2 Fast 2 Furious came out in June 2003, directed by John Singleton. Paul Walker's Brian O'Conner is making a living street racing in his Nissan Skyline GT-R, and the film opens on a four-car race that ends with the cars jumping an open bridge. The police ambush the racers, and Brian is arrested.
The R34 was the sports model of the tenth-generation Skyline, introduced on 8 January 1999. It used a 2.6-litre twin-turbo straight-six, the RB26DETT, with an advertised 280 PS — the ceiling Japanese makers had agreed among themselves, and less than the engine actually made — and an electronically controlled four-wheel-drive system, ATTESA E-TS. A 5.8-inch screen on the dashboard read out live engine data. Production ran to 2002, with 11,578 built. The GT-R was made only in Japan and exported to a handful of markets, the UK among them, but not the United States.
That made the hero car harder to find than the script made it look. It belonged to Craig Lieberman, the film's technical adviser, who had bought it in July 2001 for $78,000 from MotoRex, the California importer that was first to bring an R34 fully into line with US regulations. The production weighed building lookalikes from cheaper Skyline GT-Ts, found they would cost as much or more, and had MotoRex fly in four more real GT-Rs from Japan on a 747 as stunt cars. The silver paint carried blue stripes in the manner of an American muscle car, a choice Lieberman argued against and lost. A marketing deal between Universal and Mitsubishi then made Brian's Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution the lead car, leaving the Skyline a supporting role.
DeAGOSTINI launched its 1:8 partwork in Japan on 5 September 2023 as a weekly run of 110 issues, made under licence from Universal, and this is that edition; issue 1 starts with the front bumper. The finished model is about 58 cm long and weighs about 9.2 kg. Its doors, bonnet, boot, fuel flap and side windows open, the steering turns the front wheels, and the headlights, brake lights, indicators, dashboard and the film car's blue interior glow all light. A remote control works the lights and plays the engine sound and horn. Under the bonnet is a scale RB26DETT, the interior carries the film car's nitrous system, and the boot is fitted out with its 6-inch screen, pair of subwoofers and amplifier. FanHome sold the same model in the US; that edition is no longer available, so the manufacturer link goes to DeAGOSTINI Japan's series page.