Behind the scenes on Fast and Furious 7
Fast cars, punch-ups... Clarkson will love it
IT’S not just Clarkson who does fast cars and punch-ups.
Fast & Furious 7 opens with more supercar stunts than a whole series of Top Gear.
Leading the charge... The Bugattis alone cost $4,000 a day to rent
And some proper fighting with another Brit with a beef.
Around 270 cars worth at least £10million were BINNED making Furious 7 — the last film featuring the late Paul Walker.
Three vehicles were destroyed falling out of a plane at 10,000ft. Car co-ordinator Dennis McCarthy said: “It’s not CGI. They were real cars in a real C-130.
On set... Checking out one of the Furious fleet
“Each car came out of the plane at least twice, some of them three times. The Dodge fell perfectly, landed perfectly, but the wind caught the chute and dragged it across the Arizona desert. That totalled it.
“It ripped every body panel off the car, there was a cactus shoved through the windshield, and the frame was twisted from hitting rocks as it rolled. The chute on the Subaru didn’t deploy. It ended up the size of a coffee table. The same with one of the Camaros.
All star cast... Some of Hollywood's biggest names star in the film
“They were running out of light and didn’t want to take the time to re-pack the chute, so the Camaro went out with no parachute.
‘We destroy about 80 per cent of the cars’
“It was just unbelievable. Not one salvageable part.
“It looks incredible on film. But we weren’t done with those cars. We still needed them.”
Tribute... To the late Paul Walker and Roger Rodas
Stuntmen wrecked 27 Mercs, including 12 tricked-up G Wagons, in one chase sequence in Azerbaijan alone.
Five replicas of the £2.4million W Motors Lykan Hypersport were destroyed and three Maserati Ghiblis, on loan from Italy, went back in a heap.
Dennis said: “I would say that 80 per cent of the cars we purchase are destroyed.
“The attrition rate is fast.
“There’s a sequence where a Nissan GT-R goes under a truck on the freeway. That might be two or three cars you see get hit there. But in filming we probably did that four or five different times, crashing cars every single time.
Brits... With actress Nathalie Emmanuel
“So that might have totalled 15 cars to get to that point, which is just ten seconds on film.
“And even if a hero car survives the stunt work, it still has to go through all the stage work.
“Sometimes the cars even have to be cut in half just to get the right camera angles.”
The animals.
7 FAST FACTS
1. FILMING was held up when the £1.6million Bugatti Veyron kept OVERHEATING. Car co-ordinator Dennis McCarthy said: "It was 105F (40C) in the Abu Dhabi desert, so it was a good thing we had TWO of them. We rented those vehicles for $4,000 a day. That's a pretty good deal. I've priced them here in LA for other projects and it's $20,000 a day."
2 THE "crown jewel" in Furious 7 is this £2.4million W Motors Lykan Hypersport one of only seven in the world. Dennis said: "They made us six movie versions of the real car. We just kept fixing them as we were destroying them."
3. DWAYNE "The Rock" Johnson drives a Rolls-Royce Wraith in real life. The big man's got exquisite taste. Prices start at £235,000.
4. MICHELLE Rodriguez nailed this "Race Wars" scene in just one take. Dennis said: "She's an excellent driver. She's ready to go full throttle at any given moment. Paul Walker was obviously a huge enthusiast and Vin Diesel has gained a lot of experience."
5 THE Fast & Furious films have so far raked in £1.62billion at the box office. There will be a Fast 8 and 9.
6 BRIT actress Nathalie Emmanuel is the "hot property" in Furious 7 - and not just for her brains as an elite hacker. Nat doesn't drive but told me: "My dad used to have a Rover which is old school." This is her big screen debut but you will know her from Game of Thrones and Hollyoaks.
7. FAST 7 was still being shot when Paul Walker was sadly killed in a car crash in November 2013. Producers used unseen movie footage, Paul's brothers as body doubles and digital wizardry to complete the film.