Who would have thought that what was supposed to be a throw-away Summer action flick would be the start of a multi-billion dollar franchise? I remember when I saw the trailer for the first Fast and the Furious, I was 15, and I just thought it looked fucking awesome. I also remember the next day at school and all the people I hung out with who were into cars, it was all they could talk about. Cool cars, wild stunts, hot women—even to casual and non-car guys the Fast and the Furious was a dose of visual cocaine poured right into our eyes.

I think part of the reason why Fast and the Furious was so captivating at least to teens and kids was because it made cars and driving seem way cooler. To a kid/teen having a driver’s license and a car was already a big deal because it basically meant they had the freedom to go where ever you wanted, whenever you wanted. Fast and the Furious just took that idea and made it seem cooler. Despite the “DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME” warnings slapped all over the movies, all the wild stunt scenes showed them that driving doesn’t have to be a mundane experience, while all the cars that were featured in the movies not only gave kids visual candy to lust after, it also showed them that boring cars can be made exciting and cool cars can be made cooler.

It wasn’t until I got older and got more into the car scene that I learned how looked down upon the Fast and the Furious movies are in the car scene. Not just by the flashy and incredibly impractical cars that were so prevalent in the early movies, or the insane action sequences, but also because of all the technical inaccuracies and mistakes that the movies are rife with. Even a casual car guy will be able to point out glaring technical errors and tell you whenever the characters are talking about something technical it’s pretty much just gibberish.

Call it nostalgia, or camp or whatever but there are still a lot of people who still love these movies (which is a good explanation why we’re currently coming up on number 9), even a lot of hardcore car guys who like to talk shit about these movies still have places in their hearts for them. Since I spent most of my adult life working in the car scene I’ve seen a lot of people show their love to the the Fast and the Furious series, whether it’s with memes, merchandise, or for those who have the pockets deep enough to pull it off, they build tribute and replica cars.

I’ve been seeing a lot of Fast and the Furious-centric stuff pop up on my Instagram feed for a while, including posts from owners and builders of some of the replica cars out there, and I’ve been wanting to do a write up on the cars for a while, but I never had the chance to be able to go out and see any in person until a few days ago. A friend of mine turned me onto an event at Claremont Toyota, Noel Gugliemi AKA Noel G. who is known for playing Hector in the first movie as well as various other roles where he plays thugs and gangbangers was going to be there along with several replica movie cars including replicas of the Mitsubishi Eclipse and Eclipse Spyder featured in Fast and the Furious and 2 Fast 2 Furious.

I’m pretty familiar with Claremont Toyota since my parents bought me my first car from there when I was 18 and they were my go-to place for most of my service and maintenance when I had that car. Based on first-hand experience dealing with them, I know they’re not as performance-minded or focused on aftermarket and customization like some dealerships are. Between that and the fact that this event was obviously an attempt by some PR guy to get bodies on the lot and generate business or at the very least some interest in the middle of the COVID-19 Pandemic recession, I knew I shouldn’t expect to be too impressed by it. However, since I figured it would be a while until an opportunity like this popped up again and since the event also advertised that they would have free catering from an In-N-Out truck, I decided to check it out since I could at least get a couple free Double Doubles out of it.

These two Eclipses are owned by a man named Shahar Shawn Algazy who is known on Instagram as “thevipersguy.” Aside from the Eclipses, Algazy also owns a replica of the Mazda RX7 that Vin Diesel drove in the first film, a replica of the Honda Civics used in the truck hijacking scenes and a Dodge Viper RT/10. From what I’ve seen on his Instagram, Algazy owns a construction or home remodeling company and when he isn’t showing off his cars at a car meet/show or other event, he and a guy named Richard Avalos who calls himself “The Fit Toretto double” on social media (although if you saw him I don’t think “Fit” would be the adjective you would use to describe him) like to get together and do Fast and the Furious-themed photoshoots and videos for Instagram and TikTok.

Craig Lieberman who worked on the first two films as a technical advisor and actually owned the Toyota Supra and R34 Nissan Skyline driven by Paul Walker in the first two films and the blue Nissan Maxima driven by Matt Schulze has spent the last few years building a YouTube channel where he shares all kinds of stories from working on the films. From debunking myths, to behind the scenes info of how scenes were done and also detailed information about the cars, such as why they were chosen, what kind of modifications were done to them, and what happened to them after filming. His YT channel was a very valuable source of information I referenced a lot while doing this write up and I’ll be visiting it again if ever find myself coming across any more replica cars.

