Fast & Furious is opening this week–woohoo, you heard it here first!–and to help whip moviegoers into a car-crazy frenzy, Screen Junkies has put together this encyclopedic post covering (in detail) what they consider to be the top 40 movie cars of all time. Expect the usual suspects: Christine, Bullitt’s Mustang, and Doc Brown’s DeLorean all made the top ten. But there’s also a few rides that you probably haven’t thought about in awhile. Cameron’s dad’s ‘61 Ferrari 250 GT, which met such a violent and terrible end (beaten up by an angst-ridden rich kid, then run through a plate glass window into a ravine? Ugh). Louise’s ‘66 T-Bird convertible: hells yeah, “the best car for an Arkansas waitress and housewife to conspicuously flee the authorities after shooting a rapist.” And does anyone remember this crazy-painted bulletnose Stude from The Muppet Movie? Check out the full article here, and let us know if any of your faves didn’t make the list.

Daryl over at Just Driven has some interesting low-down and spy shots of the stunt R34 Skylines built for the new Fast and Furious movie. The clean R34-bodied Kaizo that stars as Paul Walker’s ride is the only one that doesn’t get hurt. The rest of them are GTS-T mules dressed up to look like R34 Skylines on the outside. Then there’s one lucky car, Daryl says, that’s fitted with a VW buggy drivetrain and running gear, and gets jumped and run down a flight of stairs. See build pics below the jump.

Continue reading "Fast & Furious R34 Skyline Stunt Cars: A Mixed Bag" »

It must be liquidation time for the movie studios, because there’s been a lot of obscure movie cars showing up for sale lately, from the Animal House Death Mobile to the recently blogged Lord Humongous-mobile. This movie ride is much more tame but probably just as infamous. The 1946 Ford convertible that Biff Tannen drove in the first and second Back to the Future movies got quite a bit of screen time that ended in a pretty crappy way (”Manure… I hate manure!!”). While there’s no word on whether this was the car used for the infamous shot, it comes with documented proof that Universal Studios did once own it. The only real sad thing about this car is that, like a lot of movie cars, it’s been cut up to play the part. The convertible was once a coupe and so there is no folding top, just a boot to cover the hacked sheet metal. Hack-job aside, I actually don’t think the asking price of 20k is all that unreasonable considering the freshly-rebuilt flathead V8 and the acting chops that go with it.

It’s dark, but not too dark to tell there’s a lot of nice cars getting wrecked. Thanks to Brad Jolly for the tip on this one!

Here are some pics I snapped on the set of the new Fast & Furious movie last spring. The studio has had them under embargo until now, so this is the first time they’ve seen the light of day. There were a ton of extra cars and their owners on site, including CarDomain member madmods and his Solstice. Also present were several stunt versions of the gray-primer Chevelle–including the wheelie car, its back end loaded up with massive metal plates so it’d be able pop up during that launch. Again, the new muscle-intensive focus of the series is emphasized even in the filmmakers’ choice of background cars–check out the Cougar, Camaro, ‘Vette, and Ford GT. A whole heap of hot Fords were loaned out for the shoot by the Saleen family, including Steve Saleen’s daughter Molly, who will be making a cameo in the film driving her fuscia ‘07 Mustang. Fast & Furious is scheduled to be in theaters April 3–not that far off at all! Follow the jump to see a ton more photos of the cars that’ll be hitting the big screen in a little over a month. And don’t forget to check out the recently-released official photos as well.

Continue reading "More Pics From The Set of Fast & Furious" »

A while back I spent some time in LA on the set of the new Fast & Furious movie. It was a blast–there was an absolute treasure trove of hopped-up rides, I got to hang out with the CarDomain members whose cars were cast for the flick, and Vin Diesel and Paul Walker were actually pretty cool in real life (Walker is a seriously enthusiastic gearhead, it turns out–and Diesel was tooling around the set on an electric scooter like a giant bald kid). Judging by the rides that turned out for the shoot, as well as the star cars featured below, the latest installation is going to be more domestic-centric than any of its predecessors, with a good mix of American muscle and hot imports–all in all, something for everybody. Read on for vital stats and a ton more pics of the movie’s star cars–and stay tuned to the CarDomain blog for more details on Fast & Furious over the next few days.

