5 Of The Worst Cars In The Fast & Furious Franchise

By News Update On Nov 29, 2024

What started out as a movie about cars and family has rapidly became a franchise with over-the-top car stunts, with all types of vehicles driving backward, driving in space, and surviving massive falls. Still, fans can’t help but be entertained by the wild antics of Dom and his crew as they race in narrow parking garages, drag safes down city streets, and drive cars into helicopters in the sky, jumping onto moving vehicles unscathed all along the way.

What has kept the “Fast and Furious” franchise popular, aside from the increasingly unrealistic adventures, are the cars. I’ve seen all of the “Fast & Furious” movies (for better or worse) and some vehicles were definitely the most iconic. Over 1,400 cars have been destroyed throughout the movie series, some more heartbreaking than others. In this list, we will be looking at the cars we wouldn’t mind tossing off a cliff ourselves.

These cars were selected due to their underwhelming performance, inaccuracy relating to the car’s real-life capabilities, and barf-worthy makeovers. While they may have some fans, we are not among them. More on our methodology at the end of this story.

Warning: Some stunts and storylines from throughout the series are shared in this article, so reverse back at 100 miles per hour if you plan on binging these films.

2005 Volkswagen Touran: The hideous Hulk

Finding somebody who likes this car is probably more difficult than swinging your car from a rope off the side of a cliff. Driven by Twinkie (played by rapper Lil’ Bow Wow) in 2006’s “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift,” this car is on the list due to its heinous design alone. The minivan itself is fine, although it’s nothing too special, but that distractingly hideous makeover is enough to make drifting seem lame. The Hulk’s face is painted on the hood, there’s fake hair on the roof, and the sides feature 3D fists as if Hulk is trying to break out the vehicle (we wouldn’t blame him for wanting to get out).

Director Justin Lin created this upsetting design because he’s a fan of the old “The Incredible Hulk” TV show. This is proof that not every interest belongs on a car — it’s up there with hentai decals when it comes to repelling the public. There’s a reason Sean (Lucas Black) looks miserable during the scene where the car is introduced.

1950 Chevrolet Fleetline: Flaming garbage

This car made it on the list because it just about ruined one of the best scenes in 2017’s “The Fate of the Furious.” Dom (Vin Diesel) wins a race in Cuba, which is nothing too crazy. But he wins it while driving an old junker car in reverse and also happens to save people in the process. Sound more “Fast and Furious”-like to you? In this scene, Dom is driving a 1950 Chevrolet Fleetline, which isn’t all too impressive of a vehicle — unless you are making it an awesome lowrider. In real life, it takes 20 seconds to reach 60 mph and its top speed isn’t even that much more, at 75 mph. That’s nowhere near the 100 mph Dom reaches — while going backward — in this race.

In an attempt to make this more realistic, the car was given a turbocharger, but it’s clearly fake (and they even pretend to jury-rig it in the film). That means Dom was driving a car with just 85 horsepower.

The 2003 Mitsubishi Eclipse Spyder GTS: A drag to watch

First of all, who is drag racing in a 2003 Mitsubishi Eclipse Spyder GTS? It’s almost like the “Fast and Furious” franchise gave up on any realism after the first film and decided to try to convince audiences any old car could race through a rocky field as rockets are launched at it or take on top supercars in international drag races. This underwhelming car was featured in “2 Fast 2 Furious” in 2003, rolling up to the drag race with a 3.0L V6 engine, 210 hp, and front-wheel drive — and a top speed of 130 mph (drag cars are on record going up to 338 mph).

To make things even worse, Roman Pearce (actor Tyrese Gibson) tried to mask the car’s lameness with over-the-top styling. The checkerboard paint pattern on the hood? The tacky stripes on the side panels? The over-the-top rear spoiler? According to Celebrity Car Museumthese were all chosen by Gibson himself. This man should be banned from even picking out a paper towel holder.

1999 Nissan Maxima: Mom of gone mad

The 1999 Nissan Maxima has no business being a star car in any “Fast & Furious” film, especially the first one. Fans have drawn comparisons between the members of Toretto’s OG crew and the cars they drive since the first film came out in 2001. So why was Vince (Matt Schulze) driving this unimpressive suburban sedan?

Despite an attempt at disguising the car with an obnoxious shark-on-fire design down the side and an irritating muffler, car enthusiasts can still tell that the Maxima is lame. You’ll reach zero to 60 in 6.9 seconds and top out at 144 mph thanks to its V6 engine producing 190 horsepower. This may be fine for having some fun on the highway, but chasing bad guys to save the world?

Apparently, the Nissan Maxima was not chosen due to its actual specs (which makes sense). Schulze ended up in the car due to convenience. The film’s technical director, Craig Lieberman, brought his modified Maxima to the set and for some reason, nobody questioned it. It had a supercharger kit that boosted the hp to 260, which was enough for “Fast & Furious” honchos to green-light it.

2010 BMW M5 replicas: We were glad when they exploded

Dominic’s entire crew was supplied with BMW E60 M5s in 2013’s “Fast & Furious 6.” The cars are used in a sort of undercover heist that results in a chase involving the cringy flip car. The chases in this movie aren’t quite what a car enthusiast would want — instead of showing the car’s capabilities on the streets, they’re more just shoving each other around. But the cars are destroyed one by one, anyway, with the use of a microchip that disables them. If this sounds more like a goofy secret-agent movie than a car-racing movie, that’s because it is.

Even worse, however, is that the BMWs are actually replicas. The crew didn’t even try to make them look authentic, failing to use an M5 body kit. And in the film, Hobbs describes them as “twin turbo V8s,” but the M5 should have a twin turbocharged V10.

How we chose these cars

The “Fast & Furious” films have grown increasingly insane as time goes on, and some fans love seeing cars float in space while others miss seeing car chases with, well, driving. Opinions on the cars within the franchise are all subjective, too. What may be an atrocious green monstrosity to some may be a masterpiece to others — in fact, there are plenty of Hulk Touran fans.

So how did we pick these as the worst cars? The selections were based on my own feelings while watching the movies as well as lists, forumsand discussions with other fans of the series. There were plenty of bad cars to choose from, but I felt some reviews were a bit harsh. For example, one list claimed the 2014 Maserati Ghibli from 2015’s “Furious 7” was worthy of being called one of the worst simply for being expensive to fix and having a hideous interior — which can barely be seen in the film. Another contender was the Chevrolet Caprice from the same film, but with some research I found that the Caprice performed better on the track than the critic had claimed.

For me, the cars discussed here had a balanced blend of lame performances and ugly designs, making them some of the series’ worst. If you want to see some of Read’s favorites, though, check out this list of flashy “Fast & Furious” cars we’d most like to own.