‘Fast and Furious’ Behind the Scenes Stunt Reveals

The Fast and Furious series has always included intense stunts, but how were they done?
Written by Lauren Smith
Reviewed by Serena Aburahma
You cannot separate the Fast and Furious series from its
modified car
stunts. Some are realistic, and some are not. But all of them require months and months of research and work.
According to interviews with
For The Win
, stunt coordinators Andy Gill and Joel Kramer try to keep as realistic as possible. 
They broke down some of their iconic Fast and Furious 7 stunts, which take about four months of planning alone and between seven and eight months for the team to build and work on per stunt.

‘Fast and Furious’’ cars dropped from a plane

A lot goes into a stunt where you drop multiple cars from a plane. First, you must figure out which plane, how to drop them, and how to film them. The stunt coordinators and their team did six drops before they felt ready for filming. 
They ended up using a C-130 plane with enough room in the cargo hold for the vehicles they planned to drop, and each car was given a secure BRS chute and GPS. The cars used for testing were similar in size and shape to the cars later filmed, which include:
  • 9170 Dodge Charger R/T
  • 1967 Chevrolet Camaro Z28
  • 2011 Dodge Challenger SRT8
  • 2010 Subaru Impreza WRX STi
  • Jeep Wrangler (modified with unpainted metal paneling and an external roll cage)
The cars the stunt team dropped had about a 70% success rate. The 30% imperfect landing included lost parts and the wind taking the vehicles on a little adventure through the desert. 
The vehicles were dropped at 12,000 feet, and the BRS chute was deployed at 5,000 feet. This was filmed with helicopters and three skydivers with cameras strapped to their heads. No actors or personnel were in the cars as they dropped. 
To show the cars landing and driving off through the desert, a separate angle was created. The cars were placed on a pulley system six to eight feet off the ground and driven at full speed.
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'Fast and Furious’' bus stunt

The scene is a bus about ready to fall off a cliff with Brian escaping from the vehicle running and grabbing onto Letty’s car. 
For this one, the film crew had one shot because you can only push a bus into a ravine so many times. It took about one week in a quarry outside of Atlanta to film
The stunt double for Brian wore safety wires and hung suspended 6 feet and 15 feet out over a 160-foot drop. The stunt driver for Letty’s car, a  2011 Dodge Challenger SRT, was tethered with a 35-inch cable for safety so the driver wouldn’t accidentally drive off into the quarry. 
As for the bus, the bus was bolted with steel to the side of the cliff. As the Dodge Challenger moved towards it, the bus was pushed over the edge, and the stunt double started running. 

The 'Fast and Furious' Etihad Towers car jump

In the interview with FTW, Gill says, “You’re not ever jumping a car from a real building.” Safety is paramount and tightly upheld with realism. So instead of cars jumping through towers, they built a sound stage in Atlanta with 40-foot enclosures made of glass and steel. 
Stunt drivers crashed through these with the 2014 Lykan HyperSport for the scene. You may wonder why stunt drivers and stunt men in all of these safety paramount stunt scenes, especially when the actors are action hero actors. The answer? Insurance.
MORE: Vin Diesel's Fast and Furious Car Collection

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