Real-Life Fast & Furious — The History of Street Racing
Who was the character of Don Toretto based on and what does the Prohibition Era have to do with racing cars?
Most people aren’t street racers. So when they think of this sub-culture of petrolheads, they imagine skimpily outfitted girls flirting with racers of various nationalities and creeds on a dingily lit street. Meanwhile, DJs are blasting music and drivers are revving their engines to produce an adrenaline-inducing noise.
The reason people imagine this is because of the “Fast & Furious” franchise. Believe it or not, the first movie they made was actually loosely grounded in reality. But that was before Vin Diesel decided to go wild and take car racing to space as they’ve done in the last one…
When and why did street racing start?
Street racing had always been popular even back when people rode horses to get from place to place. But I guess the true roots of car street racing lie in the Prohibition Era of the 1920s and 30s.
You see, bootleggers — people who manufactured and sold alcohol illegally in the U.S. — needed to transport their product somehow. And the police were keeping an eye on the train network.
