Fast, furious, flashy

Hot rides on show at movie premiere

Sheldon Williams, Gleaner Writer

The need for speed was palpable at the premiere of Fast and Furious 6 at Carib 5, Cross Roads, St Andrew, on Wednesday, with three turbocharged cars strategically placed at the cinema's entrance to pump moviegoers' adrenaline.

There were also four booths showcasing motor vehicle offerings from Tyre Warehouse, Seafreight Jamaica Ltd, JN General Insurance Company and King Midas Mufflers. Paul Cole, managing director of King Midas Mufflers, who spearheaded the initiative told Automotives that he wanted to capitalise on the car culture in Jamaica, especially among young motorists.

"We are deep in the car culture. We find that it's a good way to bring all the guys together, the youngsters and everybody trying to build their cars. It's a nice outlet, building cars and modifying them, so we realised that it's mostly fun and for one night people forget their troubles and just enjoy themselves," Cole said.

He added: "We've been apart of the Fast and Furious franchise from the first one. Actually, when we started business the movie was just coming out at that time and so we thought it would be a good idea, because of my love for cars. I love to say we have been a part of it from Honda Civics and those cars were popular."

code word

He spoke to the pedigree of the cars on display. "If you notice, we had a Nissan Skyline out there, which is really the godfather of the whole car culture. You tell anybody about a Nissan Skyline GT-R, that's like the code word to any fast car. They'll say that is the bad boy," he said.

"The Evolution 10 is Mitsubishi's latest Evo, everybody knows that. And of course BMW is a foundation name, but they are just coming into the turbocharged world, so that 335i is a turbocharged BMW which is relatively new," he said.

King Midas Mufflers did work on all three cars.

The company arranged for a number of persons to watch Fast and Furious 6 on Wednesday. "We purchased nearly 200 seats for customers, sponsors, media and actually persons in the car culture. Next time, I think we are going to buy out the whole theatre," Cole said.

anticipating next movie

He is already looking towards the next movie in the series. "We'll definitely be there for the next one for sure," Cole said.

Marketing and sales manager at JN General Insurance Company, Kaycia Johnson, explained the organisation's participation in the event. "The target audience fits perfectly in what we're trying to push and we've seen some great potential here tonight," she said.

Stacia Nosworthy, sales manager of Seafreight Jamaica, explained the company is vital in getting eye-catching cars into the country. "It's cars. We can always ship cars down to Jamaica. We offer the service to get your cars here. We have shipped fast cars here before to Dover, where we shipped cars from Trinidad and Guyana, so we are familiar with that kind of a thing," Nosworthy said.

King Midas Mufflers is offering a free fuel-efficiency test at their head office from Monday to Friday. "What you do is bring the car and we check it for you and let you know the efficiency of the catalytic converter and oxygen sensor, which are both part of the exhaust system," Cole said.