The Coolest Fast and Furious Cars

Chaotic chases through the Rio streets, daredevil drifting in Tokyo, riotous races through downtown Miami. The Fast and Furious cars take the lead in these revved-up action movies led by Vin Diesel, an all-American anti-hero who looks like he’ll either tear your arms off or read you a bedtime story.

With co-stars Paul Walker, The Rock, Jason Statham and Michelle Rodriguez going hell-for-leather, the muscle motors need to be as crazy as the drivers – and the cars used in Fast and Furious are exactly that. These are awesome pedal-to-the-metal rides and some of the most iconic cars in the world, all wrapped up in some of the most insanely hectic chases in movie history.

There are nine films and all boast automotive mayhem to rival even the very best movie car chases. We’re going to pick one of the famous cars from Fast and Furious from each film. To round it all off, we’ll pick our all-time favourite of the Fast and Furious cars. Put your seatbelt on because this is going to be one hell of a ride…!

The fourth generation of the iconic Skyline GT-R series, the R33 was the first production car to lap the fabled Nürburgring in sub-eight minutes. For that reason alone it is one of the best Fast and Furious cars.

Launched in 1995, the R33 was harder, more aggressively styled and faster than its R32 predecessor even though thanks to a ‘gentleman’s agreement’ between Japanese car makers, horsepower was limited to 276.

Without the limiter, it’s over 300 bhp (the N400R variant touched 400 bhp) and because it was one of the star cars used in Fast and Furious, it satisfied the need for serious speed from the growing tuning and drifting scene in Japan, Europe and America.

The Nissan Skyline GT-R R33 is a visceral car and even though it’s 25 years old it still turns heads and shifts internal organs at full pelt. It’s definitely one of the best Fast and Furious movie cars.

The brainchild of Chevy GM, Pete Estes, and chief stylist Dave Holls, the Monte Carlo was originally built as what American car manufacturers called a ‘personal luxury car’. The idea was to entice customers with a package that balanced a feisty rear-wheel drive V8 with comfort and style. It worked, but it was more than that. Much more.

Based on the Cadillac Eldorado, it remained a well-appointed luxury car balancing style and performance. However, this outstanding model evolved into a hardcore hardtop muscle car to rival the Dodge Charger, the Pontiac GTO and Starsky & Hutch’s Ford Gran Torino. Like Vin Diesel, the cars used in Fast and Furious are well-known for their raw power and tough  good looks and the Chevrolet Monte Carlo fitted right in.

The 250 bhp, 5.7-litre Turbo-Fire V8 was a huge hit with the muscle car community and the SS (Super Sport) version, packing 360 bhp from a 7.4-litre Turbo-Jet V8 even more so – another reason why it was one of the Fast and Furious cars. The Monte Carlo was a textbook all-American muscle car. It was designed to look good, go fast and make a proper V8 noise and it did exactly what it said on the tin.

When the producers were thinking of the best Fast and Furious movie cars, the Dodge Viper must have been close to the top of the list. Modern muscle doesn’t come packaged any better than the SRT-10.

In a point not lost on the admittedly niche group of herpetologist petrolheads, the original incarnation of the Viper was developed in the late 80s as an up-to-date Cobra. It took the automotive world by storm as soon as it was released.

The Dodge Viper was a Schwarzenegger-in-his-prime car. Bulging biceps, kick-ass quads, supreme power and Adonis-esque good looks.

It didn’t matter that it has a typically American low-rent interior, the blue collar Detroit polyester to the white collar Stuttgart silk or that the gear changes are as vague as a politician’s response. What did matter is that it has a hardcore V10 soundtrack, it’s as uncouth as a gang of teenage louts and it absolutely hit the sweet spot with muscle car enthusiasts – hence it’s another of the famous cars from Fast and Furious.

While the Ford Gran Torino is one of the most famous cars from Fast and Furious, it is perhaps better known as the ‘striped tomato’. In the 1970s, British TV police drove the long forgotten and utterly awful Austin 1100 but in America, the coolest TV cops drove the coolest cars. None more so than the Ford Gran Torino driven by Starsky & Hutch – one of the most famous TV show cars ever.

