In a ten minute time span, the thieves broke into builder Chris Milano's warehouse, where the car was being stored, and while in the process of stealing it, bumped a BMW and scratched up a Porsche Boxster and a Studebaker Silverhawk. Milano said the $75,000 car was not insured as it was mostly just used for movie promotion, though he is offering up a reward for any information leading to the car's recovery. Stealing a famous R34 is a pretty stupid move, as it won't take long for FNF geeks to spot the car, but scratching a Silverhawk is just reprehensible. [CBS2]

Following the success of Fast And Furious, which grossed a record $75 million in its opening weekend, it's sort of a no-brainer. The duo of Vin Diesel and Paul Walker is sure to be a winner, yet again. We don't know how we feel about Brazil, but we look forward to the opportunity to see some strange South American cars. Hopefully, they'll invite us back to the set so we can bring you another exclusive Cars Of Fast And Furious feature.

Some people have a lot of good ideas. Others have one good idea and just run with it, over-and-over. (Hat tip to D-fktv!)

[via MSNBC]

Okay, right out front, this car is not street legal in the US, but that never stopped anybody, right? I mean, Vin Diesel is all about the clandestine street racing scene, and he's been in, what, three of those movies, so how tough could it be?

The Skyline model name originally appeared on a Prince luxury sedan in 1957. But we're not too interested in those stodgy, old, upright, bank-president specials, we want something a little more modern, and a lot faster. Though Nissan never officially sold the Skyline GT-R in the land of the free and the home of the debt-enslaved, a good number have made it over while still keeping their JDM freak flags flying.


Here, enjoying some rest and relaxation in the Bahamas, is a '99 R34 V-spec, specially modified by Legendary Supercar builder Jun Auto Works. It's sporting the RB26DETT 2.6-liter, DOHC, 24-valve straight six with a claimed 1,000 ponies at the rear tires, and a 200MPH+ top end. For your damn-near one hundred and twenty grand, you'll get that serial-killer of a motor, plus composite doors, hood, decklid and a carbon-fiber rear spoiler to keep the tires on the tarmac, and the air nice and clean for everybody behind you.

But really, they'll actually be beside you, won't they, as this car screams for some drift action? And as it's a track-only ride, you'll get plenty of opportunity to test its polar inertia, and the coefficient of friction of the combined tires' contact patch, in doing so. AWD and the Getrag 6-speed row-your-own will keep you in charge, no matter how you choose to lay that power down. And speaking of which, there's that sentence in red, about half-way down the page: Car Ran 9:40s in the quatermile! No, they can't spell, but sweet jebus, you want this car.

Now back to that price. $119,990 will buy you a nice house, if you choose to buy where there's 7%+ unemployment. That'd also put you behind the wheel of a brand new Nissan GT-R, with enough left over to cover the penicillin shots for all the STDs you'll get due to the car's carnal attraction. And this GT-R's not even street legal here in the states, so cruising Woodward Boulevard, much less the Dairy Queen over in Mount Pilot, is out of the question, unless you want to play Dukes of Hazard with the local po-po. And one last thing to keep in mind, is that the $119,990 price tag requires PayPal. Yeah, right.

So is $119,990 a Nice Price for the hottest thing to come out of Japan since the wasabi doughnut? Or should we be looking up the Japanese for Crack Pipe about now?

You decide!

eBay or go here if the ad disappears in a cloud of tire smoke.

Help me out with NPOCP. Click here to send a me a tip

If you look at our Cars of Fast And Furious feature you'll notice a wide variety of brands, including Subaru. If we have to put our finger on one company wanting to distance itself from the competition and threatened by a cheap performer it's the maker of the WRX. According to the film's main car guy, Dennis McCarthy, Subaru was actively involved in supplying cars and excited about involvement in the film. We guess maybe they weren't as excited about sharing the screen with a sexy red turbocharged Genesis.

Or, it could have been Ford. Maybe they're just pissed Hyundai's gobbled up all of their PR folks. But who do you think cock-blocked the Genesis Coupe?

[Edmunds: Inside Line]

Note, SNL claims it's "Like the original, only slightly gayer" than the Vin Diesel movies. Wethinks that remains to be seen. We mean, did you see the end of the first movie? The heart-rending nature of the break-up between Vin and Paul? Yeah, we thought so.

The voting has left 25 delightfully trashy ladies adorned in cheap lingerie, flashy bikinis and one-piece fish-net things. Check out our gallery below and when you're done, head on over to the official competition page to vote for the one most likely to leave you for a JDM-spec 240 drifter.

[via F&F, Universal]

We braved the surprisingly chilly Los Angeles evening last year to witness the taping of Fast And Furious, the fourth (and maybe not final) film in the The Fast And The Furious series. We were there the night of the famous Vin Diesel Chevelle wheelie, a shot which we can honestly say took forever to setup.

