49 Fun Facts About The Fast and the Furious (2001)

What surname is on the fake licence Brian O'Conner carries while undercover in The Fast and the Furious?

Spilner: Dom reads 'Brian Earl Spilner' off the licence after breaking up a brawl outside his shop, says it sounds like a serial killer's name and tells Brian not to come back.

With no cash for the buy-in, what does Brian stake to enter his first street race in The Fast and the Furious?

His car's pink slip: Brian bets ownership of the car against the others' $2,000 each, loses, and hears Dom's verdict in front of the crowd: 'You never had me! You never had your car!'

The Fast and the Furious grew out of a 1998 article in which magazine?

Vibe: the piece was written by Ken Li, then a young newspaper reporter; the film rights were optioned, and producer Neal Moritz pitched the idea to his studio as the next big thing.

The Fast and the Furious began as an article on which city's street racing?

New York: the piece followed a man named Rafael Estevez through the city's illegal street races, and the script was later rewritten for the car culture of Los Angeles.

Which gas, injected for a burst of speed, fries Brian's engine when he overuses it in his first race against Dom?

Nitrous oxide, or NOS: Dom mocks him afterwards for 'granny shifting' and tells him he is lucky the shot did not blow the welds on his intake.

Jesse, the crew's engine genius in The Fast and the Furious, says which condition kept him out of a school like MIT?

ADD: when Brian tells him he belongs at MIT, Jesse shrugs that he has 'that attention disorder', and adds that engines are the one thing that calms him down.

In The Fast and the Furious, Michelle Rodriguez plays which character?

Letty Ortiz: Rodriguez and her co-stars were sent to a driving school in Las Vegas before the shoot, where her one complaint was that nobody would let her go faster than 80 miles per hour.

In The Fast and the Furious, what does Brian keep ordering at the Torettos' lunch counter?

A tuna sandwich: 'no one likes the tuna here,' sneers one of Dom's crew, telling him to try Fatburger instead, and the argument becomes the brawl that first brings Brian to Dom's notice.

In The Fast and the Furious, Rick Yune plays which rival gang leader?

Johnny Tran: he and his cousin Lance machine-gun Brian's car when it strays onto their turf, and their rivalry with Dom's crew ends with the cousins being chased down on their motorcycles.

Which studio released The Fast and the Furious?

Universal Pictures: the studio made it for a modest $38 million with no big star, and the series it started has since taken more than $7 billion at the box office.

The Fast and the Furious opened at number one in June 2001, beating which sequel released the same weekend?

Dr. Dolittle 2: the Eddie Murphy comedy opened in more cinemas but took $25 million to the street racers' $40 million, more in three days than the winner had cost to make.

The Fast and the Furious took roughly how much at cinemas worldwide?

$200 million: a little more than that, in fact, over five times its $38 million cost, which earned it a sequel two years later.

Brian and Dom test their rebuilt car by out-running which make of sports car on the Pacific Coast Highway?

Ferrari: the F355's driver is the film's own producer, Neal H. Moritz, in a cameo, and the win sends Brian and Dom off to lunch at a seafood shack in Malibu.

In The Fast and the Furious, Brian works undercover at which performance parts shop?

The Racer's Edge: Brian rents a room in the back as part of his cover, and when Dom tries to get him sacked after their first run-in, it is the owner, Harry, who talks Dom round.

In The Fast and the Furious, what car does Brian bring to his first street race?

1995 Mitsubishi Eclipse: it does not last the night, because after the race Brian strays onto a rival gang's turf and they shoot the car until it explodes.

In The Fast and the Furious, Dom arrives at the first street race in which car?

Mazda RX-7: Dom wins in it, then has to stash it in a parking garage and run when the police arrive, which is how he ends up being rescued by the driver he has just beaten.

In The Fast and the Furious, Brian delivers which wrecked car to Dom's garage to be rebuilt?

A Toyota Supra: the crew laugh at the wreck until Dom lifts the bonnet and sees what is under it, and the whole crew then set about rebuilding it together.

Dom's father's car, driven in the final chase of The Fast and the Furious, is a 1970 model from which maker?

Dodge: Dom tells Brian that he and his father built the 900-horsepower Charger together but that he has never driven it, because it scares him; he finally takes it out for the last chase.

In the scene after the credits of The Fast and the Furious, Dom drives through Mexico in which car?

Chevrolet Chevelle SS: the red 1970 coupe carries Dom through Baja, and he is still driving it when he returns to Los Angeles in the fourth film, Fast & Furious.

In The Fast and the Furious, the truck hijackers drive three modified examples of which car?

Honda Civic: so when a racer orders performance parts for three Civics, Brian breaks into his garage that night, and is caught there by Dom, whose own crew are the real hijackers.

In The Fast and the Furious, what cargo do the hijacked trucks carry?

Electronic goods: when a garage full of the same gear turns up, agents raid a rival crew, only to learn that every item was bought legally, which swings suspicion back to Dom.

In The Fast and the Furious, what does Brian owe Dom after losing their first race?

A ten-second car: one fast enough to finish a drag race in ten seconds. Brian pays up only after their final race, handing Dom the keys to his own car so that Dom can get away before the police arrive.

In The Fast and the Furious, Jesse gambles away which car of his father's?

Volkswagen Jetta: Jesse's car is badly outmatched, and when he loses he drives off in a panic instead of handing it over, which sets up the film's final act.

Brian and Dom's final drag race in The Fast and the Furious finishes at what?

A railroad crossing: Dom says he used to race there in high school, and both cars clear the tracks a moment ahead of a train before a truck pulls out and wrecks Dom's car.

In The Fast and the Furious, Ted Levine plays which LAPD sergeant, Brian's boss?

Tanner: the sergeant running Brian's undercover job is played by the actor best known as the serial killer Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs, and later as the police captain in Monk.

