Nobody thought The Fast And The Furious would turn into the monster it is today. The first movie was simply based on the illegal street racing scene, featuring Paul Walker in the role of Brian O'Connor, a young cop that goes undercover and races import cars to find out who's doing some truck heists. These days it's about a band of international super-criminals, sorry - a family - that saves the world by working with secret spy agencies. While the cars were just as big stars as the actors in the first few movies, they've now become nothing more than disposable status symbols as the series has changed focus and become hardcore action movies. It's a shame really. It's an even bigger shame that a franchise based on the love of cars can't even seem to get the car part right.
Updated February 2022: Whether you love or hate the Fast & Furious franchise, you'll be pleased to know that we've updated this article with even more weirdness regarding the cars used in the movies.
There's no shortage of ridiculous scenes in the latest F&F movies, and they might get away with it when non-car people watch it, but there really isn't much car-related material left in these movies that can stand up to any form of scrutiny. Which begs the question; Why do they hire experts and advisors in the first place? And we're not just talking about how they defy physics at any opportunity they get, they even make mistakes when it comes to the most basic car related stuff one can think of - like mentioning two different NOS systems in the same car and in the same sentence. Let's take a closer look at just some of the things that make no sense in the Fast & Furious movies.
19 Dom's Charger
Yes, we get it. The Charger was so powerful, the chassis twisted when coming off the line blah blah... however, there is no car in the world that does what Dom's Charger did in the final race between him and Brian. Upon launching the car, Dom's Charger does a burnout and a wheelie at the same time, which is impossible, at least in those conditions.
On the drag strip, we might occasionally see a car lift its wheels and very momentarily spin the wheels a little, but even there it won't be a full-on burnout with the nose pointing in the air. A burnout means there is no traction while a wheelie means there is too much traction. You gotta pick one Dom, you can't have both!
18 R35 GT-R
When Brian wants a car in the fourth movie, a Nissan GT-R R35 pops up on the screen. Seeing as this movie is supposed to take place 5 years after the original, which would make it 2006, there's no way there could be an R35 available!
The Nissan GT-R R35 wasn't available until 2007, so in order for there to be one impounded by the police, it would have to be the prototype. That just doesn't seem very plausible. Clearly, they're just using cars they think are cool, without thinking too much about the timeline.
17 Grand Sport Corvette
As we're sure most of you already know, the Corvette is made from fiberglass. Fiberglass breaks upon hard impact. Yet in Fast Five, Dom drives the Corvette off the train and hits the ground hard, with the entire front of the car bending upwards on impact.
And guess what. There's not a single scratch on it, let alone any broken fiberglass bits. Dom speeds off, does some more off-roading, saves Brian, and then jumps it off a cliff. The good news is that it wasn't a real Corvette Grand Sport, just a replica.
16 BMW M5
In the sixth movie, there's a chase scene where they're driving BMW M5s, following Owen Shaw in his Flipcar. Tej mentions that the BMWs they used are factory-line, which means bone-stock, unmodified, standard E60 BMW M5s. Got it? As in no modifications, whatsoever!
Then Hobbs says that they are twin-turbo V8s "spitting out 560 ponies." So which one is it? Are they modified or not? Because the E60 BMW M5s they use were powered by a naturally aspirated 5.0-liter V10 engine that produced 507 horsepower. The later F10 M5 did have a twin-turbo V8.
15 Slow And Furious On Ice
Towards the end of The Fate Of The Furious, they try to outrun a submarine. And either those cars aren't really fast, or that submarine has got some serious mods under the hood.
Submarines can not travel much faster than 40 mph when submerged, let alone when above water and breaking through ice. Yet it still manages to keep up with these cars that have been highly modified and push out hundreds of horsepower. Sure, it could be because they're driving on snow and ice and don't have enough grip...but they're also doing jumps, and it takes some speed to get a car airborne.
14 Too Tall Civics
The first movie starts with a hijacking scene where one of the Honda Civics drives underneath a trailer to avoid the road crew. Trailers with enough ground clearance to pull this off just don't exist. They also have a safety guard running the length of that open space designed to prevent this kind of thing to happen with low vehicles.
In the real world, even the lowest of Civics wouldn't fit underneath an un-altered trailer, so technically they cheated to make it happen. The stunt is also repeated in Furious 7 by Brian.
13 Power To Weight Ratio
Brian mentions that the engine in Owen Shaw's Flipcar sounds like the turbo diesel engines you hear at Le Mans. Those cars have over 500 horsepower and are capable of reaching speeds upwards of 250 miles an hour.
So we know Shaw's car has massive power and torque, with very little weight to haul around. Which makes us question how Dom is easily able to keep up in a standard BMW M5? Even Hobbs in his massive "tank" is able to keep up. There is just no way that a good driver like Shaw wouldn't be able to lose them with such an advantage in terms of power to weight ratios.
12 Owen Shaw's Flipcar
In Furious 6 there's a scene near the beginning of the film where Owen Shaw is repairing his Flipcar and he talks about changing a bad part. Now, we get it, custom cars sometimes break down. Here's the thing though; the part in question was a spark-plug.
So what? Even custom cars need to have their plugs changed at one point, right? That would be true if it wasn't later mentioned that the car in question uses a turbo diesel engine. Diesel cars don't have spark plugs!
11 Brian's Evo
There must have been some serious modifications to this car in order to do what Brian does during the race to the impound lot in 2 Fast 2 Furious. While racing, Brian thinks it's a good idea to whip the car around and start reversing on the motorway. According to the FBI's GPS, we could see that they were doing more than 100mph just before pulling off this stunt.
