy dozens and dozens of miles of high-speed fun before something breaks. But why settle for awesome?

A Switzer P800 turbo kit is at the heart of this fortification. That kit includes new ball-bearing turbochargers, high-pressure wastegate actuators, a revised intake, Niagra-spec fuel injectors and two massive intercoolers that could knock a steel furnace's output down to that of a kitchen match. Switzer claims its package is enough to slam output of the GT-R's VR38DETT 3.8-liter twin-turbo V6 up from 485 horsepower stock (2010 model) to a full 800 hp. There are entire religions based around the worship of less power.

Of course there are more tweaks baked into this power plant including a Cobb Accessport AP005 flashing the ECU, HKS plumbing and a sump full of Motul 300V oil. The R's shop fabricated the exhaust system itself and built the cooling system to keep all the fluids' temperatures reasonable. Let's assume the engine is at about 850 hp and leave it at that.

The seven-speed rear transaxle has been left pretty much alone and, according to the guys at The R's, has already survived many hard launches. Good luck with that.

Grounded
While Nissan's all-wheel-drive system is essentially intact, the pavement contact patches are now 290-millimeter Yokohama Advan A005 racing slicks at each corner. Those donuts are mounted on AdvanRacing GT 20-by-11-inch ETS wheels.

It's in keeping those tires square to the ground that The R's has done most of its work. R's fabricated its own camber adjusters and fitted JRZ RS Pro coil-over shock absorbers. The brakes are carbon-ceramic discs from Weapons Grade Performance clamped by CCM brake pads.

This is a car built for time attack and other track events. It may be shown on the street in Fast & Furious 6, but that's not reality. It's. A. Movie.

Body Beyond Belief
Get hit on the back of your head with a shovel, then smear some Vaseline on your eyeballs and squint really hard. If you do all that, maybe, just maybe, this car still looks like a stock GT-R. In fact, every body panel on this extravagantly styled ogre has been massaged or swapped.

Besides the BenSopra body kit that includes the dugout fenders and strakes, the doors have been replaced with Seibon Dry Carbon replicas. The door sills are carbon fiber and also come from Seibon. There are AMS Performance dry carbon roof and trunk panels and a giant BenSopra rear wing. This isn't borderline ridiculous; this is ridiculousness that blows up the borderline and then makes fun of convention.

Inside, the flamboyance is toned down in favor of a stark, businesslike seriousness. Forget things like door panels and carpeting; those have been replaced with felt and nylon door pulls. The R's built its own roll cage and then shoved aside the stock seats in favor of Sparco Circuit Racing seats, and the stock steering wheel is replaced by a Sparco piece. There are also plenty of exposed wires, serious-looking seatbelts and racy safety stuff.

If you weigh more than 200 pounds, it'll take you all day to climb through the roll cage only to find that your ass doesn't fit in this GT-R's seat. Literally.

Totem
In Fast & Furious 6 this 2010 Nissan GT-R's appearance isn't much more than a cameo. But cars that show up at the end of Fast & Furious movies often wind up being featured in the next one. So look for this car next July when the already announced seventh Fast & Furious film in the series opens in every theater on earth.

[King T]

Fast & Furious 6 Cars: 1970 Plymouth Hemi 'Cuda
This Hard-Core Custom Gets a Small Part

Some cars are just too nice to send flying through the air to a crunching doom. Take this 1970 Plymouth Hemi 'Cuda, which is wicked awesome from the air cleaner atop its stupendous 540-cubic-inch (8.8-liter) old-school Hemi to the all-independent rear suspension. So how did this stunning machine find itself amid the destruction of Fast & Furious 6?

Simple. It isn't a movie car.

Instead, this showcar was borrowed from a collection called Autotopia that happens to be located in a building directly across the alley from picture car coordinator Dennis McCarthy's shop. It is owned by Erik Davis, who is president of RT Specialty Insurance in Los Angeles and who races a Mustang in the Pirelli World Challenge series under the Always Evolving Performance (AE Performance) banner.

It's only seen in the final shots of the film, when Dominic Toretto's ad hoc family gathers together at a house familiar to hard-core Fast & Furious fans going back to the original 2001 film, The Fast and the Furious. So there was no need to build duplicates.

Sorry, is that a spoiler? Really? You didn't know that Dom survives to the end and winds up in a bitchin' Mopar?

The Real Thing
Built by Dave Salvaggio of Salvaggio Automotive Design in Port Washington, Wisconsin, this 'Cuda is overstuffed with virtually every trick known to Mopar man. But those tricks are all subtle. Like the instrumentation that is set into a carbon-fiber panel and uses white faces, but retains the original font and design of each gauge. And then there's the pistol-grip shifter atop the Tremec six-speed manual transmission that has been remade in carbon fiber — as if it were for a much better gun.

Even the leather-covered seats are Mopar parts. Swiped as they are from a Viper.

But what's not subtle is the engine. That's an Arruzza-built, aluminum-headed elephant engine capped by twin four-barrel carburetors. It incorporates a beautifully machined and polished aluminum plate on the front that uses a single serpentine belt to drive the alternator, A/C compressor and power steering pump. And the entire engine bay is so heartbreakingly beautiful it makes you want to rip off the car's hood.

