It's a good thing they decided not destroy the actual rare classic.
We are all familiar with The Fast and the Furious movie franchise considering it revolves around cars. Even people who aren't into cars are fans of the movie considering the emotional storylines and characters, and there's no doubt that the franchise should be credited for creating more car enthusiasts. These movies featured some insane stunts involving cars, and here is one that involved replicas of a $5 million dollar vehicle with all them ultimately crashed and destroyed. That would be a 1966 Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport Sting Ray.
Although the movies were profitable, the premier of Fast Five sent profits through the roof, ultimately turning it into the massive franchise it is today. One reason would be the introduction of Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson to the cast as Luke Hobbs along with crazy plots and stunts that took everything to another level.
In one of the scenes in Fast Five, the crew steals a large metal vault from a Brazilian police station and are towing it around with their Dodge Chargers. The vault is then used as an enormous weapon against pursuers. While old-school Chargers are always cool to see. One of the first scenes in the movie involved a '66 Chevy Corvette Grand Sport Sting Ray, one of the vehicles that the crew is preparing to steal. Since the villain wanted a Ford GT40, the Corvette was destroyed in the movie.
What was special about the Corvette? The car is considered incredibly rare with just a few ever produced. With that rarity comes the price tag of $5 million. According to Super Street Online, the crew did drive the true Corvette around but could not partake in any stunt work. In fact, the Sting Ray was mostly in mint condition, but it did have more of a modern 8.2-liter V8 engine capable of 496-horsepower.
The franchise obviously couldn't destroy a $5 million car, so the production created a couple of replicas to use for stunts instead. These Corvette replicas cost about $40,000 a piece. To make it seem as true to the real deal as possible, these Corvettes were also given 400-horsepower engines. Sadly, all of them were destroyed while filming the stunts for the movie.