Who plays Edwin in The Fast and the Furious?

Ja Rule: by the sequel director's account he turned down $500,000 to come back, so the part was rewritten as a new character, Tej, and offered to Ludacris, who became a regular of the series.

In The Fast and the Furious, director Rob Cohen makes a cameo as what?

A pizza delivery man: his Pizza Hut driver is turned back from the street the racers have closed off, and the film's producer turns up on screen later on as well.

Paul Walker pitched his dream film as Donnie Brasco crossed with which racing movie?

Days of Thunder: Walker wanted to play an undercover cop and a racing driver at once, so director Rob Cohen and producer Neal Moritz brought him a magazine article about street racing.

Paul Walker and director Rob Cohen first worked together on which 2000 thriller?

The Skulls: when that secret-society thriller was finished, Cohen and its producer asked Walker what he wanted to do next, the conversation that led to The Fast and the Furious.

Brian's first race car is destroyed when he and Dom stray into which Los Angeles-area district, a rival gang's turf?

Little Saigon: the gang's leader lets the pair go, then turns back with his cousin and sprays the car with submachine-gun fire until it explodes, leaving Brian and Dom to get home by taxi.

The studio first wanted which actor, rather than Vin Diesel, to play Dominic Toretto in The Fast and the Furious?

Timothy Olyphant: the studio promised to green-light the film if he signed, but he passed, later saying he thought it would 'just be stupid', and Diesel himself then had to be talked into the part.

Vin Diesel and Paul Walker shared which MTV Movie Award in 2002 for The Fast and the Furious?

Best On-Screen Team: the pair beat the whole cast of Ocean's Eleven to it, and the film was up for Best Movie too, losing that one to The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.

Three years before The Fast and the Furious, Vin Diesel first became known as a soldier in which war film?

Saving Private Ryan: Steven Spielberg wrote the part of Private Caparzo for him after seeing Multi-Facial, a short film that Diesel had written, directed and starred in himself.

The Fast and the Furious took its title from a 1950s B-movie by which producer, paid in stock footage?

Roger Corman: producer Neal Moritz spotted the old title in a documentary after rejecting names like Redline and Street Wars as cheesy, and the studio paid for it with the use of some of its stock footage.

What was the title of the 1998 magazine article that inspired The Fast and the Furious?

Racer X: the first screenplay kept the article's title, a later draft was called Redline, and only then did the producer settle on a name borrowed from an old B-movie.

Which screenwriter reworked The Fast and the Furious and moved its story to Los Angeles?

David Ayer: he turned a script about mostly white suburban racers into a multi-ethnic one modelled on the Los Angeles neighbourhood where he grew up.

In the opening of The Fast and the Furious, Brian tests his car in the parking lot of which Los Angeles venue?

Dodger Stadium: the scene was also the first one filmed, on a brutally hot day in late July 2000, with Paul Walker doing the driving himself.

At which legal drag-racing meet in The Fast and the Furious does Jesse lose his father's car?

Race Wars: the scenes were shot on an airfield in San Bernardino, where about 1,500 owners of real tuned imports turned up with their cars in heat of over 100 degrees.

In The Fast and the Furious, how does Brian give himself away as a cop in front of Dom?

Calling a rescue helicopter: with one of the crew shot and bleeding by the roadside, Brian phones for a medevac and identifies himself as an officer, giving up his cover to save a life.

Which electronic music producer composed the score for The Fast and the Furious?

BT: the trance producer, born Brian Transeau, backed a 70-piece ensemble with tribal rhythms that orchestral percussionists made by hammering on car chassis.

Michelle Rodriguez came to The Fast and the Furious a year after her award-winning debut in which independent film?

Girlfight: Rodriguez had never auditioned for a speaking part before she answered an open casting call to play its teenage boxer, and the role won her an Independent Spirit Award.

In The Fast and the Furious, Dom tells Brian that his father was killed while competing in what?

A stock car race: in the last one of the season another driver clipped his bumper and sent him into the wall at 120 miles per hour, and Dom was there to see it.

Which member of Dom's crew is shot by a trucker and left hanging from the cab during the final heist?

Vince: Dom's childhood friend is suspicious of Brian from their first meeting, yet it is Brian who risks being shot himself to get him off the truck.

Reviewers compared the plot of The Fast and the Furious to which Kathryn Bigelow film?

Point Break: both films send a young lawman undercover to catch a gang of thrill-seekers, only for him to fall for its leader's way of life and let him go at the end, with street racers in place of surfers.

Who directed the sequel to The Fast and the Furious, 2 Fast 2 Furious?

John Singleton: the Oscar-nominated director of Boyz n the Hood took over, moved the story to Miami and rebuilt it around Paul Walker and a new partner played by Tyrese Gibson.

Rob Cohen and Vin Diesel skipped 2 Fast 2 Furious to make which 2002 film together?

XXX: the spy thriller reunited director and star a year after their hit, and Diesel stayed away from the series until a brief cameo at the end of Tokyo Drift in 2006.

In The Fast and the Furious, why was Dom banned from professional racing?

He assaulted a rival driver: a week after the crash that killed his father, Dom beat the man he blamed, Kenny Linder, with a wrench, and Linder never raced again.

The Fast and the Furious arcade game reached the Wii in 2007 under the name of which 1990s racing series?

Cruis'n: the Wii port swapped the film's name for a racing brand owned by Nintendo, a natural fit, since the arcade game's team, led by Eugene Jarvis, had made the original Cruis'n games.

Which sequel to The Fast and the Furious was the first film in the series to take over $1 billion worldwide?

Furious 7: the 2015 film took about $1.5 billion and was Paul Walker's last, finished after his death in a car crash, with his brothers Caleb and Cody standing in for him.