Thursday, February 1, 2007

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift Car of the Day: Han's S15

The Nissan Silvia you see here is one of the "less pretty" cars of The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. In the movie, Bow Wow compares this car to the Mona Lisa. That is because Bow Wow (or the script writers) is crazy. Blue and orange, while opposites on the color wheel (and therefore complimentary colors), just don't look good together -- especially on a car. However, this is a Fast and Furious car we're talking about, so we can't be surprised to see a car in this movie that just isn't cool.

Well... this car is a S15, so it can't be all bad. Let's get a closer look at it...


This role this Silvia plays in The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift is a bit odd, as it's an important car to the film, yet it gets trashed almost immediately. In the movie, this car is owned by the film's mentor-like character "Han". Yes, he just has one name, which makes him that much more of an enigma -- just like Prince. Anyway, Han lets the main guy -- Sean Boswell -- use this S15 in his first race against the Drift King. As we all know, Sean uses the RB-powered Mustang in his "big" race against DK, so we can comfortably say that Sean doesn't drive this car that well. In fact, Sean trashes this Nissan. This trashing of "the Mona Lisa" thoroughly upset Bow Wow... but we're sure he got over it.


As this car doesn't get a lot of screen time, the car builders at Universal really didn't spend too much time working on it. Its interior is gutted out, leaving a lone Recaro seat and a Takata harness for the driver. The rest of the interior was gutted, and custom-fabricated sheet metal was used to cover up the doors, rear package tray and more. You know, the odd shapes of factory-stamped metal just don't look good on film...

Though the shell of this S15 is the unfortunate recipient of an orange and blue paint job, it does have a few things going on for it on the outside. The coolest thing about this Silvia is the near stock-looking C-West DRFT aero kit. Other exterior touches include Modern Image graphics, a C-West-supplied GT wing and a set of Ganador mirrors. Of course the wheels get a visual upgrade in the form of some 19-inch Volk GT-7 rims wrapped in Toyo Proxes TR1 tires.


There's really not a whole lot to talk about as far as the engine is concerned. Don't let the picture fool you, we really doubt that Universal would spring for an Autch-tuned engine for a car that gets trashed. Hell, it looks like Universal didn't even spring for an S15 with the 250 horsepower SR20DET motor -- this looks to be the 165 horsepower naturally-aspirated SR20DE. This N/A SR20 looks as if it has a couple of mods, notably a tubular exhaust manifold and a N1-style exhaust, but those probably only add an additional 10 ponies at best. Still, it's not like this engine needs to be all buff because, as we already said, this car gets trashed. Besides, let's just say that, in the movie, this car's engine comes back to play a major role. What kind of role is that? Go see the movie and find out for yourself.

Before you head out to the movie theatre, be sure to check out our Media Page for more pics of this S15!

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