Fast X Car Supervisor Dennis McCarthy Shows Off The Film's Vehicles
The actors in the "Fast and Furious" franchise are big stars, sure, but the cars in the long-running saga aren't very far behind. They're characters all on their own. In advance of the upcoming "Fast X," I recently got a chance to visit a garage in Los Angeles to chat with Dennis McCarthy, longtime car supervisor for all the "Fast and Furious" films starting with "Tokyo Drift." He took us on a tour of a few of the featured cars and motorcycles in the upcoming sequel, and told us a few stories about the shoot and the franchise as a whole.
Dante's Harley
First up on the tour were the cars and bikes that we'll see in the first part of the film, which is set in Rome. We were shown the Harley Davidson Pan American, which is ridden by Dante (Jason Momoa) in the film. According to McCarthy, Momoa was "very instrumental in the design of the bike and the modifications." It features a mega flow exhaust, which is customized "like an old flat track bike look style." McCarthy explained:
"We basically stripped everything off the bike that wasn't necessary. I mean, if you see these bikes as delivered, they have a big fairing, 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 stripped 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 Mamoa is also a huge Harley Davidson fan. So it all really ties together. It doesn't deviate in reality from what Jason actually rides on a daily basis. So perfect bike for the character, performed flawlessly, absolute blast to ride."
We were allowed to sit on the bike, and let's just say it's clear that it was meant for a body type like his, not mine.
Letty's Honda
The next bike up is Letty's (Michelle Rodriguez) Honda. As you know, Letty rides bikes a lot, and McCarthy said that in the past, he's tried to give her a bike with a "kind of a vintage, kind of cool vibe — we don't want to just give Letty an off the showroom production model." He pointed out that the character has more of a motocross style. McCarthy said:
"She actually also has been on Harleys many times, but her Harleys have been more scrambler style. But this bike here is, once again, stripped down, super motor style, smaller wheels, street tires, gave her the ability to do all sorts of amazing tricks. When you 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. But he completely captured the essence of Letty and what she likes."
As someone who doesn't ride motorcycles, this one looks very stripped down, and it's really cool.
Dom's 2022 Charger SRT
If you know these films, you know the Chargers are Dom's (Vin Diesel) thing. This one is a Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat. McCarthy said it was hard to improve on cars like this, and though he's dealt with different models for years, he said, "they really look great as is." They haven't changed that much over the years, but he mentioned a few elements worth highlighting:
"The grills have gotten narrow, the lights have gotten cooler, the spoiler is 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 kind of the best of the best as far as Dodge Chargers go. The only deviation we made was the Whipple supercharger, which we kind of tried to tie into kind of the Dodge thing of the shaker hood. So it's like a shaker hood, but with a little more mechanical look to it.
And as always, we always feature the cars as a six-speed, which we've built some in the past. This particular one is not. It's a tremendous amount of work to convert one of these to a 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 going to get that wish, but when needed, we build our own. Dodge is always there to support us and give us everything we need to make that happen.
As always, this car does an amazing job. We had about 15 of these cars to pull off this whole sequence. When you see it, saying we go big with the Dodge Charger is an understatement. The car does everything that you can possibly imagine, going upstairs backwards, I mean hitting all sorts of crazy objects that I won't give away, but you're going to love it."
Han's Alfa Romeo
You probably didn't need me to tell you that this Alfa Romeo belongs to Han (played by Sung Kang, who is a car enthusiast in his own right). While this one might not look like it would get the job done when that job is crime, McCarthy explains the reasoning behind it:
"The reason for the Alfa 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. So these are very cool. I love the look of these, I love the feel of these. The color, I think, is what really ties it into Han's character. But I think everything about it does. It's just his style. Typically, you vision a Japanese car, something JDM style, but I think when in Rome, this is the car for Han right here. On screen, the agility of the car is amazing, which comes up in some dialogue as well. Exactly the contrary to what Roman drives."
"What Roman drives" is up next, and I actually got to sit in it.
Roman's Lamborghini
This. This is Roman's (Tyrese Gibson) very shiny gold Lamborghini that you get a brief look at during the trailer. It brought out the magpie in everyone at the event. I even saw someone fixing their lipstick in its reflection. (Look, you try standing next to it and try to remain cool.) McCarthy told us a bit about this very pretty thing. He said:
"Roman drives something that is pure Roman. This is one of those cars when you look at it, there's no doubt which character's going to be behind the wheel of it. You know, seen the car and it's like, 'Okay, we know who's driving that.' And as always, it's perfect for Roman. 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 yeah, I think it all worked out great. What I don't have in the background here is all the bad guy cars. There's just cars coming out of everywhere. There's trucks, there's everything, everything you can possibly imagine, but these are really the key vehicles to focus on and act one when you see 'Fast X.'"
Isabel's Datsun 240Z
That concludes the Rome section of the film. Now we're moving onto L.A., with three of the four cars that are part of the franchise's four car drag race. The one pictured above is Isabel's (Daniela Melchior) Datsun 240Z in bright yellow. McCarthy said they didn't want only imports or muscle cars. He explained:
"This one, when you see the movie, there's quite a bit of dialogue about it. This car's driven by Isabel. Isabel is a new character. She's actually the sister of Elena [Elsa Pataky] ... so there's a definite family connection here with this car and with Dom.
