7/06/2024
I watched four Fast and the Furious films yesterday. I also installed door bars on my cage. I think I did my bends and copes at about the rate of one tube per film.
The Fast and the Furious franchise started off at the same time that the American car culture was rising to its peak. Car shows were popular, people went cruising on Friday nights, and yeah... some people raced. The original concept of the movie was based on a 1998 Vibe article titled "Racer X", by Ken Li, about illegal street racing. In fact, once Paul Walker and Vin Diesel were selected for their roles, director Gary Scott Thompson sent the pair out to witness actual street racing events to learn how things worked. But we're interested in legal racing here.
If you're going racing, you need to follow the rules. SCCA says you need side impact bars, and so I made some last night! The top bars were the first ones I made. They each had two bends, and I just went with full symmetry left and right. The bottoms were simple: just straight tubes with copes at the ends. I used cutoffs and leftovers to make the little vertical brace thingies. They're probably important or whatever, but I don't think they're required. The most important thing is that they look cool as heck. Just like the cars in Fast and the Furious.
The car scene in the late 1990s and 2000s was a mix of show and go. Cars had crazy paint jobs, big wings, body kits (Z3 fenders on literally every Civic... do you guys remember that?), and decals. Lots of decals. Some of them were fast. Very few were furious though. I'm not sure where that came from. I hope this Audi is fast enough. I know it's going to have lots of decals. Again, not furious. Enjoy the pictures!