Motoring Middle East: Car news, Reviews and Buying guides

Hope there’s boost in heaven

By Imthishan Giado

Brian: I like the tuna here.

Vince: Bullshit asshole, no one likes the tuna here!

Brian O’Conner was one of us.

From the moment he stepped into Mia’s sandwich shop in the third scene of The Fast and The Furious to see if he could lure the infamous Dominic Toretto into an illegal street race, he was one of us. Millions of people across the world – petrolheads, freaks, geeks and misfits every last one – looked at him and knew that he was one of us, even with his So-Cal Abercrombie & Fitch model-impossibly-good looks, piercing blue eyes and wide-eyed beachcrawler charm. He could be one of us because in the radical stylised world of the F&F, where interracial gangs battled for quarter-mile supremacy in souped-up imports, he did not belong, though he so desperately wanted to.

I remember that film very well. At the time it came out I was driving a van for a living and Dubai…well, Dubai was a very different world to the megalopolis it is now, though the age of Ferraris and Lambos on every side street was fast approaching. I’m so old that I watched it on videotape. Then on VCD, and finally saved up enough to buy the DVD a year later.

But that first time…man! Like so many of my friends, it’s become a beloved staple, seen so many times we can practically recite every line of the script. It resonated so well because it showed us a world of cars that we had never seen before. A world where a humble Honda Civic could, with a lot of grit and spare time be transformed into a streetracing monster. Where a Toyota – a Toyota! – could humble a Ferrari in a drag race. Today people sneer at those films and the culture they created, but the fact is that they gave us all a new passion for cars. We couldn’t afford those Ferraris then and we damn well can’t afford them now, but that first film gave birth to a world of car enthusiasts that didn’t care. These cheap cars became their blank canvases and like the hotrodders before us, we painted them with the colours of our passion.

Brian was no one’s favourite character. That would be indubitably be the bass-testing, gravelly voiced Dom – a character so unbelievable in his details that like Diesel’s Riddick, he could only exist in cinema. If the film had been from Dom’s viewpoint, it would have been fatally flawed. No one could match Dom’s superheroics (he practically flew in Fast Six!) Brian though? Brian, in his blue jeans, white tee, and badly modified Eclipse was just trying to fit in. And by the mere fact that he kept trying, he eventually found a place of acceptance alongside the head of one of cinema’s most unusual families. Though the adventures have grown more outlandish and fantastic, Brian’s steady presence was the anchor that kept people caring. When they tumbled out of that ‘Vette into the gorge in Fast Five? I’ve never heard so many gasps in a cinema in my life.

Painfully earnest but fiercely loyal, we’ve watched him grow from hothead rookie to devoted family man over the course of 12 years. We’ve grown up too. Not all of us are driving buzzbomb Civics any more and meeting every punk challenger we see with an impromptu street race; but we still remember what it was like to mash the pedal, watch the revs rise and imagine an NOS button to jam into the wheel and boost us into hyperspace.

You’ll read a lot of eulogies to Paul Walker today. By all accounts he was a remarkably decent person and a true petrol head. While the rest of the cast are no doubt fond of their cars (seriously, Ludacris still has his original Legend with 386,000km on it) Walker was the real deal.And when he wasn’t in a car, he starred in a number of other films that are all really worth watching – go check out the creepy Duel homage Joy Ride, the bonkers crime film Running Scared and the genuinely heartwarming Eight Below. Not the widest range on the planet, and you never forgot that you were watching Paul Walker, but then has that ever been a problem for George Clooney? Even his bit parts were in great films like Takers and Varsity Blues, all well worth revisiting.

It all comes back to cars. Go watch some of his interviews – he was passionate about cars, passionate about fast cars and in later years pushed hard to keep the ever-expanding series still focused on incredible vehicles and the best automotive action around. Unfortunately, like most of us I never had the chance to meet Paul Walker. But over the course of five films, I did meet Brian O’Connor. That guy seemed pretty cool. I’d like to have hung out with him.

Paul William Walker IV was one of us. He was family. We will miss him.

I’ve added a couple of videos showing Paul doing what he loved best – driving.

Driving an LFA

Driving a mental Mine’s GT-R in Japan

PS: A personal note. I’ve seen a lot of sites over the last few hours post links to graphic footage of his car burning, and shots of the ill-fated Carrera GT before Walker and his companion began their final journey. I find these images highly disturbing – and would never to seek to cynically profit from a man’s death for the sake of a few clicks, no matter the ghoulish interest from the public.

You’ll never find that kind of cynical exploitation here.