Vin Diesel shares first image of Fast and Furious 8 revealing New York as location

Fast 8 will hit screens in 2017

Vin Diesel has shared the first look at the eighth instalment of the Fast & Furious franchise.

Production on 'Fast 8' - as it is titled in the image - was set to begin late last year in New York, with a release date of April 2017.

Vin, who has starred in six of the seven films and will return as Dom Toretto for the eighth, posted the snap on his Instagram page.

Fans have commented in their thousands at the poster which bears the tagline 'New Roads Ahead', and will see Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, Jason Statham, and Kurt Russell all reprise their roles.

'Fast 8' will be released in April 2017

Following the news that the next film will take a different direction under new filmmaker F. Gary Gray (Straight Outta Compton), Vin explained in ann interview with Jimmy Fallon that the original Fast film was meant to be set in New York City.

The first film, which starred the late Paul Walker, was based on an article from a magazine about street racing before it changed location.

He said back in October on The Tonight Show: "Something that people don’t know is the first movie came from a Vibe article that was about street racers in New York."

Vin Diesel during an appearance on NBC's 'The Tonight Show' Starring Jimmy Fallon

The US star, 48, who revealed in 2015 that there would be three more movies in the franchise - which has grossed a maga $2.3billion worldwide - was recently seen paying tribute to his close pal at the People's Choice Awards.

Collecting the award for Favourite Movie and Favourite Action Movie for Fast 7, Vin took to the stage where he sang to the audience at the the Microsoft Theatre in Los Angeles.

He gave an emotional rendition of Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth’s hit song See You Again as cheers rang around the audience.

Vin Diesel and Paul Walker in The Fast And The Furious

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Paul Walker in the video for Wiz Khalifa's See You Again

“I thank you so much. The only thing I can say now is, ‘It’s been a long day without you my friend. And I’ll tell you all about it when I see you again.'"

Paul Walker was killed in a car accident as Furious 7 was nearing the end of production.

Before closing the speech with the song, the Fast and Furious star said he was hoping that he didn’t get too emotional.

“I was cool while I was sitting in my seat, and then they handed me two awards. One for favorite action movie, and one for favorite film. You all thought this was your favorite film. So I think of Dom and Brian, and I start to think of Paul.”