You know the feeling. You’re watching a “Fast & Furious” movie, riding along with Dom Toretto as he peels through the streets of Los Angeles, nose-to-nose with a rival one quarter-mile after another. Your heart is racing. Your palms are sweating. And you think: I could probably do that. Let me be here to tell you: No, please, you can’t, do not. Do not drive anything remotely like any of the characters in the “Fast” movies.
….But.
Beginning this summer, you can experience the heart-pumping thrill of the street race at Universal Studios Hollywood’s brand-new roller coaster, Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift!
The ride will feature not only the high-octane rush you know and love from Universal coasters, but a commitment to film authenticity that “Fast & Furious” fans will love. Especially when it comes to the ride vehicles. The four ride vehicles are inspired by four iconic hero cars from the “Fast & Furious” film franchise. Here’s the quick scoop:
- Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift, the new roller coaster coming to Universal Studios Hollywood in summer 2026, will feature ride vehicles inspired by four iconic cars from the “Fast & Furious” film franchise.
- The four cars recreated as ride vehicles include the 1970 Dodge Charger, the Mazda RX-7, the Nissan Skyline GT-R and the Toyota Supra.
- Each ride vehicle is as faithful to these “Fast & Furious” cars as possible, while still functioning as a safe, fun, and fast roller coaster vehicle.
As soon as I learned which cars would be reimagined as ride vehicles for the coaster, I knew I had to know more. So I reached out to Jon Corfino, vice president of creative at Universal Studios Hollywood, and picked his brain about how these amazingly realistic vehicles came to life.
Looking for all the need-to-know details about the forthcoming roller coaster?
Creating Ride Vehicles For the Fans
Pretty much the moment a coaster based on the “Fast & Furious” franchise entered his brainspace, Jon knew one thing: The ride vehicles have to be cars. It’s just too perfect. Muscle car culture is absolutely integral not just to the stories of the movies, but to the “Fast” fandom itself. That’s a great thing — it’s a passionate, car-obsessed fanbase — but also immediately set a high bar that Jon was determined to clear. As he puts it, “No other ride vehicles are going to be scrutinized like these.”
For Jon and the rest of the creative team, developing the ride vehicles was an exercise in toeing the line between realism and practicality. For starters, none of the ride vehicles have roofs, and they all seat four guests (not two, like many racing vehicles in the “Fast” movies).
But the attention to detail on these vehicles goes way deeper than that. Take Dominic Toretto’s 1970 Dodge Charger (more on that vehicle below) for example. The engine in that car is chrome — and that shiny metal engine is essential to the look of the Charger on the whole. But for safety purposes, it’s not practical to create actual chrome engines for the ride vehicles. Or, as Jon puts it, “You can’t put a chrome engine on a carbon fiber body that goes 72 miles per hour down a track pulling Gs.” So the task then became to find the perfect coat of paint — one that shines just right, one that doesn’t fade over time, one that doesn’t slightly change hues on a cloudy day vs. a sunny day. Eventually, Jon and team nailed it.
“It was about paying attention to the vast level of detail as much as we can,” says Jon. “It still is a roller coaster ride vehicle, but we wanted to make it look as much like the original vehicles as possible.”
There are dozens of cars featured across the “Fast & Furious” films — over 150, in fact. This presented an immediate creative question for Jon: How on Earth were they to narrow it down to just four incredible vehicles? According to Jon, the team went through all the movies and picked out the tentpoles — the most iconic, recognizable rides of the entire film series. Easier said than done. But the four cars they landed on are sure to delight fans of the “Fast” franchise.
The Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift Ride Vehicles
1970 Dodge Charger
The 1970s Dodge Charger is perhaps the most recognizable vehicle in the “Fast & Furious” franchise, nearly synonymous with the films themselves. This souped-up, 900 horsepower muscle car is driven by Dominic Toretto in several installments of the “Fast” series. “If you’re a real student of the films, you’ll know there are probably about 35 variants of the Charger,” said Jon, who went deep on studying each car in the series as his team developed the roller coaster. “Trust me, I studied every single one of them.”
The creative team had the good fortune of working with the mechanic group that makes these actual cars, in pursuit of creating ride vehicles as authentic to the films as they possibly could. Sometimes, the best way to get a ride vehicle part to resemble the real film vehicles was to use a real car part. While the engine block in the Charger isn’t real metal, some pieces are — including the iconic blower on the hood of the car.
Mazda RX-7
This striking car appears in the third “Fast” installment, “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift,” driven by Han Lue. (It also shows up in “Fast & Furious 6” in a post-credits scene.) The ride vehicle features 19-inch Andrew Racing Wheels, OMP racing seats, upgraded suspension and custom detailing. Take a seat, buckle up, and you’ll be ready to burn rubber.
Each of the four ride vehicles has their own distinct paint job. But there’s something about the Mazda’s orange and black combination that’s particularly eye-popping — even Jon thinks so. “When I first saw the Mazda, the two-tone paint job was just awesome,” he says. I was really happy with the way that came out.
Nissan Skyline GT-R
This vehicle is inspired by the 2002 Nissan Skyline GT-R driven by Brian O’Conner in “Fast & Furious.” In the fourth installment of the franchise, the two-door coupe is an amalgam of three different Nissan racing vehicles, which Brian uses in an LA street race. This character sure loves his Nissan Skylines, and given the amount of screen time this particular car got in “Fast & Furious,” creating this ride vehicle felt like working with the character himself. “I can’t really say I’ve got a favorite,” says Jon, “because you almost get wrapped up in the characters that drove them, too.”
Toyota Supra
Yet another one of Brian O’Conner’s rides is joining the racing squad on Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift — and this one’s from the very first film. The orange 1994 vehicle features a 2JZ-GTE twin-turbo inline-six engine, with 550 horsepower that can go from zero to sixty in 4.3 seconds. In other words: It’s a durable, tune-happy engine. Of course, there’s not an actual engine inside the ride vehicle on the forthcoming roller coaster. (See: Jon’s previous comment on flinging a chrome engine around the sky at 72 miles per hour.)
But knowing the specs of the movie vehicle inside and out was key in Jon’s process of recreating them for the coaster. “From the very beginning, every little nook and cranny had to be accounted for,” he says, “even the level of depth of imprint of the gas cap, or the taillights.” That especially includes the exterior of the Toyota Supra-inspired ride vehicle, which features recreations of the iconic custom graphics on each side.
For Jon, recreating these four iconic cars wasn’t simply a creative challenge. It was a chance to collaborate with four beautifully crafted machines, all to bring joy to the fans. “You have to pay homage,” says Jon. “And it’s just not homage out of obligation, it’s homage out of respect and integrity for what was done.”
Which ride vehicle are you most excited to hop into on Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift? Let us know in the comments below.