So, this car, when you see the movie, she describes the motor. It's an RV26, basically like a GTR Skyline motor that's been transplanted into the 240. In reality, we actually have a 350 cubic of small block Chevy in it. But luckily Sung, who is a huge fan of these cars, if you guys have followed, he built two amazing ones that I've featured just in different little cameos in the franchise through the past. But he's actually going to build the car the way it's described in the movie. I don't know if it'll be done by the time the movie's released, but at least there's a plan in place to make this car a reality."
Dante's Impala
This next car is Dante's ride, and the fun part is where they got the color from. McCarthy said he spent a ton of time talking back and forth with Momoa, but the actor had some ideas that he was "very particular about," including the car itself and the color. McCarthy told us:
"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 it really fits. Until you see the movie, you don't really get it, but when you see the movie, it all works, and he's a huge asset to the franchise. The color of the car, I was literally instructed to match the color of his fingernails via FaceTime. So we did that. We did some samples. I sent them 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. This car does have a 540-inch big block under the hood. This car was actually purchased. This was kind of — a lot of times, things change as we go through production. This car was one of those last-minute changes, and I actually found this car back East, and it was really an existing race car. So that's why it has that look to it. But it, I think, really just enhances that whole race to have something like this. I mean, it plays a part. It fits the Rio vibe."
Dom's 1970 Charger
Here we have Dom's second Charger, which goes up against Dante's Impala. McCarthy explained "there's a lot going on in this race. There's a lot of decisions 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. So you'll have to see the movie to see what I'm talking about." He went deep with this one:
"I've gotten pretty crazy with Chargers over the years, whether there's an off-road car coming out of an airplane, or it's an all-wheel drive Charger on the ice, or the mid-engine Hellcat power Charger from '9,' this one, I just wanted to kind of 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.
So I think at first glance, viewing this car, [it's a] 'Fast and Furious' Charger, a hundred percent. What deviates on this is we just kind of modernize the supercharger with the Whipple unit, the bug catcher being out of carbon fiber, not quite as old school as the BDS, which I do love. The wheels were a long process that HRE was kind enough to help me with. I wanted something that looked vintage, a 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. Rebel's been making a brake package for us for years, but it's a six-piston front caliper, twin caliper rear, so you have a slide break that will never ever fail you.
But anyways, as always, the Charger's the car that gets the most love in my shop. Well, you always put the most effort, the most time into these. I think on this film, we built 14 of them, 10 of them around this level. This car is the actual hero car. I always apologize when we come to this point after the car's been shot, it's been used and abused. So 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, this car has a manual six-speed trans with a sequential shifter, which I just think is a cool visual, kind of a Ken Block thing where you have a shifter, you have a digital readout, and I think it really adds to the chase sequence. There's nothing exciting about putting a car in drive, but there is something exciting about a clutch pedal and banging a shifter."
Tess's 2023 Nissan Z
Finally, we have the Nissan that Brie Larson's character Tess drives in the film. As you may know, Larson is a spokesperson for Nissan, so this wasn't a difficult decision. McCarthy said:
"I mean, 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 anything. But by the time Brie Larson came and the scene was written, I was like, 'Okay, great, we got the perfect car.' So my good buddy Jeffrey over at Nissan, [I] gave him a call and said, 'Hey man, I need a couple of these cars.' Once again, the cars played in two different locations at the same time, and we threw them on planes and got them out there just in the nick of time. I'll say close to the nick of time. It was really close.
But we didn't do much to them, and it'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 a little, just recently. But we basically just put some HRE wheels on it, a little bit wider. 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."
Fast and Furious franchise fun facts from Dennis McCarthy
We also got some fun information from McCarthy about his work in the franchise. He thinks he and his team have worked on somewhere in the 700-800 car range for all the films if he counts the extra background cars. For the main cars that were built in his shop, he says they're looking at between 250 and 300 cars. He did add a caveat that some of them wouldn't stand up to close inspection since the process is so intense and quick.
McCarthy's favorite stunt was in "Fast Five," where a safe is being dragged through the streets of Rio de Janeiro (though that scene was shot in Puerto Rico). He also loves the train heist sequence from the same film, but says that the stunts in the new film will "probably surpass those."
The actors, McCarthy says, always request their cars, and every once in a while, they get what they ask for. He added that some of the actors do chat with him a lot about vehicle choices, including Momoa, Diesel (who he's known for a long time), and Sung Kang, who is a passionate car enthusiast that McCarthy said can "talk cars all day long."
McCarthy said it breaks his heart a bit when the cars get smashed because there are around 300 hours of labor in there. Sometimes they mess around with an existing car, but other times they build it from the ground up. Late in the shoot, things often change, and a car you thought would make it gets driven off a cliff or otherwise destroyed.
Fascinatingly, he said sometimes he even has to damage part of a car in order to match the needs of the scene, but spend all night repairing that same car for the next day's shoot because they don't shoot in order.
"Fast X" will hit theaters on May 19, 2023.