The Fast and the Furious is one of the most successful franchises of all time. With an overall box office take of about $6.6 billion (and growing pretty much every movie), it’s hard to see an end to the franchise anywhere in sight. For instance, the first movie made just $350 million worldwide, whereas the latest film, F9, brought in roughly $730 million despite the pandemic's obstacles. With success like that, why would Universal ever stop? And for that exact reason, a new film called Fast X is in the working.

Updated June 2022: With such a long lifespan and rich history, there is bound to be at least a thing or two you never knew about the Fast and Furious saga. And with the tenth installment dubbed Fast X already in production, we've updated this list with even more crazy and unknown facts about the movies we've seen so far.

With the success of the films and how many eyes are on each movie, they act as some of the best publicity for car companies that money can buy. Companies like Mitsubishi and Nissan practically throw their cars at Universal in the hope they’ll make it into the Fast and Furious movies. Some of the movies are actually used as platforms to launch/unveil upcoming models from these car companies (a little more on that later).

Besides the overall box office take growing exponentially with each movie, so too does the budget. The first movie had a budget of just $38 million, practically making it an expensive indie, whereas the latest had a whopping $200 million. Given those kinds of figures, it's no wonder we see some of the coolest cars on the planet in each and every movie — the production crews can afford them! And they can also afford the best stuntmen and action scenes.

Each car is unique in The Fast and the Furious universe. Here, we highlight 18 little-known facts about the cars from the franchise and cherry-pick them for your enjoyment.

18 Not So Much A 10-Second Car

The Fast and The Furious Drag Race Screenshot between Dodge Charger R/T and Toyota Supra 
Via Digital Trends

In the first-ever Fast & Furious movie, Dominic Toretto and Brian O' Connor meet, and throughout the film's plot, it eventually boils down to Brian owing Dom a car capable of completing the quarter-mile in 10 seconds or less. And this is where we get to see the famous orange MK4 Toyota Supra being built. At the end of the first film, Brian and Dom race each other from one traffic light to another, the distance being exactly a quarter-mile apart, but something's not quite right. As soon as the two racers go on green, more than a minute and a half. But to play devil's advocate, this scene includes cool slo-mo shots, so we'll be gracious and knock down the time to one minute exactly - still 6 times longer than it should have taken them.

Related: 10 Things Nobody Knows About The Fast And Furious Supra Paul Walker Drove

17 It Almost Wasn't Called The Fast And The Furious

Porsche 911 GT3 RS with 9000 rpm redline
Via: doubleapex.co.za

Naming cars is a difficult task to do, it sets in stone the reputation the car needs to follow, and just like cars, films' titles also make or break them. Right before the first Fast & Furious movie was released back in 2001, it went by another name; "Redline". Sure, it's not horrid, but we much prefer the Fast saga's names. Fun fact, the title "Redline" was used by another film in the late 2000s, and it was dreadful, they even crashed a Ferrari Enzo... accidentally?

Related: Supercar Icons: Ferrari Enzo Vs Saleen S7

16 This Awesome Car Was Bought By A Different Superstar

Fast & Furious ’95 Jetta Review: What $99,900 Can Buy You
via Barrett Jackson

This iconic 1995 Volkswagen Jetta from the original The Fast and the Furious movie was, in the movie, driven by Jesse, played by Chad Lindberg. In the movie, Jesse was a member of Dominic Toretto’s (Vin Diesel's) crew, as a mechanic and software designer who helps navigate Dom’s highway truck heists.

In reality, the Jetta is powered by a 2.0-liter 4-cylinder engine, has automatic transmission, and is set up with a customized stereo that actually has a Playstation 2 inside the car. But did you know that after filming, the car was sold to another Hollywood superstar? Yup, Frankie Muniz of Malcolm in the Middle fame ended up buying the car. Muniz is a racer in his own right and bought the car after seeing the movie so that he could use it in his own races.