The third-gen version of the Gran Torino (named for the city of Turin, dubbed ‘the Italian Detroit’) was competing with some serious American muscle, including a lot of the cars used in Fast and Furious. The Dodge Challenger, the Chevy Camaro, the Plymouth Barracuda and the Pontiac Trans-Am were all fighting for space in the market. However, for a while in the early 70s, the Gran Torino more than held its own. The 6.6-litre V8 emanated old-school muscle car values and it’s racy lines made you want to drive it hard and fast.

While it may not have hit the same levels of movie superstardom as Lieutenant Frank Bullitt’s Ford Mustang GT Fastback, the Gran Torino remains one of the coolest cars used in Fast and Furious.

If you’re one of the five people in the world for whom the 245mph, 806 bhp, £500,000 CCX was neither fast enough, powerful enough or expensive enough, Koenigsegg have made you the £1m CCXR, one of the most famous cars from Fast and Furious ever!

Unfortunately they only made four, so one of you is going to be disappointed.

Called the world’s first ‘green hypercar’, the 4.8-litre twin-supercharged, 250mph+ CCXR has been developed to run on standard petrol, 85% ethanol or a mixture of both, dubbed by the marketing maestros as flex-fuel.

The exterior of the CCXR is unpainted carbon fibre for that ‘I’ve got more money than Mayweather’ look. It delivers everywhere it’s required to – on the track, winding up through the hills above Nice or in a straight line. When it was introduced to the world at the 2008 Geneva Motor Show, the only car in the world more powerful was the Bugatti Veyron. Presumably, that tells you all you need to know about the Koenigsegg CCXR and why the producers decided it would be one of the cars used in Fast and Furious.

In 2009, Forbes rated the CCXR as one of the ten most beautiful cars in history. Looks-wise it’s a Marmite motor (Koenigsegg themselves called it ‘an unrivalled work of automotive art’) but whatever you think of it, this car a serious piece of kit, well worthy of its place as one of the very best Fast and Furious cars.

If you were a hip cool cat in the Swinging Sixties, you were either in a Jag or a Jensen. The E-Type is without question one of the most beautiful cars ever made and the Interceptor isn’t far behind. It wasn’t the fastest, most powerful or most expensive of the cars used in Fast and Furious but it was effortlessly cool. It was the under-the-radar Pink Floyd to the E-Type’s shouty Rolling Stones.

Built between 1966 and 1976, the impeccably-named Jensen Interceptor had it all. It was powered by a hardcore Chrysler V8, built by British artisan coach-builders and styled by legendary Italians Carrozzeria Touring – whose CV includes the Aston Martin DB5, the Ferrari 166 LM and the Maserati 3500 GT.

The Interceptor was one of the first production cars with four-wheel drive and anti-lock brakes. However, it’s ultimate downfall was that it weighed slightly less that a cathedral, hit a not-very-impressive 10mpg and its lifecycle perfectly coincided with a global recession and an oil crisis.

That said, for a decade this most British ‘Gentleman’s Express’ with its wood and leather interior, stunning, square-jawed face and long, sensual bonnet was an absolute smash. It was a swaggering jetsetter, equally at home amidst the Lamborghinis, 1970s Ferraris and Maseratis cruising around the Riviera, strolling up and down the King’s Road and pounding Miami’s Art-Deco streets as one of the coolest Fast and Furious movie cars.

The Lykan HyperSport is reported to be the most expensive of all the cars used in the Fast and Furious franchise, at an eye-watering £2.7m. Even so, you’d be forgiven for thinking ‘what’s that?’ on hearing its name.

The Lykan – the most advanced species of wolf in mythical legend – is built by W Motors, a Dubai-based hypercar company founded in 2012. While it doesn’t have the kudos or history of Ferrari, Porsche or Lamborghini, it doesn’t matter. The HyperSport is an absolute beast with a top speed of 245 mph, sharp, angled looks to rival any of the latest Lambos and 440 diamonds lined in the LED headlights.

You did read that right. There are 440 diamonds in the headlights.

The performance figures put the Lykan HyperSport in Bugatti Chiron (cheap by comparison) territory and – with just seven in existence – the price tag is somehow justified if you’d rather do your shopping in Dubai than Maranello. For your money, also get a 24h dedicated concierge service and a ‘free’ £120,000 Cyrus Klepcy watch, but that shouldn’t matter a jot.