Dom's 1970 Charger R/T	BMW M5	Brian O'Conner's Subaru Impreza WRX	Nissan 240SX (Silvia S14)
Fenix's 1972 Gran Torino	Dom's 1970 Chevelle SS	Brian's R34 Skyline GT-R	Buick Grand National GNX
Ford RS200 v. Toyota AE86	Extra Cars	Saleen Vehicles	Random Fast And Furious Stills

The day's shooting took place at a parking garage in Los Angeles' Koreatown neighborhood that doubles as a driving range. The top level of the garage is covered with a 150-yard-long green beneath which countless hours and dollars worth of machines rest, safely out of the way of botched drives. Though quirky, the layout provides an ideal condition for shooting the cars with multiple heights and cameras available without the need for setting up cranes. Plus it just looks awesome.

We'll be honest, we're not the biggest fans of the Fast And The Furious film franchise. We enjoy car chases, crashes and mayhem as much as anyone but there's always been a sense that the franchise perhaps takes advantage of this. Justin Lin, director of the third film in the series, Tokyo Drift, and the latest film aknowledged this in an interview we did with him last year:

Justin Lin, Director
I think one of the knocks against the franchise was that it took and exploited cars. And made it look kind of cartooney."

Is this to happen again with the latest movie? Hard to say, but In our brief set visit we had a chance to converse with the cast, crew and extras over automotive topics as varied as the steps necessary to convert a Merkur XR4Ti Into a Ford Sierra and the different merits of the two generations of Toyota Tundras. We were pleased to find most of the people involved, at least on the car side, actually cared about vehicles (though tastes varied widely).

We spoke with Paul Walker, who plays the handsome and serious Brian O'Conner, about the film. This was mostly boring chatter about the movie-making process. Eventually we turned the conversation to cars and Walker lit-up. Apparently, Walker isn't of the get-rich-and-buy-a-Bentley variety of movie stars. In fact, he's of the not-enough-room-in-my-garage-for-all-the-toys variety a la Jay Leno.

In addition to a fairly predictable Ferrari 360, Walker boasted at the time of owning a classic late 1940's Chevy Woody and a Toyota Tundra with some modifications, which he loved to talk about. This isn't surprising, given the first car he bought with his money was a 1986 Ford Ranger. Most surprisingly, perhaps, is his admission he reads car forums and actually posts occasionally. Because he seemed like a genuinely nice guy we won't "out" the forums or his member name.

The day we visited there were lots of actors running around, including Vin Diesel, what we presume to be his muscles, both zooming to and fro on a pair of motorized scooters and matching fur coats (no joke), but the cars are the real stars for us. Nearly all of the two dozen cars stationed around the roof have their own stories and, luckily for us, the owners and keepers of the cars are around to share them.

One of the first things we noticed on set was the sheer number of Saleen vehicles, including a Ford GT. Thankfully, Molly Saleen was on hand to explain her family happily contributed a range of Saleens. Click on the Saleen GT above or click here for more info on those vehicles.

The other most prominent vehicle was the Pontiac Solstice. The owners of the cars, including the yellow Solstice used in almost every FAF marketing piece, claimed it was probably one of the biggest collections of performance-oriented Solstices in one place. They should know as all of them are heavily involved in the small, yet thriving, community. The best conversation was probably with an owner of the red Solstice, who has an eclectic garage that includes a Merkur XR4Ti converted into a Ford Sierra. You can learn more about these cars in the Extra Cars section.

The variety of cars, from a vintage Cougar to a new Porsche, underline an attempt by the film's creators to make the movie as inclusive as possible. This applies to the film as well, which you can see in the random fast and furious stills gallery. Note, especially, the switch from Hondas to the decidedly un-ricer-like Buick Grand National GNX.

After watching the Grand National abuse in pre-film teasers we're happy to report they did not, in fact, destroy any real GNXs. These cars are merely clones. As you can see in the photos above, there are multiples of most of the character cars. This includes the Brian's R34 Skyline GT-R, which has a 240SX-based clone seen next to the GT in the gallery. Why accidentally destroy a real R34 when you can destroy a fake one?

There's a lot of information in the galleries above and, we think, no real spoilers. But here's one piece of interesting background info. It was unseasonably cold while they shot the parking garage drag race scene but, in being true to the franchise's mise en scene, you can't have a drag race without scantily clad girls. Let's just say it was a good day to be a blanket. We're not sure if it'll show up in the final print but there was teeth chattering all around.

We can't lay a final verdict on the film until we see it and the dialogue we heard, while predictably comic book, gave no hint to the full tone of the film. We were actually surprised the trailer had such a Bourne Identity look to it. We can only hope the marriage of the best characters from the series (who doesn't love Vin Diesel?) to arguably the franchise's best director yields a not-too-serious car flick filled with a lot of metallic eye candy.

There's a truly eclectic and diverse mix of cars including classic American muscle like the Cougar; Korean eco-rockets like the orange Kia; Japanese supercars like the Nissan GT-R and Toyota Supra; German über whips like the Porsche 911; and at least one Honda Civic.

If you look in the background you'll see a bright pink Mustang, which belongs to Steve's daughter and is custom-painted Molly Pop Pink. We had a long conversation with Molly about her cars and we were not only impressed with her knowledge, but also with her ability to chat through much of the long filming process. You don't want to know how much that thing costs to repaint.