The Cars of Han Seoul-Oh
Note: The timeline of the movies is a little confuse, but I decided to simply list them in the order in which they appeared.
The one that has been completely redesigned. The 1997' Mazda RX7 FD3S
We first meet Han in the 2006’ movie “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift”, sitting on a blue Mazda RX8 which belongs to his friend Neela.
After Sean utterly destroys Han’s Nissan Silvia “Mona Lisa” in a pitiful attempt to complete a drift-race he has to work for Han, and is picked up by him in the RX7.
The exotic-looking sportscar is Han’s daily driver, but also used for some drift-races and n one occasion for flirting (which, in that world, means drifting in circles around the girl’s car).
One night the movie’s bad guy Takashi comes to Han’s garage, suspecting that Han has regularily stolen money from him.
After a short confrontation that involves a gun being pulled on Han he gets into the RX7 and makes his escape, being chased by Takashi and his “henchmen”.
During the chase the car takes some bullets before Han manages to spin out Takashi’s car.
He then speeds onto an intersection and is T-boned by a silver Mercedes S-Class W140.
The Mazda rolls and lands on its roof, suffering a fuel-leak in the process.
Han can not get out of the wrecked sportscar, and is killed when it blows up a minute later.
In reality the “Hero-Car” was a showcar the producers bought from VeilSide, who had converted the 1997’ RX7 for the 2005 Tokyo Motor Show.
Their Fortune-kit changes every outside part of the car except for the windscreen, side windows and roof, making the car a lot wider in the process.
The gained 5.6 inches per side are adequately filled by 19-inch Andrew EVO-V-wheels, measuring 9 inches in width up front and 12 inches in the rear.
A Rotara brake-system with new discs and four-piston calipers takes care of decelerating the whole thing, while APEXI N1 coilovers bring it closer to the tarmac.
The interior was treated to a leather interior with VeilSide D1 racing seats and a Sparco steering wheel as well as an extensive Alpine audio system including an 8 inch monitor in the passenger’s part of the dashboard.
To follow the looks up with performance the factory turbos were ditched to free up space for a larger HKS T04Z-unit sending the air through custom-made VeilSide piping to an HKS intercooler, while the exhaust-gasses leave through a VeilSide titanium exhaust.
VeilSide painted the car in black/burgundy, but the producers repainted the car black-orange and spray-painted the interior (you read that right) matte-black.
The production-crew went on to buy four more RX7s to double for the Hero-Car, and built two pipe-frame copies they used for the big crash and explosion.
The Hero-Car was the only surviving one, and was sold once production was completed.
Other than the show-car the stunt-doubles had more or less “naked” interiors (with one missing its drivetrain and being used to shoot dialogue on green-screen), and those used for drifting featured fly-off handbrakes as well as rollcages.
The one that's 50% semi-truck. The 1967 Chevrolet C-Series
The next installment, 2009’ “Fast & Furious”, jumps back in time an unspecified amount of time, and we meet the crew, now extended by a few new faces (and Han) in the Dominican Republic, chasing down a “Road Train” made up of tanker trailers.
Han drives a highly modified orange Chevrolet truck with Cara riding shotgun.
They catch up to the last trailer of the Road Train, while Dominic stays in front of the Road Train to keep it from driving away.
Han makes a handbrake-turn and backs up towards the trailer while Cara climbs out of the cabin onto the rear and hooks the truck up to the rear end of the trailer.
The trailer is disconnected from the next trailer in the row, and Han tows it away, earning the crew a lot of fuel (and money, if they sell the fuel).
For the truck the production crew bought a 1967 Chevrolet C-Series, and cut it in halves right behind the cabin.
The rear end was replaced by a custom-made ladder-frame with air-suspension and a massive rear axle froma semi-truck, using “the biggest and widest tires they could find two of”.
The car was powered by a Chevrolet ZZ502 big-block V8 combined with a 13-speed fuller transmission.
The cabin got an orange paintjob, while the rear was partly painted flat black and partly chromed.
The crew also bought the rusted-out remains of a second C-Series truck, separating the cabin from the rest and making it look just like the one from the working truck, and mounting it on a rig in front of green-screens.
Once production wrapped the truck was (allegedly) bought by “The Car Chasers”, a short-lived CNBC-show, who sold it to a private couple in the USA.
The one that's a muscle car. The 1970' Ford Maverick
When Han is called to Rio de Janeiro in 2011’ “Fast Five” he’s shown using a 1970 Ford Maverick which hasn’t really been cared for (visually) for a while.
Han probably bought it in Brazil, needing something cheap and rather suspicious to get around.
The car isn’t really screen much, only once as a background prop when the crew meets up and once when Han is following some bad guys, and it’s presumably getting abandoned when the crew leaves Brazil (being a lot richer at that point).
Due to the small role it plays there’s very little known about the car used, too.
Justin Lin (who had Sung “brief” him regarding cars for all his FF-movies) said in an interview that they chose the Maverick since it’s a muscle car, but rarely remembered when people list muscle cars.
The car was a 1970’ model fitted with the hood from a 1971, giving it a slightly more “energetic” look, and held the 302cu-engine, a 5-liter V8 that was the best engine you could get with the car.
