Cars and motorcycles used in movies are seldom given much attention. They exist solely to look good and the rest is done using CGI or dummies. But there are a few aspiring directors who go the extra mile in creating a natural instinct with their decisions in movies. Talking about hardcore car-centric movies - The Fast And Furious franchise or The Transporter Series are some of the recent note-worthy car-flicks that have made efforts to bring forth the true essence of automotive magic onto the big screen.
But the latest one that stood out notably is the 2017 Edgar Wright directed movie - Baby Driver. Yes, it sounds very childish but nothing about the movie is so! You can vaguely put it down as a variation of The Transporter movie. But instead of a serious Jason Statham, we have a very energetic and musical Ansel Elgort who just loves to get into the grove while hooning across in his Red Bright Subaru WRX STI.
And yes, the Subaru is quite the show-stopper in this movie, not just because of its bright paint job but 'cos of the impressive work done to make it stunt worthy. There were a series of cars tweaked and tuned to pave way for the perfect chase sequences. And all of them were quite intriguing, as Jeremy Fry, the impressive stunt driver behind those cool scenes in the movie couldn't quite stop praising this JDM icon.
The Red Hot Subaru WRX From Baby Driver was quite the drift machine in the movie. We dig deep to find out how and what made this otherwise standard AWD Impreza do things, that it wasn't supposed to!
The Red Hot Subaru Impreza WRX Was Made To Hoon
The star of this movie was quite evident from the first 10 minutes of mayhem and yes, Ansel Elgort comes second to his red hot counterpart. Interestingly, as many had speculated it to be, the red Subaru used in the movie wasn't an STI but a good old 2006 base Subaru WRX. From the outside, it was aesthetically modified to look exactly like an STI with the spoiler and hood scoop. But the fact that this car could drift like the way it did on the big screen, had our heads scratching, as even the base trims used to come with an AWD layout. This is when we dive deeper to understand the impressive mechanical bits done on this red hoonigan.
There Wasn't Just One, But Many Iterations Of This Red WRX
As is the case with movie cars, one would never suffice. Baby Driver also had a lot of red on shoots. And it wasn't a bunch of wanna-be low-cut dummy cars that were made for the action sequences. But a well-curated bunch of Subarus with different mechanicals to suit better for the respective scenes. Jeremy Fry was the man behind all those cool drift scenes and action sequences the involved the Subaru and he gave a brief on the various types of Subs used for the movie to Autoblog.com.
The most laid out one of the bunch was a stock 2006 WRX which had the spoiler and body kit to look like an STI. Then there was the most beefed up iteration with 320 horses, a performance clutch, and differentials from an STI. There were 2 automatics as well, that had the drive controls strapped to the roof for realistic in-car shots with the actors. But as said by Fry himself, the one car that tickled him the most is an example that had a modest 200-ish hp but was converted to an RWD set up to do those drift scenes with ease. We always knew that an RWD car was a whole lot more fun to drive than an AWD. Jeremy Fry approves!
One Finely Tuned WRX Stood Out The Most, Even For Jeremy Fry
It was the RWD-modified Subaru WRX that stood out even for the stunt coordinator. It was the car that was used to shoot the impressive 180 In-and-out clip seem too easy. The impressive feat of all the cars used in the movie was that all of them used the stock base block - a 2.5L boxer unit that, Subaru was bold enough to use for the preceding and succeeding years.
The most powerful and the RWD swapped specimen were tuned by Allpro Subaru in Georgia. The major changes were a WRX STI drivetrain swap which could easily handle up to 300 horses and also came with a Cusco limited-slip rear differential and OS Giken front differential. An Exedy stage 1 clutch and a CNC hydraulic handbrake were the masterminds behind those slick drifts.
The WRX Made The Famous "180 In-And-Out" Scene Quite Simple
One scene that got us all scratching our heads was the 180-In-Out that happened during the first 10 minutes during the escape after the robbery. In normal conditions, that should not have been possible, but stunt coordinator Robert Nagle had his smartness behind that impressive scene. The catalyst here was the patch of wet-tarmac which helps the car to carry on momentum to complete the 180 with ease. And of course, the RWD layout helped slingshot the car with smoothness.
One Was Put Up On E-Bay For Sale Once, Might Come Up Again!
Yes, one among these red hot peppers was put up on e-Bay for sale and it fetched $69,100 back in 2017. It is unclear as to which specimen was the one to be sold, but even the most laid-back iteration used for the movie had some pretty decent modifications done to it. So, keep your eyes peeled for any red car that comes up for sale. There are quite a few hero cars still remaining, and deals like these are gold!
Sources: Topgear.com, Autoweek.com, Thegentlemansjournal.com, Namastecar.com, Autoblog.com, Wikipedia.com, Filmverse.com