The Top 10 Cars of The Fast & The Furious

Now that the clock has finally run out and just hours away from the first showing of Fast Five - the fifth installment of the Fast and Furious franchise - we felt like it’s the right time to give proper respect to the characters that have made this movie franchise as fun as it has been since the first movie came out in 2001.

And if you think that we’re talking about resident leading men, Vin Diesel and Paul Walker, guess again. This list has very little to do with them, or their other co-stars for that matter, but more so about what they were driving during the first four movies. Yes, dear friends. This is a list to honor the Top 10 cars of the Fast and Furious franchise!

Do take note that we compiled this list based on our opinions so if you have any sort of reaction on the cars we chose and the number we gave them, you have the floor in the comments section to let us hear about it.

Hit the jump to check out our list.

10. 1994 Acura Integra

This isn’t so much about the car than it is about the one driving it. Sure, a tricked out Integra is a pretty special piece of ride, but if you’ve got a hottie like Mia Torretto (Jordana Brewster) busting its chops, then consider the car as part of the overall package. Jump back to the scene where Mia and Brian O’Connor (Paul Walker) go after Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) in their latest hijack attempt, and tell us that you wouldn’t want to sit shotgun next to the smoking hot Brewster.

9. 1995 Mitsubishi Eclipse

Brian O’Connor’s very first street race car in the entire franchise met an unceremonious end in the first movie, but the green-and-blue Eclipse became one of the most iconic cars in the franchise, not so much because it gave Dominic Toretto a run for his money - he later quipped the now-famous line "it don’t matter if you win by an inch or a mile; winning’s winning". Anytime you get Vin Diesel to spew a nugget of wisdom like that, you have to give props to the car that made his bald head sweat.

8. 1997 Mazda RX-7

Han’s 1997 RX-7 actually was shown at the 2005 Tokyo Auto Show as a Veilside-tuned Japanese sportster. Turns out, Universal liked it so much that they decided to buy the car as is and worked on changing the car’s body color from the red/burgundy and black finish to a more audience-capturing bright orange and black finish. As for the Veilside Fortune body kit that it originally came with? Universal decided to keep it to make the car stand out in the movie. Good call, Universal.

7. 1995 Volkswagen Jetta

The car responsible for turning the phrase "pink slip" into a part of everyday lexicon is Jesse’s 1995 Volkswagen Jetta. As one of the few European cars to make it to the movie, the Jetta became a big part of the first movie’s storyline after Jesse raced it against bad guy Johnny Tran and his Honda S2000. After losing the race and his Jetta, Jesse runs away with his car and sets of a chain reaction of events that eventually led to the movie’s climactic end.

6. 2006 Nissan 350Z Tokyo Drift

The 2006 Nissan 350Z Tokyo Drift may have been the antagonist’s car - the all black finish pretty much says it all - but on its own, this Japanese sports car already exudes a certain level of bad-assery that made all those cars in Tokyo tremble in fear. On top of the intimidating finish, the 350Z Tokyo Drift also came with a 3.5-liter DOHC 24-valve V6 engine with an APS twin-turbo system that produces somewhere around 450 horsepower. The only thing more menacing than this piece of hot metal was the man sitting behind its wheel, the Yakuza-backed Drift King.

5.1999 Nissan Skyline GT-R

Brian O’Connor’s main ride for the sequel was a 1999 Nissan Skyline GT-R R34, a car that wasn’t actually sold in the US. For the purposes of the high-octane nature of the movie, this Skyline GT-R was given a C-West body kit and finished with a platinum pearl scheme courtesy of House of Kolor. Rounding out the changes were a set of 19" HRE 446 polished wheels inside Toyo Proxes T1-S tires. O’Connor’s fascination for Skylines underscores the model’s reputation in the street racing world as one of the most sought after models on the market.

4. 2001 Mitsubishi Eclipse Spyder

Roman Pearce (played by Tyrese) first made headway in the second installment of the franchise, "2 Fast 2 Furious". Together with Brian O’Connor, the two long time buddies aid in the successful capture of a local drug exporter. In the movie, Pearce drove a 2001 Mitsubishi Eclipse Spyder Convertible dressed in some resplendent metallic silver and purple ’webbed’ design that Tyrese actually picked out for the car. On top of that, the Eclipse Spyder was also given a Shine Street wide body kit, rear wing, and a set of Lowenhart BR-5 alloy wheels.

3. 1995 Honda Civic

It’s no coincidence that the three most memorable cars in the entire Fast and Furious franchise can be found in the first movie. The 1995 Honda Civics were not the fastest cars in the movie. Heck, they weren’t even used for racing purposes, but for the gang’s, shall we say, "night job". Remember all those scenes where Toretto and the gang were trying to hijack those trucks full of entertainment systems and were weaving their cars in and under a semi? Those were the Civics, baby.

2. 1995 Toyota Supra Turbo

On its own accord, a Toyota Supra has no business spitting out a Ferrari in a friendly drag race along the beach. But in the world of the Fast and Furious, tricked out Japanese renegades ruled over snobby Prancing Horses. That is, unless, you line up the former against an all-American muscle. Brian O’Conner’s orange wave of power was the ideal foil to the car on the top of this list. In one of the climactic scenes of the first movie, a despondent Toretto is met by O’Connor on a small slab of road for one final drag race. It was Spillner’s Japanese kamikaze versus Toretto’s American mauler. In the end, the latter met its doom - not the car’s fault - while the Supra Turbo lived to drive another day, ironically, in the hands of the man who laid waste to his car.

1. 1970 Dodge Charger R/T

You can’t have a list of the Top 10 cars of the Fast and Furious franchise without having this menacing muscle in the top spot. As his father’s once-prized steed, Dominic Toretto took great lengths in taking care of this blown 1970 Dodge Charger R/T, even admitting to Brian O’Connor that this is the one car that even he was scared to drive. The Charger with the supercharged Chrysler 426 HEMI V8 engine extending out on the bonnet with a blower became the iconic vehicle of the movie franchise, having been a part of not just one, but two - the other one being the fourth movie - Fast and Furious movies.