We braved the surprisingly chilly Los Angeles evening last year to witness the taping of Fast And Furious, the fourth (and maybe not final) film in the The Fast And The Furious series. We were there the night of the famous Vin Diesel Chevelle wheelie, a shot which we can honestly say took forever to setup.

Dom's 1970 Charger R/T	BMW M5	Brian O'Conner's Subaru Impreza WRX	Nissan 240SX (Silvia S14)
Fenix's 1972 Gran Torino	Dom's 1970 Chevelle SS	Brian's R34 Skyline GT-R	Buick Grand National GNX
Ford RS200 v. Toyota AE86	Extra Cars	Saleen Vehicles	Random Fast And Furious Stills

The day's shooting took place at a parking garage in Los Angeles' Koreatown neighborhood that doubles as a driving range. The top level of the garage is covered with a 150-yard-long green beneath which countless hours and dollars worth of machines rest, safely out of the way of botched drives. Though quirky, the layout provides an ideal condition for shooting the cars with multiple heights and cameras available without the need for setting up cranes. Plus it just looks awesome.

We'll be honest, we're not the biggest fans of the Fast And The Furious film franchise. We enjoy car chases, crashes and mayhem as much as anyone but there's always been a sense that the franchise perhaps takes advantage of this. Justin Lin, director of the third film in the series, Tokyo Drift, and the latest film aknowledged this in an interview we did with him last year:

Justin Lin, Director
I think one of the knocks against the franchise was that it took and exploited cars. And made it look kind of cartooney."

Is this to happen again with the latest movie? Hard to say, but In our brief set visit we had a chance to converse with the cast, crew and extras over automotive topics as varied as the steps necessary to convert a Merkur XR4Ti Into a Ford Sierra and the different merits of the two generations of Toyota Tundras. We were pleased to find most of the people involved, at least on the car side, actually cared about vehicles (though tastes varied widely).

We spoke with Paul Walker, who plays the handsome and serious Brian O'Conner, about the film. This was mostly boring chatter about the movie-making process. Eventually we turned the conversation to cars and Walker lit-up. Apparently, Walker isn't of the get-rich-and-buy-a-Bentley variety of movie stars. In fact, he's of the not-enough-room-in-my-garage-for-all-the-toys variety a la Jay Leno.

In addition to a fairly predictable Ferrari 360, Walker boasted at the time of owning a classic late 1940's Chevy Woody and a Toyota Tundra with some modifications, which he loved to talk about. This isn't surprising, given the first car he bought with his money was a 1986 Ford Ranger. Most surprisingly, perhaps, is his admission he reads car forums and actually posts occasionally. Because he seemed like a genuinely nice guy we won't "out" the forums or his member name.

The day we visited there were lots of actors running around, including Vin Diesel, what we presume to be his muscles, both zooming to and fro on a pair of motorized scooters and matching fur coats (no joke), but the cars are the real stars for us. Nearly all of the two dozen cars stationed around the roof have their own stories and, luckily for us, the owners and keepers of the cars are around to share them.

One of the first things we noticed on set was the sheer number of Saleen vehicles, including a Ford GT. Thankfully, Molly Saleen was on hand to explain her family happily contributed a range of Saleens. Click on the Saleen GT above or click here for more info on those vehicles.

The other most prominent vehicle was the Pontiac Solstice. The owners of the cars, including the yellow Solstice used in almost every FAF marketing piece, claimed it was probably one of the biggest collections of performance-oriented Solstices in one place. They should know as all of them are heavily involved in the small, yet thriving, community. The best conversation was probably with an owner of the red Solstice, who has an eclectic garage that includes a Merkur XR4Ti converted into a Ford Sierra. You can learn more about these cars in the Extra Cars section.

The variety of cars, from a vintage Cougar to a new Porsche, underline an attempt by the film's creators to make the movie as inclusive as possible. This applies to the film as well, which you can see in the random fast and furious stills gallery. Note, especially, the switch from Hondas to the decidedly un-ricer-like Buick Grand National GNX.

After watching the Grand National abuse in pre-film teasers we're happy to report they did not, in fact, destroy any real GNXs. These cars are merely clones. As you can see in the photos above, there are multiples of most of the character cars. This includes the Brian's R34 Skyline GT-R, which has a 240SX-based clone seen next to the GT in the gallery. Why accidentally destroy a real R34 when you can destroy a fake one?

There's a lot of information in the galleries above and, we think, no real spoilers. But here's one piece of interesting background info. It was unseasonably cold while they shot the parking garage drag race scene but, in being true to the franchise's mise en scene, you can't have a drag race without scantily clad girls. Let's just say it was a good day to be a blanket. We're not sure if it'll show up in the final print but there was teeth chattering all around.

We can't lay a final verdict on the film until we see it and the dialogue we heard, while predictably comic book, gave no hint to the full tone of the film. We were actually surprised the trailer had such a Bourne Identity look to it. We can only hope the marriage of the best characters from the series (who doesn't love Vin Diesel?) to arguably the franchise's best director yields a not-too-serious car flick filled with a lot of metallic eye candy.

