Tuna, No Crust: Greenlight's 1/43 F&F Series, Part 1

Long story short, I'm a fan of the Fast & Furious franchise. Say what you want about the movies, the actors, and the cars, but there hasn't been any movie, ever, that's meant so much to the automotive community than F&F. In particular, it's influenced tuner culture like no other. As distasteful as some of the cars may be by today's standards, we need to remember that there was once a time for all of that. Fashions, trends, tastes, and styles come and go, and I'm sure many of you who were kids or young adults during the early F&F years wanted cars like these.

I got into these movies rather late, so I can't vouch for everyone's experiences and memories, but I can still appreciate the cars. They're flashy, excessive, and ridiculous, but ultimately iconic and nostalgic. And today, I have three of them to show. One from the first movie, one from the second, and one from the third. One car per day, how's that sound?

This is Brian O'Connor's Mitsubishi Eclipse from The Fast & The Furious, the car we see him use in the beginning of the movie before it gets blown up by Johnny Tran and his buddies. O'Connor didn't seem to be bothered by losing his car, but I guess he could never beat Toretto with this car anyways. I definitely think the tuner cars in the F&F franchise are the most iconic, and this one probably ranks second behind the Supra from the same movie. To this day, I still have no idea what the graphic on the side is supposed to represent. Whatever it is, this is the car I picture in my head every time I see an Eclipse on the road.

Greenlight does a fantastic job with these Fast & Furious cars. Some of them aren't 100% accurate to the source material, but I love the detail that they include at this price point. They retail for around $20 each, which is a bit more expensive that I would like to spend on any diecast, but in context, it's about half of what a high-end 1/43 scale piece costs. While these don't have some of the amenities of a high-end 1/43, such as photo-etch badging, plastic inserts for the grilles, and brake calipers, they're more than enough to satisfy the casual F&F fan.

Part 2 coming tomorrow!