"The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift" is the best enthusiast movie of the entire "Fast" saga, and accordingly it has some of the best cars. The RB26-powered Ford Mustang from the climactic race will forever have my heart for its sheer weirdness and its engine's odd journey alone, but it's not the best-loved vehicle from the movie. No, that honor goes to the vehicle driven by everyone's favorite "Fast" character: Han Lue's FD Mazda RX-7.
I know, I know, it doesn't look much like the FDs you're used to. There are no popup lights; its soft, smooth curves have been covered over with more aggressive bodywork. It's more transformed than most of the "Fast" tuner fare, but the reason behind its transformation is at least as interesting as the final look itself. Han's RX-7 isn't just an FD in a VeilSide Fortune body kit, it's VeilSide's own demo car that was built to show the kit off at car shows.
According to Craig Lieberman, who worked as a technical consultant and car supplier on early "Fast" films, production coordinator Dennis McCarthy found the VeilSide demo car at Tokyo Auto Salon during preproduction on "Tokyo Drift." The car was fully done up in the tuner style of the time — as expected for a show car — but painted red rather than the now-distinctive orange. McCarthy made a deal for its use in the upcoming film, got some Veilside Fortune body kits for other FD RX-7s as stunt and backup cars, and the rest is history.
Han doesn't just have one of the prettiest cars in the series, from the best car movie of the bunch (the best movie-movie is "Fast Five"), he's got the car with the most interesting story. The VeilSide FD RX-7 is distinctive, it's interesting, and it's instantly recognizable — it's hard to see that Fortune kit without thinking of Han Lue and Sean Boswell drifting their way through Tokyo's crowded streets to escape a pair of Nissans.
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