Who modifies a Lancer Evo so it can do 100+ mph in reverse? Sure, it looks cool - but it's not even close to being realistic.
10 None Of Them Will Run 9s
Remember the scene in the original movie when they all pull up to the shop and Jesse tells Vince that he needs to tune his NOS timer and he'll run nines? Guess what, none of these cars would ever be remotely close to running nines.
Vince's Maxima is way too heavy and doesn't make anywhere close to enough power to run those times. Letty's 240 is nothing special, Leon's Skyline R33 would probably run mid-to-low 12s. Jesse's Jetta is a slow 2.0 GLI with an automatic transmission, and even Dom's RX7 won't do those times with that heavy sound system in there.
9 David Park's 240SX
In the fourth movie, David Park's car is described as a '98 Nissan 240 with illegal mods.' A '98 240 would be an S14, but when we see the movie we can clearly see it's a Nissan Silvia S15, which was introduced in 1999 - it also means it would have to be imported as the S15 wasn't sold in the U.S.
Now let's just say the car was imported, and for some reason, it was registered as a 98 model - but it still wouldn't be a 240 since the S15 was never available with the 2.4-liter engine. It only had two engine options, both based on a 2.0-liter; the naturally aspirated SR20DE and the turbo version SR20DET.
8 Hector's Honda Civics
There are a couple of reasons why Hector's Honda Civics would be horrible at drag racing. Remember the scene where Brian tells Dom that Hector is running Spoon engines with T66 turbos and a Motec Systems exhaust.
Well, Spoon engines are great for racing, but they'd struggle to spool the T66 turbos as the exhaust gases do not have enough pressure to run them effectively. Now, there could be some other mods we don't know about, so let's just say that's possible. What's definitely not possible is the Motec Systems exhaust, as Motec makes engine management systems, not exhausts.
7 Johnny Tran's Cars
You know that scene where Johnny Tran is pressing Ted to find out where his SR20 engines are? At one point he says "Do you see anything missing here? They've got no engines! Do they?" - it's very clear that he's talking about the cars in the garage.
However, those cars are a Honda Civic and an Acura Integra, so the Nissan SR20 engines wouldn't fit, unless he was planning to convert the them to rear wheel drive. If so, he would run out of time to finish the builds long before Race Wars anyway.
6 Tokyo Drift Mustang
First of all, are we really supposed to believe that they could swap in Nissan engine into the Mustang in such a short timeframe? All the parts just lined up and bolted straight in, with no need for custom-made parts? Sure, if you say so.
There's another problem with the Mustang though. The car in the garage is a rolling chassis of a Shelby Mustang. It has the cut-outs in the front for two fog lights and a small spoiler on the rear. However, all the driving done in the movie is with a regular Mustang Fastback, not a Shelby.
5 Letty's Jensen Interceptor
In Furious 6 we can see Letty drive a handbuilt Jensen Interceptor. Dom called it American muscle, and I'm gonna let that slide since it does use an American engine, even if the car itself was handbuilt in Britain. But there is something else that cannot be forgiven.
When racing through the streets of London, Letty's Interceptor is equipped with an automatic transmission with a racing shifter, yet she can still be seen pushing the clutch pedal numerous times. What kind of sorcery is this?
4 Köenigsegg Confusion
In Fast Five, after the guys have gotten their hands on the money and bought some nice cars, Roman says the car he's bought is 1 of only 4 in the world - then Tej claims to own the 2nd.
Well, there are a few problems with that actually. Seeing as the car Roman is talking about is a Koenigsegg CCXR SPECIAL EDITION, there was only two made, making his car 1-of-2. As far as Tej's car, that's a Koenigsegg CCXR, of which there are many - so while they both have Koenigseggs, they're not the same cars. However, if they had bought the Koenigsegg CCXR EDITION (without the SPECIAL part), it would've been correct to say 1 of 4.
3 Total Eclipse
In the first movie, Brian is driving a green Mitsubishi Eclipse, and clearly, there are a number of issues with this car. When it first appears Brian is maxing it out - and changes gears 7 times. Then, shortly after, the car spins out for no apparent reason as he hit 140mph.
During Jesse's inspection of the Eclipse before the race, you can tell it's a non-turbo engine. Jesse also says it has a NOS fogger system and direct port nitrous injection. Seems a bit strange to be running two separate NOS systems. Let's not even talk about that plate that comes flying out due to "Danger to manifold" (although it doesn't seem to bother Dom when he's in the passenger seat later). But how could Brian evade the police with those fried piston rings?
2 Hacked Cars
Cipher somehow managed to hack into 100s of cars in New York and steered them down 7th Avenue to block a foreign minister’s motorcade so her team of bad guys could get some nuclear missile launch codes from a Russian diplomat.
Erm. Right. Apparently, all these cars have self-driving capabilities since they have no problems going around corners. While cars have been hacked by researchers in the real world, it takes something like 10 people to take control over one car, here there were a handful of people - and they would have to know where each car was at all times in order to make them steer.
1 Safe-Pulling
They mention that the safe they have to pull in Fast 5 weighs 10 tons. There's just no way those two cars would be able to move it at all, let alone drive at the speeds they do.
But let's just use our imagination and say they managed to move it - when ten tons are being hurled around corners and bouncing off buildings like this, it would pull the cars with it and the whole chase scene would last all the way to the first turn.
Sources: Movie mistakes, IMDb, Fandom