Continue reading "Fast & Furious Movie Cars: Official Pics and Specs Now Live!" »

I watched a bit of the second Back To The Future movie last night, and being a fan of the 80’s, I have to say I love how totally awesome that era’s imagining of "the future" really was. In the film’s version of 2015, people still haven’t figured out flatscreen TVs or gotten over kitted-up Ford Tempos—I love it. The ‘76 BMW 633 that villain Griff Tannen and his retro 80s-punk friends ride around in, though, is nothing short of impressive by any measure. And even more impressive is the fact that some guy has completely restored that car after buying it from another BTTF fan who had it squirreled away. Check out the full story and a ton of restoration photos over on Jalopnik.

I think I’m going with the ‘64 Malibu in Repo Man. Ryan had never heard of Repo Man, which made me feel old. Here’s some trivia on the car from IMDB:

When filming began, they only had one 1964 Chevy Malibu. It was stolen a couple of days into filming, forcing the film crew to scramble to find a replacement. Shortly after finding a replacement, the original was recovered by the police undamaged. This was fortunate timing because about a day later Fox Harris severely damaged one of the Malibus by accidentally plowing it into a gasoline pump! In the carwash scene, one of the gas pumps is clearly severely dented up and damaged. This is the pump Fox plowed into in a previous take.

No special effects were used to make the Chevy Malibu glow while parked at the repossession lot. Instead, the car was completely coated with 3M reflective paint, at an approximate price of $600 per bucket.

So what’s your favorite car from an 80s movie? Post a link to a pic!

It’s not every day that a Yugo gets to star in a movie, and it’s even more unusual for a movie car to show up for sale while its film is still in theaters. According to the seller, this is one of three identically prepared Yugos used in Nick and Nora’s. And the blemishes on this rust-free ride, he says, are "scenic applications"—not rust spots at all, but cleverly rendered paint-on fakes. Weird! Check out the auction.

We all have our favorite car movies and their corresponding chase scenes, but we rarely get to see the vehicles they use to get all those amazing shots. Most "camera cars" have to be able to keep up with high-performance muscle cars or super-exotics, all the while carrying several crew members and hundreds of pounds of camera equipment. My favorite by far in this list of 12 unique camera cars has got to be the Predator! Something about it just screams YouTube mayhem.

Source: oobject.

If you got here from the newsletter, you’re probably looking for this story: what car did you drive in high school?

There’s more ‘68 Mustangs on eBay than you can shake a stick at, but this one purports to be the Nissan-powered pony used in Tokyo Drift, the third installment in The Fast and the Furious. You’ll recall that it’s running a turbocharged straight-six from a Skyline GTR, and the seller claims the car’s got about $100K in mods altogether. The hilarious thing about the auction is that the seller isn’t allowed to name the movie in which the car appeared—he’s "under contract" not to name the mysterious film, and we’re left scratching our heads over whether it’s Tokyo Drift or any one of all those other movies featuring Nissan-powered Mustangs. Also interestingly, the seller says that with the turbo’d six, the ‘Stang is positively sedate, "rather than the beast that the big V-8 cars sometimes become." Hmmm. The auction is climbing up over $28K with the reserve not met. Check it out!

CarDomain member MoparRob07 was one of those who entered his car for the Fast and Furious casting call we ran in the blog earlier this year. Though his gorgeous Daytona Charger didn’t make the final cut for that film, our friends at Rich King Casting were so impressed by his ride that they called him back many months later to offer the car a role in the new Knight Rider TV series! Last week they went out to the California desert for some filming, and Rob got a bunch of cool spy shots. Even the "Attack Mode" KITT that Dave blogged last week was in attendance. Check out the very bottom of Page 3 of Rob’s ride page for all the pics!

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!

Continue reading "New Death Race Stills!" »

When NBC aired the new Knight Rider movie back in February, the line was that it was going to gauge reaction and then make a decision about whether to continue the franchise as a series. Well, the brass must have liked the numbers they saw, because the new show is set to premier September 24th. Among blog readers, reaction to the movie was decidedly mixed, and while I think there are some cheesy elements present in the clip below, it still looks pretty cool. What do you think?