Now before I get into more information about the Eclipses, if you have any plans or thoughts of building your own Fast and the Furious replica cars and want to do an accurate job, I’m going to warn you that it won’t be cheap, it won’t be quick and it’s sure as hell not going to be easy. While information about the cars including lists of what parts they had on them can easily be found with a quick Google search, the parts themselves won’t be as easy to find. Most of the bodykits, wheels, and various miscellaneous bits these cars had on them have long since been discontinued, and in some cases, the companies that made them have gone out of business. Finding parts is going to take a lot of scouring on the internet and even if you are able to find whatever it is you need you will have to be prepared to drop some cash for it. In fact, in a video detailing what it takes to build a replica car, Lieberman actually advises that builders should source all the parts first before they get the car, since finding all the pieces is the most difficult part of these projects.

On the plus side getting the stickers for a replica shouldn’t be too hard to do. Modern Image, the company that did all the graphics for the first couple films is still around. However, the stickers alone are going to set you back a couple hundred to a couple thousand bucks. While it may be tempting to cheap out and get them from another vinyl or wrap company, Lieberman advises against that since most of those companies only got the designs from watching the movies or eyeballing them at an event so there’s a good chance some of the measurements might be off. Also in some cases, knockoff stickers will be made out of inferior quality material so there’s a good chance they’ll fade and tear once they’re exposed to the elements.

If you still plan on building your own replica, I wouldn’t put too much faith in any other replica owners helping you out. On social media and in some of his videos, Lieberman has explicitly stated he won’t help people with information on how to build a replica or locating parts. The reason for this is because he’s already given pretty detailed information of what parts are on what cars in his videos, and he’s been jerked around in the past by people wanting to build a replica but quit due to lack of commitment or funds, or in some cases, the people hitting him up are just part collectors who have no intention of building a car in the first place. I’m not saying that some of those replica builders won’t be helpful, I’m just saying don’t be surprised if they either give you a hard no if you ask them for anything or just ignore you completely since more than likely they’ve had similar experiences with others in the past who just ended up wasting their time.

Anyway, on to the cars.

Fast and the Furious 1995 Mitsubishi Eclipse

The Eclipse that Paul Walker drove in the first film was a 1995 Eclipse GS owned by John Lapid. According to an interview Lieberman did with Lapid, the reason why he chose the naturally-aspirated GS trim rather than the much more desirable turbo AWD GSX trim, or even the turbo GS-T model was because that’s all he could afford at the time.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t get a look under the hood to see if the replica was indeed a GS model with the NA 420a engine, although considering how the hood stayed closed the entire time, I highly doubt it and I’m also pretty sure the engine bay on this Eclipse looks nothing like the one in the movie.

After the movie wrapped up Lapid ended up selling the car to George Barris who designed and built the Batmobile from the 1966 Batman series. Barris tried to use the Eclipse as a demo-car to showcase a new line of tuner parts his company was developing before selling it to Star Cars Museum in Tennessee.

On the outside the Eclipse was painted Kawasaki Green and is rocking a full Robo Car Aero Armor body kit which is actually a knockoff of a bodykit that Blitz made for the Eclipse.

In the back is an APR GT2-style rear wing. Sorry for sounding too immature, but I can’t help but giggle at the idea that the license plate is too easy to misread as “Boner.”

In the front, is a carbon fiber hood topped off with Modern Image’s logo and 1997 model headlights.

Looking at this photo I just realized this car is missing the roof-scoop, although if you know anything about physics you would know that having a roof scoop like that would make driving a pain in the ass. In fact, if you watch the video where Lieberman talks with Lapid about his Eclipse, Lapid stated he had to block off the roof scoop with a piece of cardboard to be able to drive.

This car is also missing the hood pins which if this hood really is carbon fiber and not just carbon wrap is a bad idea. Carbon fiber is really brittle and it’s not uncommon for the latches on carbon fiber hoods to break and the hoods to fly up while driving. This is why a lot of carbon fiber companies put warnings to use hood pins as well as slap giant “OFFROAD USE ONLY” warnings on them.

Axis Model Se7en Wheels.

Tribute to the late Paul Walker sticker on the quarter-window.

The windows were rolled up so I couldn’t get a decent shot of the interior. However from what I could see is that he did have a screen-correct Sparco shift knob and steering wheel with the NOS buttons mounted on them. This guy also had some faux monitors in his car including a laptop with the “DANGER TO MANIFOLD” warning on it. Unfortunately with the windows up and the sun where it was, the glare on the windows made it impossible to get a clean pic of them.