The one that just isn't fast enough. The 2011 Subaru Impreza WRX STi Sedan
When planning the heist against Fast Five’s main bad guy the crew tries to beat a parcour’s surveillance-cameras in different cars.
Han’s car of choice is a silver Impreza WRX STi Sedan, which, after all, is just a little too slow (as are all other cars they test).
Because of that the parcour-drifting-scenes (nicknamed “gymkhana-sequence”) is the car’s only appearance in the movie.
The production was given two brand new sedans (along with a few cars of the previous models to be used as camera-cars), which had to be modified by the production-crew to meet the needs of the script.
The cars were converted to rear wheel drive, recieved modified steering-racks for increased turning-radius, locking differentials and a fly-off handbrake.
One of the two cars, which was actually RHD, was fitted with most of the interior of a left hand drive car, allowing a stuntman to drive and drift the car from the right seat while Sung was filmed in the left.
The "invisible" car. The 2011 Dodge Charger PPV
When it proves impossible to outrun the security-cameras the crew decides to steal four “invisible” cars, cars that wouldn’t draw attention when seen in a police station’s garage.
The next night they brake into the backlot of a police station, and steal four Dodge Charger Police Cars.
Right after stealing them Brian, Han, Toretto and Roman decide on a spontaneous drag-race from one red light to the next, with the price being 1 million dollars.
The cars stay head-to-head, but eventually Toretto lets off the throttle for a second so Brian wins, with Toretto wanting him to get the money as a “starting budget” since he’s about to be a father.
The actual plan never takes place, since Hobbs’ team raids the crew’s hideout seconds before they depart with the cars.
In reality the brazilian police didn’t have cars like that (of course), and the cars used were 2010’ SRT8s “dressed up” in authentic police-livery, with normal 2009’ Chargers being the stunt-cars..
Dodge reportedly sent them 3 Chargers, parts to turn them into police-cars, and enough spares for “a small fleet of more Chargers”, to quote the vehicle-coordinator of the movie.
The one that only gets a cameo. The 2011 Lexus LFA
At the very end of the movie we briefly see Han again, driving a black Lexus LFA down what is supposed to be an empty German Autobahn.
In reality they placed the car on (sort of) a dyno, shooting the scene against a green-screen and producing the surrounding scenery digitally.
Han supposedly bought the car from his share of the heist in Rio, yet still it (sadly) is nowhere to be seen in the other movies.
The big black German one. The 2010' BMW E60 M5
Early in 2013’s “Furious 6” the crew is called to London by Hobbs and Dominic, the deal is that they help Hobbs to catch Owen Shawn in return for their criminal records being wiped.
For the first attempt they’re provided with a fleet of BMW E60 M5s, which they use to try to catch Shaw’s team, only for the cars (along with a bunch of police cars) getting destroyed in various ways.
The cars appear to be meant to be stock M5s, and in-story were probably scrapped (since none of them seems to be worth a repair after the chase).
When Hobbs talks about them he mentions them having V8 bi-turbo engines with 560hp, facts that are an exact match to the E60’s successor.
In real life most of the 14 cars were actually 535i-models, and all the cars sported rollcages, racing seats and racing-harnesses, as well as one having a pneumatic piston to help roll it through a glass facade.
The one that's not a car. The 2013' Harley-Davidson XR 1200 X
I know this isn’t a car, but I’m including this for the sake of a complete list.
When the crew heads out to stop Shawn’s attack on a military convoy Han does not chose an oldtimer like the others (except for Gisele, who drives a Ducati) but a Harley Davidson.
He is seen getting onto the motorbike, racing down a stretch of the highway and then jumping off it onto a Land Rover 110 commandeered by the bad guys, literally ditching the bike from the movie after less than five minutes of screen time.
The one that saves Dominic's life. The 2012 Dodge Charger SRT8
After the crew catches Shawn only to have to let him go again they go after him (again) on the worlds longest runway, trying to keep him from departing aboard a plane.
Han drives a 2012 Dodge Charger with Gisele riding shotgun.
The matte-gray car is equipped with flat-black wheels, hoops to tie it to cargo-pallets for transport, and carries an extremely strong harpoon with a steel wire attached to the bolt.
After catching up to the plane Gisele shoots the harpoon into the plane’s right wing, planning to use the car as a weight that keeps the plane down on the ground.
A bad guy’s Land Rover drives onto the cable before it tenses, “locking” the two cars together.
The plane still attempts to take off, lifting both cars off the ground.
Gisele climbs out of and onto the car, trying to fight off the bad guy who drove the Land Rover.
She looses her footing doing that, with Han saving her from falling (at first).
When the bad guy reappears behind them, without Han noticing, Gisele lets herself fall off the car (which is quite high up at that point) to her death, shooting the guy and saving Han’s life in the process.
Brian manages to bring the plane down his his harpoon (and car), the subsequent explosion disconnects Han’s Charger from the wreck, allowing him to drive away from the exploding plane.
A post-credits-scene shows Han in Tokyo, picking up moments before the RX7’s fatal crash in Han’s first movie.
This content was originally posted by a Car Throttle user on our Community platform and was not commissioned or created by the CT editorial team.
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