When the franchise debuted, Fast and the Furious became fodder for countless gearhead jokes, and for good reason. Oil shooting out of dashboard gauges, manifold issues causing floorboards to fall out of cars inexplicably, muscle cars doing wheel stands on unprepped asphalt wearing street tires – there were definitely some initial teething moments in the first few films.

But since fifth installment or so, things have really started to change. While these movies used to be more or less a guilty pleasure – a “so bad it’s good” kind of thing – now they’re good because, well they’re pretty damn good. Sure, there’s still a substantial amount of suspension-of-disbelief required to really enjoy the series, but with every installment, they continue to up the ante and really deliver the kind of stuff their core audience – gearheads – really dig.

The Flip Car from Fast & Furious 6. Image: Universal Studio

Gearheads, as a general rule of thumb, aren’t really down with CGI. We like real stunts. The producers of Fast and Furious 7 get that, and that’s why they dropped real cars out of a real airborne plane in the “C-130 Drop” scene featured in the video above, replete with real cameramen skydiving alongside them to get the shots they need.

But beyond the killer stunts, let’s take a moment to reflect on the cars they’ve been putting together for these recent installments. Gone are the days of the sticker-clad, stanced out Integras – they’ve been replaced by cars like the Road Warrior-style offroad 1970 Hemi Charger and full-on custom builds like the Flip Car from Fast and Furious 6.

Fast and Furious 7 debuts in theaters on April 3rd. You know where we’ll be.