On the passenger side of the cabin are various autographs on the dash. Right away I recognize Rick Yune’s who played Johnny Tran, Sung Kang who played Han, Chad Lindberg who played Jesse, and I think Paul Walker’s younger brother Cody’s signature. It might be Paul’s other brother, Caleb’s signature, but I’m fairly confident that it’s Cody’s since Cody is heavily involved in the car scene.

Two silver “Nos” bottles mounted in the trunk. I put “Nos” in quotation marks, because it isn’t the correct term. In one of his videos, Lieberman stated that “Nos” came from somebody at Universal seeing the logo for Nitrous Oxide Systems, a product line under Holley Performance Products and thought it wasn’t just the name of the brand but also a blanket term for all nitrous oxide injection systems. It wasn’t until Fuze Beverage company approached Holley Performance about licensing the “NOS” logo and name for a line of energy drinks that Nos became a real thing.

2 Fast 2 Furious 2003 Eclipse Spyder GTS

According to another of his videos, Lieberman stated that the use of an Eclipse Spyder was a compromise. Since 2 Fast 2 Furious had a larger budget than the first film, he had hoped to get more high end JDM vehicles featured. However, at the time there was some crossover between the tuner scene and the lowrider/DUB scene, Universal wanted to appeal to this crossover and so the Eclipse Spyder was meant to represent this. However based on another one of his videos I’m pretty sure the Eclipse Spyder represents a much deeper compromise.

In that video, Lieberman said that when making 2 Fast 2 Furious, Universal was working on a deal to get Dodge on board as a major sponsor, and as part of this deal Paul Walker would have a Dodge Neon SRT-4 as one of his vehicles in the film. Lieberman ended up talking Universal out of using the Neon because he thought it would alienate the audience, and so Paul Walker ended up driving a Mitsubishi Evo and an R34 Nissan Skyline. Since the entire Eclipse line was born under the Diamond-Stars Motors collaboration between Chrysler and Mitsubishi I’m assuming this is a good chunk of the reason why the car was chosen for the film’s deuteragonist, Roman Pierce played by Tyrese Gibson.

If you look more into the Mitsubishi Eclipse, other than the badge there’s really nothing Japanese about them. I had a coworker who owned 2 of these generation Eclipses and he told me that they’re basically just Chrysler Sebrings with factory Mitsubishi bodykits.

On the outside the Spyder was dressed up with a Shine Street wide body kit.

Since the car is a Spyder, some art person Universal thought it should have a spider-theme and so it originally had spiderweb-graphics on it, however those were ditched since Tyrese hated them so much, and replaced with the graphics copied off another Eclipse Spyder that Tyrese found in a magazine.

In the back are some TYC Euro taillights and a GT wing.

House of Kolors logo on the wing endplate just like in the movie.

A V Racing X3 steering wheel. It took me a while to figure out who made this steering wheel since part of the manufacturer stamp is rubbed off. Note how the nitrous buttons are labeled with N2O stickers. Lieberman stated that he personally went through and labeled all the steering wheel buttons on all the cars in 2 Fast 2 Furious with these stickers in the hope that they wouldn’t make the mistake of calling the nitrous systems “Nos.” Also note that this car is manual, a tell-tale sign this is not the actual movie car. In the movie, the main car that was used for closeup and beauty shots was really an automatic, and any instances showing Tyrese shifting gears was just him moving the gear lever up and down.

Originally the Eclipse Spyder in the movie was supposed to have a yellow suede interior, however Lieberman and some of the other technical advisors on set advised against it since it would be too easy to get dirty. It wasn’t until Tyrese expressed his refusal to drive a “LA Lakers-themed” car that Universal decided to have the interior reupholstered in gray. Also note Cody Walker’s autograph on the dash. While you’re staring at the dash I also want to point out this Spyder is missing an extra monitor on top of the passenger side airbag cover.

Aside from the graphics I guess here is where the Tuner/Lowrider/DUB crossover is, 20-inch Lowenhart BR5 wheels. Supposedly these wheels were like $10k a set brand new, however a quick Google search has revealed that they’ve dropped a bit in price over the years. Originally it was stated the Spyder was supposed to have 19-inch wheels but because the wheel arches on the Eclipse are so big they just didn’t fit right, so it was decided to go bigger.

That’s it for this post. I’m hoping down the line I’ll be able to do more write ups on other replica cars. Based on what I saw on Algazy’s Instagram account, it looks like there’s a few floating around Southern California. It’s just a matter of hitting up the right events to see them.

Thanks for checking this out and hopefully you’ll come back for more.