The first film, The Fast And The Furious, walked the line between a film for "that guy" and a film for car guys. We ignored the parts of the original film highlighting the stereotypes of the import culture scene and tried to enjoy the film for what it was. This wasn't possible with the second film, which was almost entirely un-enjoyable. We were hoping the fourth film would once again walk-the-line, allowing us to watch it without feeling sick.

Then we saw the "Fast And Furious Model Competition" advertised on the official website and almost splattered our Raisin Bran on our keyboard. Seriously? The almost universally crude and inartistic photos of bikini-clad women on cars is perhaps the worst part of the import tuner scene and this competition makes the film look like this is what it's all about.

Ironically, the tagline for the new film is "New Model. Original Parts." A quick scan through the photos shows a lot of fake parts.

[Fast And Furious Model Competition]

When Fast And Furious is released on April 3, 2009 expect droves of teenagers excited about wildly painted cars and at least a few adults who loved the original series and aren't there ironically. We're not the biggest fans of the series, but the combination of the series' best characters, Vin Diesel's Dom Toretto and Paul Walker's Brian O'Connor, with the arguably the best director, Justin Lin of Tokyo Drift, could be a winning combination for the franchise.

This video clearly shows the Grand National-destroying, Skyline-drifting series to add a touch of the high-paced direction and crisp cinematography of the Bourne films with the awful cheesy dialogue of the original. Will it beat the box office for the original? By $1 million? By $10 million?

Ask any producer. Any real producer. It don't matter if you win by an inch or a mile. Winning's winning.

So me and my buddy were tuning his gsx yesterday. He had just got a custom intake manifold made. We were on 29psi and full throttle, when he let off the gas we heard a pop(resembling a gunshot). He tapped the trottle and it sounded like it was a massive exhaust leak. the A/F gauge and boost gauge wasnt reading. We pulled over to find out that the intake manifold had blew up, literally. The whole bottom plate of it was blown completely off. the only thing holding it up was the break booster line.

Along with the Grand National, we see cameo appearances from a Ford RS200, a Chevy Nova SS, a Subaru WRX STI, at least one Skyline, a Ford Taurus Wagon (!), an old-school Celica and, of course, Vin's supercharged Charger is back (along with Paul Walker, unfortunately). We gotta say, unless they relied on brain-dead writers for this one, it actually looks like it might be entertaining. Then again, this is a chopped-together preview. [Rotten Tomatoes]

Much of the cast from the original movie, and almost none of the cast (with the obvious exception of Paul Walker) from the second movie, return for this film. And they're all likely to get their own "character cars." More on this later. [USA Today]

The complete opening grudge race in "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift," which pits a Dodge Viper against a '69 '70 Monte Carlo for thrills and spills at a construction site, is up on the YouTube machine. The clip leaves out one of the best car-related comebacks in movie history, but it's well worth the price of omission. Plus, we hear Donald Trump is planning to use, "I guess I have a new date for prom" to fire contestants on next season's "The Apprentice." [Thanks to Dave for the tip.]

Related:
Extreme Angle! Do Not Upset the Car! Testing the Whips of 'Tokyo Drift' [internal]

This ragtag three-chord Monte from The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift features some serious freakin' testosterone under the hood in the form of a Bill Mitchell-built, 632-inch Chevy big block. Breathing through a 1050 CFM Holley Dominator carb, the monster mill kicks down 800hp and 775 lb. ft. through a Richmond T-10 trans and puts it down via Goodyear baloneys out back. Somewhat unfortunately, it's a drag car, because we'd love to see this sucker drift.

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift Car of the Day: Monte Carlo [IGN]

Related:
Extreme Angle! Do Not Upset the Car! Testing the Whips of 'Tokyo Drift' [Internal]

We're not totally sure if we're gonna go see 3Fast 3Furious yet. But we do love us some good drifting, and there's some interesting stuff in the way of iron featured in the film, probably the most intriguing of which is the protagonist's '67 Mustang with a turbo GT-R Nissan six in it. If they did this to a 'Cuda, we might be mildly annoyed, but c'mon, what's gonna piss off the Mustang dorks more than throwing a freakin' Skyline mill in there? Badass. Now somebody build us a Pierre Cardin-edition drift AMX with a honkin' STi motor. After all, Subaru's kind of the AMC of Japan anyway. Except like not, y'know, dead.

Tokyo Drift Test [Inside Line]

Related:
We Love Ourself Some Fast And Furious Threesomes [Internal]

Man, we are so behind the curve on this one. But forgive us if you've seen this parody of the F&F franchise, "3 3ast 3 3urious." It's really one of the funniest parodies we've seen in a while. The way the narrator gets frustrated by all the 3s substituted for letters nearly put us away.

3 3ast 3 3urious [New Grounds]

Related:
VW Ad on The Onion Pokes Fun at Pope s Golf Auction [internal]