15 Paul Walker’s Iconic Car In The Films Is Illegal In The USA

The most famous R34 in the world
Via - Fastandfurious

That’s right — Paul Walker’s Nissan Skyline GT-R R34 is illegal in the US. The GT-R series of Skylines is known for its awesome design, handling, and power (2.6-liter turbo engine with 276 horsepower). The car has won the Japanese Touring Car championship 29 times in a row (which is a record, in case you were wondering). Suffice to say, people love this car.

However, the 1989 Nissan Skyline GT-R failed to meet street-safety regulations by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, making it impossible to import legally to American markets, of course excluding the 25-year import rule. The car can bypass the safety restrictions, though, by being reassembled, which is exactly what was done in The Fast and the Furious. The car was provided by Kaizo Industries and made legal for road use, though it was seized by government agents in 2009 and exported in 2012 to GT-A Germany.

Related: Why The Nissan Skyline GT-R R34 Should Be On Every Gearhead’s Bucket List

14 Going Through The Whole Gamut Of Nissan GT-Rs

Nissan GT-R35 - Rear Quarter
Via Mecum Auctions

The fifth film, Fast Five, does a good job of going through the entire catalog of Nissan GT-Rs, by year. In the film, when three of the characters first arrive in Rio, they're driving a KPGC10 Nissan Skyline GT-R, which was first produced by Nissan between 1969 and 1972. It was a legendary car in the local Japanese touring car racing circuit.

The GT-R then went on a 16-year sabbatical until 1989, when the R32 Skyline GT-R was unveiled.

This model won the Japanese JTCC Group A series of championships four years in a row. The car was eventually replaced by the R33, then the R34, and ultimately, the R35. The R35 was put to good use to pay a tribute to Paul Walker's life and legacy towards the end of the seventh film when Brian O' Connor drives an R35 out of frame symbolizing his death.

13 30-Mile Airstrip

Fast and Furious 6 Screenshot of Airstrip Scene
Via: Vulture

We love the over-the-top personality the Fast and Furious movies adopt, but somewhere a line has to be drawn, and no, we'll look past all the impossible stunts performed in the ninth installment. For this specific fact, we'll be going back to Fast and Furious 6, specifically, the scene where cars board and exit a monstrous cargo plane, and we'll be touching on how plausible that scene was. The world's longest runway lies in the mountains of Tibet at the Qamdo Bamda Airport, and it's 3.4 miles long, but is that long enough for the 13-minute action sequence to take place? Thanks to the math whizzes at Vuture who calculated that in the real world a scene like that would have needed 28.829 miles of the runway... that seems a tad impossible if you ask us.

12 Lots Of Publicity Deals Were Made Due To The Films’ Successes

Yellow Dodge Viper From Fast and Furious On The Move
via fastandfurious.wikia.com

Since the franchise became a multi-billion dollar behemoth, it's no wonder that car companies around the world want a piece of that action. The cars in the Fast and Furious movies have been seen by millions of eyes around the world, and it’s hard to beat that kind of publicity. Many car companies have used that to their advantage, using the films to promote their upcoming car releases.

For instance, Volkswagen put the movie’s cars in their commercials, effectively giving each other cross-promotion.

In 2 Fast 2 Furious, the Dodge Viper shown in the film was the first of the newly shaped models, and the production team managed to get a hold of four of them by promising that they wouldn’t be damaged.

11 Open Casting Call… For Cars??

Fast and Furious Screenshot
Via: GOBankingRates

By the time the third film in the franchise (and sixth chronologically), Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift, came out, the franchise was on its last dying legs. This was the first (and only movie) not starring either Paul Walker or Vin Diesel. After this film, executives at Universal considered making Fast and Furious a straight-to-DVD franchise—but boy... are they glad they didn’t, because Furious 7 raked in over $500 million (domestic and international) in its first weekend, which is over $400 million more than what the first film in the franchise brought in.

But when the stakes were dire and budgets were tight, the executives did something unheard of—offer an open casting call for cars. To save money people showed up and brought their cars to a designated place, and filmmakers chose select drivers and cars that would be featured in background sequences of the film.

