One of the most iconic cars in the world of Fast and Furious fans is the 10-second car, the Orange Toyota Supra built by Brian O’Conner with the Toretto’s at their garage. It started the story of the brotherhood between Dominic Toretto and Brian. The car first starred in the movie “The Fast and The Furious” released in the year 2001.
Heavy modification, strategic tuning make the custom orange JDM sports car a stunner down the road. Buckle up as we dive straight into the details about the 10-second car in Fast and The Furious.
UPDATED DECEMBER 2022: We dive back in to the intriguing story of the one of the most interesting original cars of TFATF film franchise, an appreciating JDM icon which represents the golden era of Japanese tuning and one of the coolest car stories from the big screen. We also check out any new news on the 10-Second Toyota Supra and the latest on the film series.
The Backdrop Against Which The 10-Second-Toyota Supra Appears
When the movie starts, we see Brain racing in his green Mitsubishi Eclipse against Dom and his gorgeous modified Mazda RX-7. For the lesser informed fans, Dom was into JDM cars as well, despite his apparent taste for American muscle cars. Brain races for the pink slip in the race and eventually ends up losing. Everything gets settled and Brain owes Dom his Mitsubishi Eclipse, but just then the police arrive and everyone scatters. Dom is almost caught by the cops when Brain shows up like a knight in shining armor to save him. Just as they outrun the cops, Brain accidentally lands up in Little Saigon, the territory controlled by Johnny Tran. As fate would have it Johnny Tran and his crew surround Dom Toretto, get them out of the car, and blow it up. Dom and Brain leave unscathed, but Dom turns to Brain and tells him he owes him a 10-second car.
Back at Dom's garage, a vehicle arrives on a trailer. The vehicle was part of a major accident that left the car burnt and with significant damages. Dominic and his friends laugh at Brian and Dom tells him he wanted a 10-second car, not a 10-minute car. A 10-second car is a term used for a car that can finish a quarter-mile drag in under 10 seconds. This is when Brain reveals the highlight of the car. He simply replies “Pop the hood.” Housed in the engine bay is the 3-liter, inline-6 2JZ-GTE.
Popping The Hood Of The Most Famous Toyota Supra A80
The wreck of a car housed a 2JZ - GTE inline-6 engine which could be heavily modded to drive faster than a Ferrari. There are a lot of things going on under the hood. It gets aspirated with a Turbonetics T-66 ball bearing turbo with a Q - trim compressor which gives a 0.72 A/R. They also fit it with a Turbonetics Delta II waste gate. The manifold equipped here is an RPS stainless steel/HTC coated custom manifold. The engine mods don’t stop at the 2JZ. The 2JZ is further modified to squeeze more power output out of it. Many of the pieces of equipment are from a company named GReddy including the power pulleys, Airinx intake system, cam gears, oil cooler kits, turbo timers, the front mount intercooler, the steering wheel-mounted remote boost controller, the temperature, boost, oil pressure, the EGT, and the Pro-Fec B Boost controller.
Apart from all of this, there is a 100 HP nitrous oxide wet system. The boost from the turbo gets fed to the system via an AEBS Turbo down pipe. Also, the engine gets fitted with APEXi blow off valves, an HKS vein pressure converter, an HKS graphic control computer, and an HKS injector pulse monitor. The intake manifolds, the relay covers, fuse covers, throttle body, valve covers, and turbochargers get chrome plating. They fit the car with a Fluidyne aluminum radiator and a Flex - a - Lite dual electric fan kit. The throttle body which got used was a powerhouse racing ported/polished throttle body with a traction control module deletion, and it got coupled to a powerhouse racing cylinder head.
Other Modifications To Fast And The Furious Toyota Supra
The tires used during the filming of the movie were Yokohama AVS S1 285/30, and 255/35/19. They mounted these wheels onto Dazz/Racing Hart M5 Tuners, with 19-inch rims. This Toyota Supra used Stillen racing 14” slotted/drilled racing brake rotors along with 6 piston calipers on all four wheels. Bilstein /Eibach coil-overs got fitted on the rear of the car, and they also used Cusco Front strut towers. The Supra also had Stillen sway bars to compensate for the body roll in tight turns.
The fast Toyota Supra used a Getrag six-speed gearbox with Stillway sequential adapters. The gearbox got its power from the 2JZ via the Clutchmaster 11lb Billet Flywheel. Separating the gearbox from the flywheel was the Clutchmaster Stage III racing clutch.
The Fast And The Furious Toyota Supra By The Numbers
The engine produced somewhere around 544 - 569 horsepower without nitrous. On standard street tires, it could go from 0 to 60 in 4.3 seconds and from 0 to 100 in 9.2 seconds. With all the mods active, the Supra could do a top speed of 185 mph.
Despite what the movie says, the car can not actually do a quarter-mile in less than 10 seconds. In real tests, it did the quarter-mile in 12.2 seconds. All of these modifications caused the weight of the car to be 3601 lbs.
Custom JDM Styling By The Gallon
Starting with the color, they painted it a Lamborghini Diablo Candy Pearl Orange with additional decals added to the side of the car. They captured the aerodynamic look of the car with Bomex front spoilers and side and rear skirts. The turn signals and the front headlamps got taken from the 1998 Toyota Supra and got given Roadboy RB - 345 Ice White driving lights. They also gave the underside of the hood neon lighting for car shows. The rear end of the car got an APR aluminum biplane wing.
They made the interior match the stylish vibe of the exterior of the car with viper blue suede and black leather upholstery. They mounted the gauges on the A-pillar and the “NOS ON” and “LOW OIL” warning lights also added on. It got fitted with Sparco Milano seats with matching fabric and harness holes. They also attached Sparco harnesses to give it the much-required safety aspect. A custom-built MFS roll cage was also fitted to the car for rollover protection.
Of course, Paul Walker sadly passed on in 2013, with his collection of cars getting auctioned off in Arizona - he famously had a custom R34 Nissan Skyline GT-R and Toyota Supra in the collection, some of which got shared with friend and pro racing driver Roger Rodas.
Since this article originally got published, the orange 10-second Toyota Supra made headlines for selling on Barrett Jackson the auction site.
It went for a whopping $550,000, the car sporting the upgrades listed above which got installed by Eddie Paul at The Shark Shop in El Segundo, California after the car got bought back following its inclusion in the first two films of TFATF franchise.
That car comes with a 4-speed automatic transmission though, not the six-speed which is part of the official list of mods.
Nowadays, the Toyota Supra A80 is an appreciating icon, predecessor to the current Supra A90 which really shook up the design and went with a BMW powertrain - prospective buyers of the classic A80 will need to pay an average of nearly $90,000 for the twin-turbo version, according to Classic.com's auction history value aggregator.