This weekend, Fast 8 stormed into New York City for a few days of frenzied filming. While Vin Diesel, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson and Ludacris weren’t present, all of their hero cars were. Dom Toretto’s Plymouth GTX (with a rumored LS3 engine swap), Letty’s second-gen Corvette, Hobb’s International MXT, Roman’s Bentley Continental GT, a Jaguar F-Type belonging to Deckard (Jason Statham), Tej’s Mercedes-AMG GT, and a wide-bodied Subaru BRZ were spotted rumbling and wheeling around iconic Gotham locations.
Friday, the production shut down parts of the West Side Highway for a few race sequences, while three helicopters and three camera cars – the infamous Mercedes-Benz ML63 and Pursuit Porsche Cayenne among them – followed along to capture the action. Filming shifted to Fifth Avenue in the afternoon, where five blocks were shuttered around the Flatiron Building.
A source close to production tells us that on Fifth Ave, some on-lookers mistook the barricades and empty streets as part of a Black Lives Matter protest, standing in the middle of the road, holding up production. “They refused to move until some of the production assistants called the police. The cars were gearing up to whip around the corner at very high speeds. They got very lucky,” our insider shared.
Saturday morning, Times Square shut down for a few sequences before the crew moved to the New York Public Library and finally the Manhattan Bridge. We sent intrepid lensman Puppyknuckles to snap some exclusive photos from the shoots. Check out his incredible pictures below.