1996 Hummer (Humvee) H1 from The Rock

Two exotic vehicles running around in the streets of San Francisco.  That's one of the more memorable scenes in Michael Bay's The Rock.  I posted on this chase before with the yellow '96 Ferrari F355 driven by Stanley Goodspeed (Nicholas Cage).  He was chasing John Mason (Sean Connery), the highly-trained British agent who's been incarcerated for political reasons without trial for 30 years or so.

Upon the first chance to do so, Mason tried to escape, presumably to gain freedom.  But knowing that he's being pursued by much younger and more numerous FBI agents, the best he's able to do was attempt to contact his only daughter, Jade (Claire Forlani).  She's the fruit of a one night stand he had years ago after a rock concert and the only proof that he's ever existed.

The car chase is considered by many, including me, as one of the best in cinema.  It is after all, made by Michael Bay when he was making great action movies and when Nicholas Cage suited action roles.

2000 Honda s2000 from The Fast & The Furious

Despite the notoriety of American muscle cars driven by Vin Diese (Dodge Charger, Chevy Chevelle SS), the movie series, The Fast & The Furious, is very much about imports street racing in the US.  Imports street racing has been very popular around the US for close to 20 years now, maybe more.  "Racer X", the Vibe Magazine article that inspired the movie was printed in 1998.  The guy nicknamed Racer X had been racing in the streets illegally far longer than that.  The backdrop for import street racing is part of the featurettes in the DVD.

Johnny Tran's Black Honda s2000

In the movie The Fast & The Furious (2001), one of the street racers, Johnny Tran, drove a black 2000 Honda s2000 with Asian graphics.  In Race Wars, he beat Jesse for pink slips.  Jesse drove a white 1995 Volkswagen Jetta GLX.

Honda s2000 is a roadster, a little 2-door with tiny high revving engine that goes fast.  Its debut in the US market is the year 2000, which was the model of Johnny Tran's Honda s2000.  The 2000 Honda s2000 has a feisty 2.0-liter 4 cylinder inline engine that redlines at 9,000 rpm.  It could put out 240 hp which is a lot for an engine that small (Edmunds.com).

1967 Sting Ray Corvette in Con Air

What car can credibly adorn the plate "AZZ KIKR"?  And just as curiously, what profession should a guy have to even want a vanity plate that says "AZZ KIKR"?

From the testorone-filled Jerry Bruckheimer movie Con Air with action stars Nicholas Cage (Gone in 60 Seconds), John Cusack (Runaway Jury), John Malkovich (The Killing Fields), Ving Rhames (Mission Impossible), Danny Trejo (Heat), Steve Buscemi (The Island), and Colm Meaney (The Rock),  we know the car to be a 1967 Sting Ray Corvette and the owner as a brash and arrogant DEA agent.  Agent Duncan Malloy (Colm Meaney) is the AZZ KIKR!

Other professions that I deem worthy of the vanity plate are pro wrestlers like Razor Ramon, gangsta rappers, and 80s hairband rockers.  That name plate would just be too much for everybody else.

As for the car, AZZ KIKR might be a little misplaced because the 1967 Sting Ray Corvette is an elegant automobile and considered to be one of the most beautiful cars.  Sports Car International Magazine lists it as one of the Top Sports Cars of the 1960s.  Too bad it was destroyed completely in the movie.

I'm not so sure that the Corvette in the movie was indeed a 1967.  And I hope it wasn't since it was totalled.

1970 Chevy Chevelle from Fast & Furious

At the very end of the first movie, The Fast and The Furious, we saw Dom cruisin' down Mexico as he got away from the police with O'Conner's help.  He was riding a red 1970 Chevy Chevelle LS-6 SS 454 with black racing stripes.  Presumably, that's what he rode around personally while he was on the lam.  There's no doubt that the Chevy Chevelle '70 was a really nice muscle car.  Too bad they don't make 'em anymore.  The last one was built in 1977.

In the 2008 sequel, Fast & Furious, Dom beefed up the Chevelle to win a street race so that he may infiltrate the drug dealers who killed Letty (Michelle Rodriguez).  In the street race, the Chevelle looked different.  It was ominous, especially under the street lights of night time Los Angeles.  It was all in primer, not sure why, but perhaps to avoid being identified.  Remember that he had to sneak back in to America for Letty's funeral.  Maybe he thought that the red Chevelle would give him away to the authority.  In any case, I had to watch the movie twice and read some articles online to get some understanding on Dom's transformed Chevy Chevelle '70.

To some, the Chevy Chevelle is already the ultimate muscle car.  It has one of the biggest stock engines 454 cubic inch.  Now, in the Fast & Furious street race, according to an article in Edmunds, the engine in the Dom's car is a GM Performance 502 big-block V8. That's not the stock LS-6 V8 engine that comes as the top of the line option for Chevy Chevelle SS sold in 1970. The primered Chevelle is customed to do perform tricks, specifically, the wheelie at the start of the race.

Porsche 356C Cabriolet in Across the Universe

I'm a Beatles fan and I just saw the movie, Across the Universe, on dvd rental.  It's a fantastic film though I'm not much into musicals.  But it's the Beatles, so I enjoyed the movie and recommend it to other Beatles fans.

The Across the Universe used the turmoil of the late '60's - early 70's as the backdrop while the storyline was written around various Beatles songs.  Some of the characters were homages to rock n roll artists who lived at the time, namely Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin.  In fact, what got me excited to write this post was a small shot of a 356C Porsche Cabriolet at the end of the movie that was decorated to look like the one owned by Janis Joplin.  Funny thing is in one of her hits, Janis asked the Lord to buy her a Mercedes Benz because all her friends drove Porsches.  In the meantime, she owned a Porsche in real life.

Janis Joplin's 1965 Porsche 356C Cabriolet is now a rock n roll artifact and has been on display at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum.  From the painting there is no doubt that the Porsche is owned by someone who embraced the psychedelic times.

Purchased from Beverly Hills in 1968, it went through quite a bit of history before it's current resting place.  It was stolen and retrieved while used by Janis Joplin.  It was then used as a loaner car by Janis Joplin's manager after her death.  It was returned to the Joplins for personal use.  And eventually restored as close to original to its current state.