Fast X Cars Explained: Picture Car Coordinator Dennis McCarthy joined the Fast family for Tokyo Drift. In this interview he details the Fast X cars.
Fast X Cars Explained
The Fast X Picture Car Coordinator took the time to guide a group of journalists through his garage where he puts together the cars for the Fast franchise, since coming on for the third film, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. He explained the majority of the main cast’s cars for Fast X, allowing those in attendance to see them up close, learn why they are a fit for the character, and even sit inside them.
Michelle Rodriguez & Jason Momoa’s Bikes
This is what you’ll see the character Dante, who’s played by Jason Momoa, riding. Jason was very instrumental in the design of the bike and the modification. We basically stripped everything off the bike that wasn’t necessary. I mean, if you see these bikes as delivered, they have a windshield, they have a huge dash, almost like a data logger type of a thing, blinkers, all that stuff.
So we basically just strip the bike down to the bare necessities for going fast. And the bike was truly amazing. I don’t know if you guys know but Jason is also a huge Harley Davidson fan so it all really ties together. It doesn’t differ in reality from what Jason rides on a daily basis.
Letty, played by Michelle Rodriquez, on the other hand, different tactic. Letty is obviously a bike girl, if you follow the franchise she has been on a bike several times in the past. Several times I’ve tried to give her a vintage cool vibe. We don’t want to give Letty an off the showroom production model. She’s more of a motocross chick. She’s also been on Harley’s many times.
But her Harley’s had been more scrambler style. But this bike here is once again, stripped down, super moto style, even smaller wheels, street tires, gave her the ability to do all sorts of amazing tricks. To see the sequence, I was really highly impressed by the bike work and the stunts that were pulled off on these things. And once again, I love the look of it.
This bike was actually built by a good friend of mine, Alex King over in London. He completely captured the essence of Letty and what she likes.
Vin Diesel’s Fast X Car
This goes without saying who drives the Hellcat Charger. As usual, it’s hard to improve on these cars. We’ve stared at them and looked at them and thought about different models on these for years and years, but they really look great as is. The car hasn’t changed a lot over the years but there’s a lot of subtle differences. The grills got narrow, the lights have gotten cooler, the spoilers a little bit different. Obviously, the wide body, for me was a huge design improvement. I love the look of the wide body. So this is the best of the best as far as Dodge Chargers go.
The only deviation we made was the Whipple supercharger, which we tried to tie in to the Dodge theme of the shaker hood. So it’s like a shaker hood, but with a little more mechanical look to it. We always feature the cars a six speed. We built some in the past. This particular one is not. It’s a tremendous amount of work to convert one of these to six speed. I’ve requested to Dodge several times, Hey, let’s make a Charger with a six speed. I don’t think I’m ever gonna get that wish but when need it, we build it.
Dodge is always here to support us and give us everything we need to make that happen. As always this car does an amazing job. We had about fifteen of these cars to pull off this whole sequence. When you see it, saying we go big with a Dodge Charger is an understatement. The car does everything that you can possibly imagine — going off stairs backwards, hitting all sorts of crazy objects. I don’t want give anything away but you’re gonna love it.
Sung Kang’s Fast X Car
You can look at the coloring and guess what character this car is for. This is Han’s Alpha. Now the reason for the Alpha is it seems like a deviation from our usual Fast and Furious style. But the purpose of the car is that we are shooting in Rome with very small streets, narrow, and this car really fits the environment. Plus being obviously an Italian car. These are very cool. I love the look of these, I love the feel of these.
The color is what really ties it into the Han character. But everything about it does you know, it’s just his style. I mean, typically we envision Japanese cars, but I think when in Rome… this is a car for Han right here. The thing is, the agility of the car is amazing, which comes up in some dialogue as well.
And it’s exactly the contrary to what Roman drives…
Tyrese Gibson’s Fast X Car
This is one of those cars we look at and there’s no doubt which character is going to be behind the wheel. And as always, it’s perfect for Roman. And initially, it seems like the wrong choice. But at the end of the day, Roman pulls off some moves and the car’s finish actually comes to be an advantage in the sequence. So, I think it all worked out great.
What I don’t have in the background here is all the bad guy cars. There’s cars coming out of everywhere. There’s trucks. There’s everything you can possibly imagine. But these are really the key vehicles to focus on.