Likely the single most ambitious element in this car is the suspension. The front suspension's original torsion bars and A-arms have been dumped in favor of fabricated pieces and coil-over shocks.

Out back, the crummy leaf springs have vanished. In their place is a Jaguar center section with inboard Wilwood disc brakes and fabricated links that form a robust structure. There should be a hole in the trunk floor to provide better views of it.

There's nothing that isn't interesting about the 1970 Plymouth Hemi 'Cuda. And nothing that's been left untouched.

Body Parts
Thanks to 235/45R17 front and 305/45R18 rear Nitto red-striped tires on Fikse wheels, this Plymouth Barracuda has a slight rake and its nose is almost burrowing into the ground. There are many subtle body modifications (like re-contoured wheelwells) but, again, the whole car is constrained by a respect for Mopar heritage.

So while it's Hemi powered, it's actually decorated like the 340-powered AAR 'Cuda that was built to homologate components for SCCA Trans Am road racing. The big engine seems to almost be bursting up into the cavity made by the AAR hood scoop. That's kind of cool. But not as truly icy as the AAR-inspired dual side exhausts that exit just below each door's trailing edge.

The mix of gloss and matte black paint is sinister, consistent with the 'Cuda's themes, and intensely badass.

The Future
While the 1970 Plymouth Hemi 'Cuda's appearance in Fast & Furious 6 is basically a cameo, Fast & Furious 7 is already in production and aiming for a summer 2014 release. If that movie picks up where this one lets off, this 'Cuda (and/or its stunt-ready clones) is sure to show up then.

[CamaroSkooter]

I want a ramp car

[TheReaper]

Cool pics and info.

[King T]

[WildcatSS]

They didn't really use the '67 Camaro either. I told my sister that Dom and the family would have beaten the bad guy much faster with the '67. Instead they had to use the Mustang as an anchor.

Thanks for all the info. It would be awesome to work at that shop; except when te cars get destroyed.

[King T]

Originally Posted by WildcatSS

They didn't really use the '67 Camaro either. I told my sister that Dom and the family would have beaten the bad guy much faster with the '67. Instead they had to use the Mustang as an anchor.

Yeah they kept it back at the hideout.

But I guess after seeing what happen to the Mustang it's a good thing it stayed at home!

[King T]

[ChrisBlair]

uh, AAR 'Cudas didn't have...ah, screw it

At least they didn't bitch-up the AAR race car in my sig pic

[King T]

Dom and Dodge: A Retrospective of “The Fast and Furious” Franchise

By now, the “Fast and Furious” franchise has been around for over a decade, and been through five iterations. Now with “Fast and Furious 6” out in theaters, it seems high time to look over the series and examine part of what has made it such a fascinating adventure: that of Dom and his love for Mopars.

In the beginning, we all saw Dom driving those eye-roll-inducing, rice-rocket Civics and his RX7, but we all knew we were going to be treated when we laid eyes on the blown 1970 Dodge Charger. And treated we were, when we saw that showdown at the end with the narrow miss against the train, defeating Paul Walker and his Toyota Supra in the process. It was just too bad that his momentary ignorance wound up sending the poor car to the junkyard when he nicked the semi and flipped over the Supra. It totaled the car, sure, but still a cool barrel-roll.

Dom made the fortunate choice of skipping the direct sequel, much to the chagrin of Walker and Gibson, although we did see a couple of musclecars, one being the Yenko Camaro and the other a HEMI Challenger. Dom re-appeared in the much-hyped third installment, “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift” in 2006, this time behind the wheel of a Plymouth Roadrunner. His appearance at the end in a sister car to his favorite Chargers kept the Mopar B-body theme alive. We’re pretty sure he won that race, do you agree?

The fourth installment saw Mr. Diesel driving another suped-up Charger, taking on the ever-present cartel to avenge Letty’s death. This time, however, it’s a ’69 dressed up to resemble the original ’70, which was being restored at the time of filming. Shotgun in hand, Dom destroys–oh come on, that one gets wrecked too? Is there any justice in this world?!

Round 5! Dom regains his ’70 Charger, and it’s in the movie in less than 5 minutes. It’s also in the movie less than 5 minutes, after it gets totaled in a T-bone by Dwayne Johnson’s ‘roid rage-driven Terradyne Gurkha. The audience booed when that happened, another Charger destroyed for the sake of entertainment. At least “The Rock” got his precious Gurkha scratched a bit in the last third of the movie. Take that, Mineral Man!

And now we arrive at Fast & Furious 6. The Charger used is now a 1969 Daytona clone, and boy, is it badass. Unfortunately, the engine used is an LS3 small-block V8, instead of the period-correct 426 HEMI or 440 Magnum.

We won’t spoil it as for how well it’s driven or used in the movie, but with Diesel behind the wheel, you know it cannot disappoint. We won’t tell you whether this one gets trashed, you’ll have to watch the movie – if you haven’t already.