Literally millions of people all over the world watched The Fast and the Furious and that infamous Los Angeles race between Paul Walker, Vin Diesel, RJ De Vera, and Ja Rule, but never from this angle.
What if you could go back in time 17 years and stand on that L.A. Street corner, watching the Universal Studious crew literally shut down an L.A. Street while your favorite Hollywood actors filmed their race scenes. Well, here’s the next best thing. According to @BulletproofAutomotive earlier last week (Dec 1, 2018) their Instagram account shared a never before seen first person POV shot of what it was like to be an extra during the filming of that famous race scene.
Check out the POV video shot with a handi-cam of sorts below.
Thanks to Seeing-stars.com I was able to locate the real street where this scene was shot. In the City of Hawthrone, it’s about 15 miles from the scene where Paul Walker pulls up in his green Mitsubishi Eclipse and meets Vin Diesel and the rest of his motley crew before they head to the street race. “They were racing north on Prairie, starting at Prairie and 120th Street, and finishing at Prairie and 118th Street (just south of the 105 Freeway)”
Google Maps goes back all the way to 2008 where this race location was pretty much unchanged before years later, the City of Hawthorne added a center divider.
The race itself was most likely shot in several takes with special effects making the cars look faster than they were actually going. You can actually see the moment the helicopter gets the bird’s eye view shot of this exact moment in the actual movie. The shot begins at 2:24 below.
Back in 2001, it must’ve felt special to be invited, along with your car crew, to be part of such an important moment in film for import racing culture in California.
Yours truly was just in middle school when The Fast and the Furious came out but with a brother who was somewhat interested in the import scene during that time, I very much remember the hype surrounding this film and finding out “through the grapevine” someone who knew somebody who was chosen to be part of the film. Being in the Bay Area, I really only heard of a handful of cars from our area that were chosen. Then again, I have no way to confirm this, pre-internet like we know it and all.
Anyways, to be chosen by Universal Studios was a very big deal. No one knew how big the films would be or what impact it would have on import car culture for years to come, but looking back on it almost two decades later, most people involved knew they were shooting something special.
Lowkey some of the cars on the sidelines most likely were built better than those showcars anyways.
Keep our page bookmarked as if I find any other rare footage like this, I’ll be sure to share it with y’all.
Source: Bulletproof Automotive