By Rob Einaudi

Editor-in-Chief

I think I found the perfect car for dealing with Fremont. More pics and details after the jump. Via Jalopnik

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The first trailer for the new Fast and Furious movie is just around the corner—but to see it, you’ve apparently gotta go check out Death Race when it opens nationwide this Friday. Screened prior to Death Race, the inaugural trailer will reportedly run 2 min, 7 seconds—so clearly it’s going to be more than just a bare-bones teaser. Of course, we’ve already brought you enough spy photos and footage from the set of the film to fill several trailers—but it’ll be cool to see it finally made official.

Via JoBlo.

I’m always a little reluctant to see movies in which nice cars get wrecked—a big part of me doesn’t want to support such activity with my consumer dollars, or make filmmakers think it’s okay to wantonly destroy old cars for inane entertainment. But at the same time, if you opt out, you miss a lot. I still haven’t seen Grindhouse for this very reason—I just couldn’t stomach all the vehicular carnage—and I realize that’s kind of silly. But I’m anticipating having similar issues with a certain upcoming installment in a well-known sequel franchise—I get a little queasy thinking of all those destroyed Grand Nationals. And the level of carnage suggested by even this brief clip from Death Race, below, is clearly well beyond ridiculous. Still, I might go see these movies anyway: it’s kind of my job, after all. How about you? Ever boycotted a film because a car—or simply too many cars—got wrecked?

As we all know, burly explosions and gratuitous flamethrowing are the hallmarks of a great summer action flick, and it’s clear that the new Death Race movie is lacking in neither. While I’m generally not a fan of destrutcive pyrotechnics involving nice cars, I really have no choice but to admit how cool this new set of stills makes this movie look. Our pals at Jalopnik found a whole mess of pics over at SpoilerTV, and we’ve posted all the hot cars below the jump. Take a look!

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It’s got prison warden Joan Allen looking like a total badass, former NASCAR driver Jason Statham looking ripped, and of course a ton of cars armed to the teeth with deadly gadgetry. It’s directed by Paul W. S. Anderson, who also directed one and wrote screenplays for all three of the Resident Evil movies, so you know it’ll be the perfect blend of apocalyptic and pretty. See the fireworks now!

At least one of you commenters was curious about the Death Race Dodge Ram, so here’s the goods on it. It’s a 2004 1500 and will be driven by the character Machine Gun Joe (2 Fast 2 Furious veteran Tyrese Gibson). While the 5.7L hemi and 5-speed automatic are stock, the drivetrain has endured some pretty drastic mods: the truck was converted back to 2wd, a 1-ton dually rear axle was swapped in, and it’s running 16-inch dually wheels in the rear and 20’s up front. The suspension’s also had some tweaking, including Rancho 9000 shocks and Firestone airbags all around. This is a truck that’s bound to deliver some thrills when the movie hits the theaters in August.

Ford’s got some pretty serious marketing muscle invested in the new Death Race movie, so it’s no big surprise that their flagship performance car gets a starring role as the ride of the film’s protagonist. It’s powered by the supercharged 4.6 and loaded up with goodies from Ford Racing. It has a full race suspension setup by Progress Technologies, including coil-overs and a NASCAR-style adjustable track bar. It’s also one of the few cars that gets a brake upgrade, with a full Brembro disc system. I can’t wait to see the hero Frankenstein, played by Jason Statham, put this pony through its paces. And speaking of marketing, notice that it’s the only one of the Death Race cars with a prominently-displayed manufacturer’s emblem? Yeah, that Dodge Ram’s hood ornament is a skull.

I had a chance to look over some of the rides that’ll be featured in the upcoming Death Race remake, and whoa, talk about custom bodywork! All of the cars have had an extra couple of thousand pounds of box steel grafted onto the bodywork, and many are running functional artillery. This Jag has its original V12 and 4-speed automatic, and has all the standard stunt-car modifications: cage, fuel cell, battery relocated, racing seats. To support all the extra weight of the armor cladding, the suspension was beefed up with KYB adjustable gas shocks, Eibach springs and custom sway bars—but the Jag still runs factory brakes! You’d think they’d want a little more stopping power, but all the vehicles in the film are going to end up pretty trashed anyway, so I guess the filmmakers figure it’s no big deal if the Jag goes in the fence. Stay tuned for more.

Deathrace is going to be one of the seriously hot action films of the summer, and one that gearheads are going to want to check out. It’s a remake of the darkly hilarious 1975 cult favorite Deathrace 2000, which featured godawfully armor-plated beaters in an epic race across the desert, the object being to cause as much gory pedestrian mayhem en route to the finish line as possible. The revised version looks to be a little more civilized, with cars battling it out on closed racetrack within an industrial-futuristic prison complex. The stakes are still high (the prize the condemned inmates are battling for is their freedom) and there’s plenty of heavy artillery to spice up the race sequences—the cars are both armoured and armed to the teeth, and in the sequence I saw being filmed during my visit to the set in Montreal, contestants were blasting each other’s cars with hood-mounted machine guns. The film won’t hit theaters until August 22, but in the meantime, check out all the just-released pics from the set below the jump!

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