Related: 10 Sports Cars That Didn't Age Well At All

10 There Were No CGI Cars In This Tunnel Chase

Fast and Furious 2009 Tunnel Scene
Via: FXGuide

There weren’t a lot of CGI effects in any of the scenes in the 2009 movie Fast and Furious (even when the cars flew out of the back of an airplane personnel carrier—from the sky). The creator of the franchise has stated that most of the time, during all the stunts throughout the franchise, there was a stunt person (or an actor) in the cars. They wanted things to look real, so they filmed the stunts “practically,” even though this was much more dangerous.

In one of the most far-fetched chase scenes—a sequence through smuggling tunnels in Mexico—the production team built open areas in a warehouse with orange cones to denote blocked-out paths, then added walls, pillars, and such with CGI in post-production, but the cars were actually there, and they were raced through tight corners.

9 The Real Hemi In The First Movie Wasn’t Actually Destroyed

1970-dodge-charger
Via: Volo Auto Museum

The 1970 Dodge Charger R/T is the main car driven throughout the franchise by Dominic Toretto, played by Vin Diesel. Even though Dom drives countless cars throughout the series, this is the one car that the tough guy is scared of driving. The muscle car in the film has a 426 supercharged Hemi V8 engine, and the Charger has a year-older body style of the 1969 Charger (“General Lee”) from the Dukes of Hazzard TV series.

At the end of the first film, there’s a huge crash where the Charger is destroyed. In actuality, the real Hemi-powered Charger wasn’t destroyed, but there were four other lookalike models made (powered by lesser engines), and these were the ones that were destroyed in filming the movie.

8 This Suped-Up Monte Carlo

Old White Monte Carlo From Fast and Furious On The Move
via fastandfurious.wikia.com

One of the most important cars in Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift was this 1971 Chevrolet Monte Carlo, driven by Sean Boswell (the 17-year-old student and expat living in Japan, the role played by Lucas Black).

This Monte Carlo is a first-generation model, highly modified. First, the design was inspired by old NASCAR race cars. It was fitted with a 4-speed transmission with 4:88 rear gears.

Originally, in the film, it was going to be fitted with a 632 Big Block engine that would've given it over 900 horsepower, but instead, the production team opted for 350 blocks, another one with a 509, and one that was never used with a 572. Another significant tidbit: the Monte Carlo at the time had the best power-to-weight ratio out of any Fast and Furious car on set. After being stripped for the movie and left with only the bare essentials, the usually-4,000 lb car weighed only 2,000 lbs.

7 They Went Through 300 To 400 Cars In The Fate Of The Furious

A gigantic crash sequence from Fast and Furious
via indiewire.com

You read that number right. In a movie that has a budget of over $250 million, we have to wonder how much of that money went to buying the actual cars that were destroyed. McCarthy has estimated that they went through about 300 to 400 cars during filming and that about 230 were destroyed entirely. It's necessary to have that many cars, he says, because the movies aren’t shot sequentially. So often, they’ll film a scene where a car is destroyed but then need that same car for a scene earlier in the film.

6 That’s a “No” From Ferrari

2017 Ferrari LaFerrari Aperta In Red On Bring A Trailer
Bring a Trailer

The Fast and Furious franchise is well known for going through absurd amounts of super and exotic cars during filming. But there was one particular car that even they couldn’t get their hands on: a LaFerrari — the ultimate in exclusive supercars from the Italian automaker. To get your hands on a LaFerrari, you can't just go out and buy one, Ferrari needs to deem you worthy enough, and it turns it the F&F franchise isn't worthy. According to car coordinator McCarthy, in Furious 7, they wanted to use a LaFerrari as the car that held the God’s Eye Chip. And though they tried, Ferrari said, “No thanks. We don’t need the press. Our cars sell themselves.” In the end, McCarthy went with one of the rarer supercars out there, a Lykan Hypersport.

5 It Would Cost Between $50,000 To $90,000 To Make Your Car Into A Fast And Furious Car

 Acura Integra GS-R from Fast and Furious movie
Via: Hondanews.com

The car lovers at Huffpost actually took the time to parcel out how much it would cost to make an average car into a suped-up car as seen in a Fast and Furious movie. And the number they came up with is… just under $71,000, though an approximate range would be between 50 and 90 grand.