Brie Larson’s Fast X Car
This was a last minute car. It might have been that nobody told me, but I feel Brie Larson was a late arrival to the story. And as soon as that came up, it’s an obvious choice because she’s a Nissan girl and I really wanted to get that car in. The funny thing was, when we started on Fast X, they weren’t available. I couldn’t get my hands on it. But by the time Brie Larson came and the scene was written, I was like, Okay, great. We got the car.
Once again, the cars played in two different locations the same time. And we threw them on planes and got them out there just in the nick of time. And we were close, I’ll say close to the nick of time, it was really close. But we didn’t do much to them. There’s not much needed because it’s a great looking car. It’s a fun car. I had the pleasure of driving one for a few months recently. Basically just put some HRT wheels on it. This one doesn’t represent it, but we did lower it just enough to make it look right. But very cool cars and I know that they’ll be making a reappearance in the next one for sure.
Jason Momoa’s Fast X Car
This car here is Jason Momoa’s car, who plays Dante in the film. This car fits in perfectly. I don’t think I’ve ever had so much dialogue and back and forth on FaceTime and texting with a cast member about a car before. But he was very particular about the car. Very particular about the colors. Where did that color come from? Well, where it comes from is his wardrobe, which I believe he also chose his wardrobe as well. And when you see the movie, it all works. And he’s a huge asset to the franchise.
The color of the car was literally created to match the color of his fingernails via FaceTime. So we did some samples, I sent it back to Jason, he finally said, boom, that’s the color. He wanted a car that was big. He wanted a car that was fast, he wanted a car with a big tire. So this car really fit the bill in every single part of that request. It has a 540 big block under the hood.
A lot of times things change as we go through production, and this car was kind of a one of those last minute changes. I actually found this car back East and it was really an existing race car. So that’s why it has that look, but I think it really enhances that whole race scene with something like this. It plays a part. It fits the real vibe. I love it.
What’s great about this car is that it competes with the most iconic car from the franchise, being the Charger. When I saw the initial rough cut of the film, I really loved seeing these two cars going up, head to head, because it’s the classic Chevy versus Dodge. I won’t give away the end of the race, but there’s a lot going on in this race. There’s a lot of decision that Dom has to make through the course of this race that are right in the line of winning the race or doing the right thing.
Vin Diesel’s Second Fast X Charger
Obviously if you follow the franchise I’ve gotten pretty crazy with Chargers over the years. Whether it’s an off road car coming out of an airplane, or it’s a All Wheel Drive Charger on the ice, or the mid engine Hellcat power charger from Fast Nine. This one I just wanted to tone it down a notch. I won’t say tone it down but just bring it back to where the car came from. Where we first originally saw it.
At first glance you’ll get this car. Fast and Furious Charger. What it deviates on is we modernized a supercharger with the Whipple unit, the bug catcher being at a carbon fiber, not quite as old school as a BDS, which I do love. The wheels were a long process. I wanted something that looked vintage. Five spoke design. You have to have a wheel that’s 18 inches to clear the big brakes. And they’re a necessity with the stunts that we do and everything else. Remo has been making a brake package for us for years, but it’s a six piston front caliper twin caliper rear. So you have a slight break that will never ever fail you.
As always, the Charger is the car that gets the most love in my shop. We always put the most effort, the most time into these. On this film, we built fourteen of them. Ten of them around this level. This car is the actual hero car. I always apologize when we come to this point, after the cars been shot. You see marks, scratches, cracks, repairs, it’s just the way it is.
But this car, being the hero car, what really is significant about it, is this car has a manual six speed trans with a sequential shifter, which I just think is a cool visual. A Ken Block thing where you have the shifter, you have the digital readout, and I think it really adds to the chase sequence. There’s nothing exciting about putting the car in drive. But there is something exciting about a clutch pedal and banging a shifter. As always, this is my favorite car from the film, and I can’t wait for you to see it.
NEXT: Kevin Feige Explains How Guardians of the Galaxy Trilogy is Different
About Fast X
Over many missions and against impossible odds, Dom Toretto and his family have outsmarted and outdriven every foe in their path. Now, they must confront the most lethal opponent they’ve ever faced. Fueled by revenge, a terrifying threat emerges from the shadows of the past to shatter Dom’s world and destroy everything — and everyone — he loves.
Fast X races into theaters on May 19th!
