‘Fast and Furious’: Paris collector offers drives in famous movie cars

PARIS: Dreaming of taking a tour in a Volkswagen Beetle like in the ‘Herbie’ films, a ‘Fast and Furious’-style muscle car, or a replica of a ‘Back to the Future’ DeLorean? A French car collector offers just that in a new car museum south of Paris.

In a big hangar in Etrechy, 50 km south of Paris, former car dealer Franck Galiegue, 39, is displaying a collection of 43 vintage cars that have either featured in famous movies or are replicas of them.

Galiegue, who started to collect cars at age 21, said one of his top pieces is one of two remaining 1970s Chevrolet Chevelle Malibus that Ryan Gosling drove in the 2011 action film ‘Drive’.

“They often have several back-up cars in movies, since they do stunts and break a few. In this case, they used three - one was completely destroyed and only two remain: this one and the other one, which Ryan Gosling owns and drives in Los Angeles,” he said.

The Chevelle is not for hire, but Galiegue’s Movie Cars Central operation offers paying visitors the chance to take a spin in more than 10 mostly U.S.-made vintage car models that have featured in movies.

“I wanted to do something like a museum, but it must be a living thing, so that people can drive the cars, either here on our terrain or even on the road,” he said.

One of those cars for hire is a DeLorean, transformed to resemble the time-travel machine from the 1985 film ‘Back to the Future’.

Galiegue also owns two Batmobiles, including a replica of the one in the 1989 Tim Burton-directed ‘Batman’ film, a Ford Gran Torino from the series ‘Starsky & Hutch’, and Magnum’s Ferrari 398 GTS. He owns 12 cars from the ‘Fast and Furious’ series, eight of which are originals.

The museum will soon have three new cars including one from the 1987 ‘RoboCop’ movie.