Fast & Furious Hollywood Drift - Concept Development - (5/17/22) There has been some early talk about building a new Fast & Furious ride at Universal Studios Hollywood. Screamscape dug a bit deeper into these rumors and apparently it is true that something Fast & Furious themed is indeed planned. The interesting thing is that the new ride planned will be a roller coaster unlike anything we’ve really seen before. And no, this won’t be the drifting dark ride/coaster system developed from Dynamic Attractions.
Now before I get too far into the details on this thing, know that this is simply an attraction concept. No construction has started, so the concept can be changed, the concept can be canceled entirely and replaced with something entirely different. I make no promises that this will be built… but dang if it doesn’t look interesting.
That said, this particular concept is being called Fast & Furious Hollywood Drift, and on the land side of things we are looking at the removal of both the Animal Actors show and the Special Effects Show on the upper deck to make way for this new coaster concept from Intamin. I believe the overall track layout to still be somewhat fluid at this point, but the idea would be to use a dual-sided loading station, not unlike Gringotts at Universal Orlando, with the roller coaster trains made to look like a set of four Fast & Furious style cars.
The Gringotts comparison is apt, because just like we saw built for Gringotts, these cars will utilize a controlled spinning system. From what I understand the trains will pull out of the station and onto a multi-launch track area where they will spin to launch up into a rather bizarre looking half-loop shaped spike track. The best I can describe it is that the trains will enter the element as if going up into a loop but by the time they reach the vertical moment, the track will have rotated 90º sidewards for the remainder of the element which will look more like a giant letter “C”. During this rise, stall and eventually fall back down the individual cars will spin and rotate to be facing the opposite direction by the time they enter the launch track and are boosted out at a higher speed to soar up and over the pathway leading to the Starway to the lower level, and then drop down into an unknown roller coaster section that I’m assuming will go around to the hillside behind the Simpsons ride building before turning around and heading back for a return run towards the station again.
Again, this is just a concept, but one that should prove to be nearly as fun to watch from the ground as it would be to ride if Universal were to go ahead with it. I’ve no idea what this means for the longevity of the current Fast & Furious - Supercharged attraction on the Backlot Tour. They could keep it as is for those not into roller coasters who still enjoy the “Fast” films, or perhaps they could turn it into something new further down the line as well.