What To Expect from Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift

The West Coast is finally getting their own VelociCoaster. Well, not exactly, but they are getting a highly innovative Intamin multi-launch with a sprawling layout themed to one of Universal’s billion-dollar franchises, so close enough, right? Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift will be opening at Universal Studios Hollywood in 2026, and while the park has been secretive about the exact details, the coaster is coming together as I write this, with new pieces being added every day.

This coaster is undoubtedly one of the most exciting on the horizon for the entire industry, so let’s take a look at exactly what to expect from this first-of-its-kind attraction. Since there are no official photos released, the photos in this article have been sourced from the KTLA flyover of the coaster, and from Amusement Insider’s incredible animated POV.

The best way to think about this coaster is essentially an outdoor, inverting version of the Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind ride system. The ride will have cars with individually-controlled 360-degree spinning, so they will be pre-programmed to face a certain direction at each point in the layout. This is how the titular “drifting” will work, and the possibilities are endless when it comes to the inversions. You could have an inversion with the cars facing sideways, completely backwards, or a slow rotation throughout the inversion.

Unlike Guardians, F&F will be manufactured by Intamin, the designers of rides like VelociCoaster, Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure, and most relevant, Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts. If you’ve ridden Gringotts, you know that the cars on that coaster also operate with a controlled rotation. That could give us a sense of what F&F will feel like, but on a much larger scale and more room to really let loose.

You can expect multiple launches and inversions, as well as elements that accentuate the spinning, like a massive off-axis hill that soars over the park’s iconic escalators that take guests between the Upper Lot and the Lower Lot.

There appear to be two corkscrews, with the larger and more drawn-out of the two being dubbed “the Family roll” by enthusiasts, echoing the Mosasaurus roll in Florida but with a Fast & Furious twist.

There is also a stall that will surely be used to dial up the spinning antics while the ride stays suspend upside down. The largest inversion looks like a dive loop, and is where one of the ride’s soundproof barriers will be placed.

The rest of the layout will be made up of smaller elements, designed to give some forceful airtime and evoke the feeling of drifting. The idea of a Guardians style coaster with airtime moments is almost too much to process, which is what makes the year-plus long wait for this attraction even more agonizing.

From the layout, there also looks to be a wave turn in there as well, hanging riders on their sides for a one-of-a-kind view over the Hollywood Hills.

I would guess that these parts of Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift will be similar to the first half of VelociCoaster, where there are smaller hills and tight turns, but instead of being inside a raptor paddock, you’ll be in a muscle car traversing the side of the mountain.

This is one of the biggest mysteries around this coaster because as of yet nothing has been officially revealed and no pictures have surfaced inside the ride’s massive station building. At the very least, we know that the ride vehicles will be four cars long, and each car will be modeled after an iconic vehicle from the franchise.

As a big fan of the movies, I would love to get a peek behind the curtain on what they’re cooking up for the storyline, because some of the later F&F movies get truly wild with their stunts and set pieces. If I had to guess, Dom Toretto will be recruiting riders to his Family, and possibly testing their driving skills by having them drift through the mountain.

I’m not sure whether any of the high-tech super spy elements of the more recent movies will be brought in, the creative team may want to keep it simple for the casual guests who aren’t as familiar with the Toretto clan’s more extreme missions like flying cars, nuclear submarine battles and super-powered mercenaries (seriously people, watch these movies.)

The cars will almost certainly have on-board audio, likely with narration from Dom and the crew along with screeching tires, revving engines and possibly a soundtrack too. While the Fast fan in me would love if the plot was as in-depth and thorough as VelociCoaster, I think the focus will be purely on thrills but I would love it if there was some sort of indoor show scene before the initial launch.

Possibly. We know that Intamin is the company Universal has chosen to build the replacement for Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit, closing permanently at Universal Studios Orlando in September 2025. I would say it’s a safe bet that the park will get its own controlled spinning coaster in that spot, but I don’t think it will be themed to Fast & Furious, and definitely won’t be a clone of Hollywood Drift due to the much smaller space in Orlando. I am hoping that we get a Ghostbusters or Back to the Future theme since Universal is leaning heavier into their beloved retro brands.

If they do go with the Fast & Furious theme, that will likely mean the removal of the current Fast & Furious Supercharged attraction, which would open the door for even more expansion at the park.

As the only outdoor adult coaster at Universal Studios Hollywood, this will finally give park goers the thrill coaster they always needed, and be the first step into turning the park into a destination park. The future of Universal Hollywood is bright, and it all starts with the Family.

What are you most excited about for Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift? Let us know in the comments below!