The Fast and Furious movie saga is a long-running Hollywood movie franchise that started off with underground street racing, and eventually evolved (or devolved, if you’re a die-hard fan of the first few iterations) into flicks about international fugitives with hearts of gold who are seemingly immortal. With each subsequent movie, the franchise takes one step further into the land of preposterousness, and with an ever-increasing scale also come cars that become hyper-popular owing to their cameos on the big screen.
Be it the cars Paul Walker’s on-screen persona Brian O’Connor drove in the first two movies as he raced for pink slips, or the multi-million dollar, rarest of the rare cars that the crew destroys with no care in the world, there is no denying that the Fast and Furious saga has displayed some of the greatest and most revered cars, often even affecting said cars’ sales for the better. After all, seeing your favorite characters smoking out the rest of the competition with their own cars does make you invested in the cars too, which then translates to those ‘hero cars’ becoming more popular, selling more, becoming the go-to car skins in video games, or at the very least, netting increased Google searches.
With that said, here are ten of the best hero cars that viewers saw and loved in the Fast and Furious saga, which became an immortal part of pop culture thanks to their appearance on the big screen.
10 Suki Honda S2000
Devon Aoki's bubbly yet fierce character of Suki leads an all-female crew of illegal street racers and designs car vinyls with the back of her hand. One of the most vibrant cars to have graced the screen in the franchise in 2 Fast 2 Furious, Suki's Honda S2000 is an all-pink machine that complements the character's personality perfectly.
The S2000 even manages to be a token Fast and Furious car, by being nimble and fast enough to keep up with the best in a street race, jumping over a raised drawbridge and landing without crumbling, losing its entire front bumper in the process but still managing to finish the race. Oh, and it somehow had pink nitrous flames to match the color scheme, which made it all the more preposterous yet memorable.
9 Brian’s 1995 Toyota Supra MK4
The 1995 MK4 Toyota Supra was the quintessential 10-second car that became an instant icon when it appeared in the inaugural movie of the franchise, all the way back in 2001. It's also the car that out a Ferrari on the highway, making it instantly one of the most attractive cars in the world.
Moreover, it was also the one that Brian handed over to Dom at the end, which sealed their bond and began the slew of 'family-heavy' storylines in subsequent movies. Wrapped in Troy Lee Design's Nuclear Gladiator skin, the Supra graced every fanboy's bedroom walls. Fun fact, this Supra was just sold for over half a million dollars, such is its appeal even today.
8 Dominic’s 1970 Dodge Charger R/T
The 1970 Dodge Charger R/T that Dom housed inside his garage was special to him, as it was his father's. Toretto managed to lovingly rebuild the car from the ground up but elected never to race it, until the finale of the first movie, where he went toe-to-toe with Brian's Supra before it got blindsided by an oncoming truck.
Dom's Charger has been one of the mainstays of the Fast and Furious franchise, making an appearance in several installments over the years. It also made the car arguably the most iconic in the franchise, and the Fast and Furious family even gifted Vin Diesel his own 1970 Dodge Charger for his 52nd birthday.
7 Brian’s 1998 Mitsubishi Eclipse
While Walker's Brian O'Connor, while on the run from the police in 2 Fast 2 Furious does drive a convertible Eclipse, it was far less memorable than the one he used at the beginning of the Saga, almost managing to beat the Dominic Toretto in a drag race before the car gave out. As iconic as the car is, it also birthed one of the most meme-able moments from the franchise, that being the senseless 'Danger to Manifold' scene.
It's also the first car O'Connor drove in the entire saga and established his identity on-screen, which does make it all the more special. Sure, he got chided and ridiculed by Dominic for blowing out the piston rings on this Eclipse, but Toretto was Brian's best man several years later, so it did all end well.
6 Lykan Hypersport
Furious 7 was when the crew had gone from petty mechanics who stole for a living to international fugitives who even the government sometimes recruited for their dirty work. In a bid to retrieve a computer chip that housed the God's Eye computer program (a fancy MacGuffin, so to speak), the crew land in Abu Dhabi to steal the ultra-rate Lykan Hypersport from a millionaire's penthouse.
Any millionaire who can hire UFC legend Ronda Rousey as his personal guard is not going to be easy to steal from, and as things went south for Dom and Brian, they elected the best way to get what they need was to drive the $3.4 million hypercar off a skyscraper into two subsequent ones! This is a scene that etched itself into the list of most outlandish Hollywood blockbuster scenes ever, and with it, the Lykan Hypersport became even more popular than it was.
5 Sean’s Lancer EVO
The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift was a spin-off movie that came after the first two movies, and while fans entered the theater with skepticism since neither Paul Walker nor Vin Diesel was going to be in the movie, Tokyo Drift has become one of the most loved movies of the franchise.
The movie saw Sean Boswell, eager to make a name for himself in Tokyo, go against the 'Drift King' DK San, while not knowing the first thing about drifting. It is in this beautiful red Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX that Sean learned how to drift for the final showdown, lent to him by the resident cool guy Han. Moreover, Keiichi Tsuchiya, the original king of drift himself complimented Sean's drifting in a small cameo in the movie.
4 Han’s 1994 Mazda RX-7
Tokyo Drift introduced the character of Han Seoul to the franchise, who took a liking to Sean Boswell's fish-out-of-water persona and elected to help him get a ride and train him on how to drive sideways. One of the coolest characters in the saga must also have one of the coolest cars, and Han's ride simply did not disappoint.
The legendary Mazda RX-7 FD was the car that Han drove (to the very end), and remains one of the best cars in the franchise. With a custom body built by Japanese aftermarket company Veilside, the RX-7 even won the best car award in 2005 at the Grand Prix show.
3 Brian’s Skyline R34 GT-R
Brian's Nissan Skyline R34 GT-R is again, one of the most iconic hero cars in the franchise, and is easily one of the most recognizable ones from the series as well. Also the hero of the rather unknown and thus underrated Turbo-Charged Prelude which came between the first two movies, the car was found by Brian in a used car lot.
It was in the Nissan Skyline R34 that Brian managed to make a name for himself on the Miami underground street racing scene, to the extent that he began being known as 'Bullet.' One of the saddest scenes in the entire franchise was when it met its unceremonious end at the hands of an EMP harpoon against the authorities.
2 1966 Ford GT40
Fast Five was a rather important movie in the history of the saga, as it is where we saw the movies slowly turn into action-packed heist movies, but it still hit the middle ground quite well and remains a well-loved movie. During the first act, viewers were introduced to the Ford GT40, the Ferrari Killer.
This car was not just important for Ford, but the entire racing industry, as it brought down Ferrari's hegemony at Le Mans, and went on to win for several years at Le Mans. It's also the second car on this list that housed a special chip that acted as a MacGuffin in the movie franchise, and while it was driven quite less, the blue and white paint was quite iconic.
1 Dom And Letty’s Plymouth Roadrunner
The Plymouth Roadrunner is an icon in and of itself. First seen in Tokyo Drift, viewers jumped up in joy as they realized that the presence of a purebred American muscle car at an underground Japanese car meet-up could only mean one thing- Dominic Toretto's return to the franchise.
In subsequent movies, the Plymouth was seen being driven by Michelle Rodriguez's Letty Ortiz, in the fourth installment, and was the car in which she 'died'. It was also seen in the seventh installment, Furious 7 when Dom and Jason Statham's Deckard Shaw crashed head-on into each other.