Here are some of the customizations and costs it would take: $8,500 for a custom paint job; $3,500 for a carbon-fiber hood, trunk, and aerodynamic body kit; $175 for window tint, $5,600 for forged, light-alloy tires and rims; $150 for LED underglow. And that’s just the exterior.

Some other mods: a $7,500 turbo kit with 650 horsepower; a $1,200 Nitrous Oxide system; a $12,000 “built engine.” a $1,400 programmable engine computer; $750 engine dynamometer tuning; a $1,400 titanium exhaust; a $1,800 twin disc clutch; a $1,000 limited-slip differential; a $1,800 adjustable coilover suspension system; $550 upgraded anti-sway bars; $500 chassis-strengthening stress bars; a $4,400 upgraded big brake kit; a $2,500 roll cage; $3,600 carbon-fiber racing seats; $3,500 in-car entertainment; and $800 gauges to monitor the drive-train.

4 Vin Diesel’s ’70 Charger R/T In Furious 7

1970 Dodge Charger RT Offroad F&F 7
Via: Behance

The main car Vin Diesel drives in Furious 7 is a ’70 Charger that doesn’t street race. Instead, it goes off-roading, which took a lot of modifications to enable the car to do that without being terrible at it. This car was Dennis McCarthy’s favorite car in the film, so he put a lot of heart into building it.

The team built eleven of them from scratch, and every single one's chassis and the body took a week to build and have extra fender and wheel room. Computers cut the parts after the team had worked with CAD. One was even built with a 650-horsepower engine with a rear-locking differential so that both rear tires will spin.

3 Vin Diesel’s “Ice” Charger In Fate Of The Furious

Fate of the Furious Dodge Ice Charger
Via: Section9

Another iconic car driven by Vin Diesel’s Dominic Toretto in the eighth installment of Fast and the Furious is the Charger called the “Ice” (because that’s what it was driven on). This is a widebody Charger with an all-wheel-drive setup based on a design by Ken Block's Hoonicorn widebody ’65 Mustang notchback.

The team molded the car to Vin’s specifications, hoping to match its looks with Dom’s personality (and to make it possible to drive it over a frozen lake). The team threw in a 500-horsepower motor close to the firewall so that there’d be room for the driveshaft to pump power to the front wheels and enable its all-wheel-drive capabilities.

2 The "Skyline" From Tokyo Drift

Han's Veilside RX-7 Drifting Around A Fake Skyline GT-R
via fastandfurious.wikia.com

Though the first two movies were a bit fantastical, that can be expected in an action-packed thriller/car movie. But Tokyo Drift managed to make some good changes, namely, much more cleanly imported cars. One of those clean imports was Paul Walker’s Nissan Skyline GT-R which, in fact, wasn’t even a Skyline at all. Or a Nissan.

The car was a “kit car” made from a Skyline GT-R R34 chassis imported from Kaizo Industries.

Its engine was swapped with a Nissan RB26DETT, making it a street-legal R34. (Paul Walker was also a client of Kaizo’s for his own racing habits.) The car was imported without a drivetrain, which made it legal to import, and then was installed by Vildini Motorsports in California. Walker had to fight the production team to keep gaudy lights and chrome off the car, but the end result is a classic, solid build.

1 This Isn’t the Only Film The Mitsubishi Eclipse Is In

Iconic Green 1995 Mitsubishi Eclipse from Fast and Furious Front 3/4 View
via fastandfurious.wikia

In the franchise, Paul Walker’s Brian O’Conner drives this lime-green 1995 Mitsubishi Eclipse in the first film, The Fast and the Furious. It’s used in his practice runs leading up to his first street car race, but he can’t seem to get it under control without sliding out. During the race, the car starts to fall apart from overheating due to NOS, but Brian needs to win to gain Dominic’s approval (Vin Diesel), so he ignores the warnings and lets the car die.

It returns from the wreckage to be used later in the film before being destroyed during a huge shootout wherein a bullet hits the engine/nitrous and the car explodes. Despite all that, this same 1995 Eclipse is the same exact car with slight modifications used in another movie, Sex Drive, a 2008 film about a high school graduate who goes on a road trip while trying to lose his virginity.