San Diego Mopar group swarms The Fate of the Furious at the South Bay Triple Drive-In

“The word ‘Mopar’ to many might mean ‘motor parts’ which is what it really stands for,” said Carlos Diaz, “but for me Mopar means more than that … it means a well-built muscle machine built by Chrysler/Dodge [and] it needs to be a beauty to the eye before it can carry the Mopar badge.”

Diaz is the North County president of 858 Mopars, a group of modified vehicle builders. On April 15, he led approximately 40 Mopar vehicles from his squad to the The Fate of the Furious at the South Bay Triple Drive-In at 2170 Coronado Ave.

This was the eighth movie from the beloved Fast and the Furious franchise which originally launched in 2001.

“Their (Mopar) cars were loud [that night], but that is the nature of those vehicles,” said Sher, “it is American muscle.”

Sher and her crew of 18 Audis took front and center at the venue because they rolled in almost two hours prior to the start of the movie. She is a member of the San Diego Audi Club.

Word on the “1904 streets” was that there was a beef between the two cliques that took much of the real estate this night – but just like the leading characters, Dom and Brian in the earlier movies, everybody was fam here.

“It didn’t bother us at all that there were European vehicles in front of us,” said Diaz, “we actually chose the back so we could have enough parking for all of us.”

“The first time I recall going to this drive-in, was to watch The Wizard in 1989 with Fred Savage,” said Shawn. Last Saturday, he cruised his 400-plus horsepower 2002 Audi allroad station wagon. It fools most adrenaline-lurkers until he floors his gas pedal, lets off, and then a blow-off valve releases the pent-up pressure built by his twin-turbochargers. He’s got an air-suspension sorta like hydraulics (on the lowriders) and a high-def booming system. “Now we get the HD signal through our radios – man I miss the clunky speaker with the wire in the window to listen [to the movie].”

Diaz watched the first Fast and the Furious movie when he was a teen in a regular movie theatre and swears that this experience is more fun. “I loved watching the film in a drive-in because it was in the open air you can walk around talking to your fellow members.”

The South San Diego drive-in theatre charges $9 per adult and $1 for kids (1-9 years old).

The three Mopar cars that appeared in the movie were “the newest 2017 Dodge SRT Demon, a 1971 Plymouth GTX, and a 1970 Dodge Charger,” Diaz said — and they were all driven by Vin Diesel.

The Audi owners had no representation in the movie; but it was OK. “There are plenty of movies that have used Audis: The Transporter franchise was all about the Audi A8. Hitman, Ronin, iRobot, Ironman, and The Avengers movies [had Audis too],” Sher said. “It is all about a good car chase scene.”

Sher owns a 2015 RS5 Panther and Diaz owns a Chrysler Sebring and a Dodge Durango. Each of their crews had a mixtures of makes and models, and some vehicles were stock and others were heavily modified.

The two groups admitted that they checked out each other's rides – but not entirely. Both had sleepers (a fast car that looks normally slow) amongst them with their hood shut and locked in case an inevitable race would ensue.

“You never know on these streets,” said one of the members.