if there's one thing that irks me about the first drag-race sequence from the the fast and the furious, it's the "warning!!! danger to manifold" scene. you know what i'm talking about.
obviously, it's the scene where the computer in brian o'conner's mitsubishi eclipse gives the famous flashing message before he slams the screen shut and the floorpan inexplicably falls out. thanks to this new video from one of the movie's producers, we finally have some insight into how that now iconic scene came to be.
craig lieberman, technical adviser for a good chunk of the fast & furious franchise, recently published a video to youtube breaking down the first race scene between the eclipse, rx-7, integra, and civic. the front-runner show cars were rented from private owners, and unsurprisingly, several stunt cars were used (a total of seven for the mitsubishi).
but the most interesting part of the video comes at the eight-minute mark, where lieberman explains that instead of showing the "danger to manifold" phrase, he suggested the car show a nitrous boost-pressure gauge or a turbo boost gauge going too high. the director, rob cohen, insisted that the audience wouldn't know any better, so "danger to manifold" made it into the film.
lieberman admits later in the video that cohen was right—most people didn't know any better—and the scene didn't become an issue in the car world until much later. it's just one of the many oddities from the original fast & furious film we've come to appreciate.
from: road & track