There's always been something special about movie cars. From Steve McQueen's '67 fastback Mustang in "Bullitt" to Burt Reynolds' black Trans Am in "Smokey and the Bandit" to the GT500 Mustang Nick Cage called Eleanor in "Gone in 60 Seconds," movie cars become objects of desire. This is due to something called movie magic.
Without movie magic, Steve McQueen's Mustang would have fallen apart after the first jump, Burt's smogger motor T/A would have been stopped at the first road block, and Eleanor would have ended up in the Long Beach impound. Well, we decided to take a sledgehammer to movie magic this month and that sledgehammer is our trusty radar gun. We trucked six of the cars from "2 Fast 2 Furious," the sequel to the 2001 summer blockbuster "The Fast and the Furious," out to California Speedway in Fontana, Calif., for a day of testing. We wanted to see just how fast the movie cars really are.
To find out we ran each through our usual battery of tests, including skidpad, 60-to-0 braking and the all-important acceleration runs from 0-to-60 mph and through the quarter mile. For safety's sake, we skipped the slalom test. Although most of the cars had four-point harnesses, we questioned the way they were mounted and didn't want to take any chances.
Of the hundreds of cars in the movie, we chose the six we thought were the most interesting. They are the Skyline GT-R, Supra Turbo, EVO VII, S2000, RX-7 and for kicks, we included the 427-cubic inch 1969 Camaro. Don't laugh. It turned out to be the quickest car of the day.
One more thing should be pointed out. We chose to test the most authentic version of each car. You need to realize that each car used in the movie has four or five doubles, with varying equipment and build quality. A good example of this is the 427 four-speed Camaro we tested, which was used for close-ups and some drive-by stuff. The production team also used several other cosmetically duplicate 1969 Camaros for stunts, but those had small-block 350-cubic inch crate motors and three-speed automatic transmissions.
So how fast are they really? Read on, and see for yourself. Just remember, movie magic has no place in Sport Compact Car.