Auto Show Gallery

When Universal launched the Fast and the Furious series of street racing films, they only expected only a modest return. Although street racing was getting a lot of press attention and the popularity of modified imports were exploding, the movies was never expected to be a blockbuster. However, the film was an unexpected summer hit. It grossed $40,089,015 on its opening weekend, surpassing the film's $38 million budget. It may have been the media buzz and gear head buzz surrounding the movies that caused an explosion in the box office and gave global insight and curiosity into the supercharged social scene of racing and customizing cars.

Two of the films' stars that caused the movies to thunder in the box office, were the Mazda RX7 and the Mitsubishi Eclipse. One of Japan's largest automotive aftermarket companies, Veilside, built the Mazda RX7 that was later filmed in Fast and Furious to show off its "Fortune" wide-body kit at the 2005 Tokyo Auto Salon. At the time of the show, the car was painted red, and it had everything a show car should - an HKS T04Z single-turbo conversion kit, a massive intercooler shoved under the front bumper, big Rotora brakes, A'PEXi coil-over shocks and vast 19-inch Andrew Evo-V wheels inside P255/30ZR19 front and P305/25ZR19 rear Toyo Proxes radials.