The Lykan HyperSport is the literal manifestation of excess in the extreme. It looks like a supermodel, drives like a thoroughbred and is adorned with the finest trinkets. Even though it’s rarity means that not many have heard of it, it remains one of the most outstanding cars from Fast and Furious.

Is there a more badass, iconic car ever made than the Corvette Stingray? Designed by Larry Shinoda under the watchful eye of legendary design guru Bill Mitchell, the C2 ‘Vette was inspired by the E-Type, a mako shark and the early Corvette concept cars from the 50s.

The net result was one of the most gorgeous looking cars in the history of motoring. Little wonder it was one of the star Fast and Furious cars.

The Stingray was America’s sports car. Car lovers across the union fell hook, line and sinker for the first iteration – the C1 – but wanted more refinement, speed and performance. The C2, produced from 1963 to 1967, delivered. Its 0-60mph time of 5.6 seconds was thanks to the world’s biggest and most powerful V8 and thanks to the design genius of Mitchell and the engineering wizardry of the fantastically-named Zora Arkus-Duntov. The C2 was a certifiable blockbuster. Hence why the Corvette Stingray is one of the very best Fast and Furious cars.

‘Only a man with a heart of stone could withstand temptation like this’ said the prophetic ad campaign and it was right. This was an American sports car, said Duntov, ‘that I can be proud to drive in Europe.’ Praise indeed since it was competing with the Lamborghini Miura, the Ferrari 250 GTO and the Porsche 911.

The Corvette is the longest-running sports car brand in the world, pre-dating the European heavyweights by many years and is a worthy entrant in the category of ‘most famous cars in Fast and Furious.’

The ‘British Bugatti’ is hand-built in a glorified shed on the outskirts of Leicester by 20 people. Yet the Noble M600 is one of the best handling and most impressive sports cars in the world. It’s more than a match for the flamboyant Italians and the precision Germans and with a price tag well north of £200,000, it ought to be. It’s even up there as one of the best Fast and Furious cars.

The company was founded in 1999 by Lee Noble, not to compete with the incumbent supercar establishment but to offer ‘an alternative philosophy and a more rewarding driving experience’. In fact, it does all three. The (massively uprated) Yamaha-designed Volvo XC90 engine will hit 60mph from rest in three seconds. That elevates the M600 into £500k+ hypercar-land. With no ABS or stability control, it is a true drivers’ car, make no mistake.

The M600 ethos is to stay away from driver aids and to go back to a more basic, analogue experience. This is where the driver’s skill determines how the car performs. With such astonishing, organ-shifting performance, you’d better bring your A-Game otherwise it will chew you up and spit you out.

This is a car with hypercar credentials – and price tag – whilst retaining the original ethos of the company, to build a proper, serious drivers’ car to compete with the world’s fastest motors. It is absolutely one of the best Fast and Furious movie cars and in this particular choice, the brief has been fulfilled.

So there we have it, our list of the best of the Fast and Furious cars from each movie. Now it’s time to reveal the car we think shines above all others as the most famous car from Fast and Furious. Drum roll please…

Put simply, no other muscle car is as influential or as iconic as the Dodge Charger. For many, the car is the standout star among the Fast and Furious cars. Like no other car before or since, the second generation Charger glamourised high-octane movie chases. However, its formative years did nothing to suggest that it was going to become the king of cars.

The first generation Charger was a rather insipid, cosy family car based on the Dodge Coronet. Yet when the mods to the second-gen car were unveiled – rounded taillights, hidden headlights, a wraparound front bumper and an undivided grill reminiscent of a cassette player – the muscle car fans sat up and took notice.

The Charger is a huge car, both in stature and in physical size. Imagine Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson in car form. It’s pure, undiluted American muscle with a presence like very few cars before or since can muster.

It was popular when it was released but became the ‘must have’ muscle car of the decade when The Dukes of Hazzard’s bright orange General Lee publicised it better than any marketing department could have hoped to do.

One of, if not the greatest muscle cars ever made is top of our list as the most famous car from Fast and Furious!