These Cars Were Runner Up To Star In Original Fast And Furious Movie

Universal Pictures’ Fast and Furious 9 franchise should be released on May 28 this year in the United States. The movie is already shaping up quite nicely with Vin Diesel recently saying we haven’t even seen anything yet. We are eager to see and learn more but until that happens, let’s talk about the original film from 2001.

The first F&F movie made true automotive legends and we are not talking only about the characters. Their cars - the Supra, Charger, S2000, and a few more - have also earned the status of legends. But what if those cars weren’t in the movie?

There’s a new video on YouTube by Craig Lieberman brought to our attention by our colleagues at Road and Track. Lieberman was a technical advisor for Universal Pictures during the making of the first three Fast & Furious installments. In the 13-minute video, he talks about the cars that got rejected from the original movie and the reasons why they were not included.

As much as we love all the cars featured in the movie, we have to admit some of the vehicles that were rejected are among our favorite ones. For example, in the film’s opening scene, Brian was supposed to drive a Mitsubishi 3000GT but eventually, he got an Eclipse. Interestingly, in the original script, Vince was written to drive a Honda Civic but actor Matt Schulze was too tall to fit and they gave him a Maxima.

In general, the creators of the movie wanted the featured cars to fit the characters and, more importantly, to fit the movie’s small budget at the time. Also, all cars had to be sold new in the United States at the time and represent the country’s tuning scene.