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Your auto insurance policy probably has clauses specifying whether you are covered for damage from missiles, falling objects, riots, civil war, earthquakes, hail, radioactive contamination, discharge of a nuclear weapon. But it’s time once again to check that it also addresses whether you are insured against accidentally driving onto the set of a “Fast & Furious” movie. If you blundered into the shooting of “Fast & Furious 6,” for instance, you are almost surely walking now: If the flip-your-car-over speedsters didn’t wreck your vehicle, the giant tank surely did. Most of the familiar faces are back for this latest bacchanalia of reckless driving, including Vin Diesel as Dominic Toretto. Toretto is relaxing in fair-weather retirement, living off the big score of the previous movie in the franchise, when he is called back into service, as it were, by Luke Hobbs, the federal agent who both pursues and admires him and his band of renegades. Hobbs is again played by Dwayne Johnson and his biceps, which get enough camera time that you expect the closing credits to include two arm wranglers, one for each. Mr. Johnson has seemingly been in every movie released in the last two years and has a reality television show, “The Hero,” coming on TNT. But he knows how to deploy his half-dozen expressions — the sly grin, the single-eyebrow arch — and is still a welcome sight, where other actors might by this point be overexposed. He also doesn’t hijack this movie the way his character did in the recent “G.I. Joe: Retaliation.” “F&F 6” is still primarily about Toretto and his buddies. It is no spoiler to say that Michelle Rodriguez, seemingly killed off in an earlier film, returns as Letty Ortiz (she’s in the opening credits), Toretto’s tough-as-nails love interest. The gimmick here is that she’s now working for the opposition, mercenaries led by Owen Shaw (Luke Evans). Oh, and she has amnesia and doesn’t remember Toretto. That provides just enough plot to propel the movie from car chase to car chase. The real question here is whether Justin Lin, the director of this film and three of its predecessors, can top himself. The climactic sequence of his “Fast Five” involved a preposterous scene in which racecars towed a giant bank vault through the streets at high speed. Here Mr. Lin offers two tricks. The bad guys have flip cars, sleek machines whose armor-plated front ends are designed so that when they strike another vehicle, it goes spinning through the air. And in a later chase, Shaw and friends pull out a formidable tank that turns any vehicle it encounters into squished scrap metal. These flashy smashies and a climactic sequence, in which the good guys try to prevent Shaw from taking off in an airliner by tethering their cars to it, make the movie a satisfying thrill ride, at least on a par with the earlier installments. A nice twist near the end is well disguised, and a coda hints at what’s to come in Part 7. “Fast & Furious 6” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). It’s a dangerous-driving clinic. Fast & Furious 6 Opens on Friday nationwide. Directed by Justin Lin; written by Chris Morgan, based on characters created by Gary Scott Thompson; director of photography, Stephen F. Windon; edited by Christian Wagner and Kelly Matsumoto; music by Lucas Vidal; production design by Jan Roelfs; costumes by Sanja Milkovic Hays; produced by Neil H. Moritz, Clayton Townsend and Vin Diesel; released by Universal Pictures. Running time: 2 hours 8 minutes. WITH: Vin Diesel (Dominic Toretto), Paul Walker (Brian O’Conner), Dwayne Johnson (Luke Hobbs), Michelle Rodriguez (Letty Ortiz), Jordana Brewster (Mia Toretto), Tyrese Gibson (Roman Pearce), Chris Bridges, a k a Ludacris (Tej Parker), Sung Kang (Han Lue), Luke Evans (Owen Shaw), Gina Carano (Riley), John Ortiz (Braga), Gal Gadot (Gisele Harabo) and Elsa Pataky (Elena Neves).
Nathan Laliberte Jameson Willoughby, a copy machine repair technician from Northern Virginia, eating a Philly cheesesteak on the rear deck of his Lotus Elise.Last Saturday, I rode shotgun in an all-black BMW M3. Behind the wheel was Andrew Pollock, 26, an engineer from New Jersey, who had allowed me to be his co-pilot for the fourth annual Euro Philly Cheesesteak Run, a road rally that culminated at Tony Luke’s Cheesesteaks in South Philadelphia.
