‘Furious 7’: What Happened to the Wrecked Cars

Film

Filmmakers destroyed 230 cars for ‘Furious 7.’ A look at where they are now

By Steve Knopper
April 1, 2015 12:54 p.m. ET

Not long after stuntpeople for Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez and the rest of the “Furious 7” crew filmed their usual death-defying car chases on a twisty mountain road west of Colorado Springs, Colo., Richard Jansen received a call. Somebody from the movie had seen his “we buy junk cars” highway sign, and wondered if the owner of Bonnie’s Car Crushers could haul away 20 or 30 vehicles smashed beyond repair, including several black Mercedes-Benzes, a Ford Crown Victoria and a Mitsubishi Montero. “Sure,” Mr. Jansen said.

Then Mr. Jansen and his crew, based in nearby Penrose, spent several days loading the cars onto a semitrailer truck to haul them away. Filmmakers insisted he shred or crush them all, to prevent anyone from fixing one up and getting hurt in a damaged movie car. So today, a large, black, scrap-metal Benz cube once driven in a “Furious 7” car chase exists somewhere in the world. “It was kind of unusual, to see some relatively late-model Mercedes-Benzes, all crunched up and good for nothing,” Mr. Jansen says.

How cars are built and prepped for action movies has been well documented: The process involves mechanics, roll cages, drag tires and fuel cells. But after the movie ends, what happens to the cars that parachute out of planes, plunge off cliffs and get run over by tanks?

“It’s pretty easy,” says Dennis McCarthy, picture car coordinator for the “Fast and the Furious” franchise, whose latest installment, “Furious 7,” premieres in theaters this week. The film crew has to follow a specific protocol, documenting every step for both accounting and liability reasons, he says. “We have to account for every single car destroyed in each film.”