The 40-mile journey began in the parking lot of a Dick’s Sporting Goods in New Jersey. Mr. Pollock, in khaki shorts and a graphic T-shirt, let his left hand dangle loosely over the top of the steering wheel while his right deftly toggled the shift knob. Upon arriving at Tony Luke’s, which is by an I-95 overpass, Mr. Pollock said it would be best to buy a cheesesteak before looking at the hundreds of cool cars in the parking lot. “Better hit up the line now, otherwise you’ll be waiting for hours,” he said.
Tony Luke’s serves what is widely regarded as one of the best cheesesteak sandwiches in town. As is typical at cheesesteak restaurants in Philadelphia, customers must order in a Philly dialect. “Whiz wit” means you want a cheesesteak slathered in Cheez Wiz and topped with diced onions; “whiz widdout” means you want Cheez Whiz but not the onions; provolone is “provi”; peppers are “peps.”
Nathan Laliberte Andrew Pollock’s black BMW was one of the entrants in this year’s Euro Philly Cheesesteak Run.After ordering a cheesesteak whiz-wit and a mug of Mountain Dew (when in Philly …), I went to the parking lot where participants were eating on their car trunks. The lot was filled with European tuner cars – I counted 120 in total. I talked with several owners about top speeds and 0-60 times. Jameson Willoughby, a copy machine repair technician from northern Virginia (“In five years, I’ve only encountered one copier I couldn’t fix”), huddled over the spoiler of his 2005 Lotus Elise, eating a cheesesteak with peps and whiz.
“The guys at work think I am getting paid too much,” he said, as we discussed the performance specs of his Lotus. “What they don’t know is that I also deliver pizzas at night to support the car habit.”
One man, holding his 6-month-old daughter, said he had recently bought a Recaro baby seat for his customized Audi S4. “She already loves cars,” he said.
Nathan Laliberte About 120 European sports cars showed up for the fourth annual cheesesteak rally last weekend.A man standing beside a late model Porsche 911 said he had recently beat a Ferrari off the line. “I took the rev-limiter chip out, and now I can smoke just about anything.”
His 9-year-old son, wearing a blue T-shirt with a Porsche logo, was standing next to his father. I asked the boy if he had enjoyed the rally. He smiled and made sweeping motions on his belly and said, “Cheesesteaks! Cheesesteaks!”
Twitter Part of the Twitter battle between Elon Musk and Chrysler over which American company paid off its federal loans first.The Twitter messages are once again flying from Tesla Motors.
In a Wednesday announcement, the Palo Alto, Calif., automaker said it had paid off the entire loan made to the company by the Energy Department — and added that it was “the only American car company to have fully repaid the government.”
Within hours, Gualberto Ranieri, a senior vice president at Chrysler, responded on Chrysler’s blog: “The information is unmistakably incorrect. It’s pretty well-known that almost exactly two years ago – May 24, 2011 – Chrysler Group LLC repaid (in full and with interest) U.S. and Canadian government loans more than six years ahead of time.” Chrysler also responded via Twitter.
“Not so fast, Tesla,” says @chrysler comm chief, re claims it’s first to repay U.S. govt. @teslamotorsbit.ly/14zB6sJ #shortciruit
— Chrysler (@Chrysler) May 23, 2013
Elon Musk, Tesla’s chief executive and a Twitter regular, responded, saying: “As many have already noted, @Chrysler is a division of Fiat, an Italian company. We specifically said first *US* company.” And later, he added: “More importantly, @Chrysler failed to pay back $1.38B. Apart those 2 points you were totally 1st.”
Tim Rue/Bloomberg News Tesla Motors chief executive Elon Musk (pictured) maintains that Chrysler, which is mostly owned by Fiat SpA, is no longer an American company.Mr. Musk’s second Twitter message is in reference to a portion of Chrysler’s TARP loan that was assigned to the old Chrysler when the United States government sold its stake in the newly organized Chrysler Group LLC to Fiat SpA. Of the $12.5 billion the government had loaned the old Chrysler, approximately $1.3 billion was left behind. On June 2, 2011, the United States Treasury said in a statement that it was “unlikely to recover the difference of $1.3 billion owed by Old Chrysler.”
Asked to respond to Mr. Musk’s contention that Chrysler Group LLC is not an American company, Mr. Ranieri, in a telephone interview, said: “I don’t have any response to that. Chrysler Group LLC is the company of Walter Chrysler, and it speaks for itself for what it does.”
When asked if he could expand on that, Mr. Ranieri added, “I love espresso ristretto, so I don’t have anything more to add.”
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