3 minute read
Twenty-five years ago, a modest street racing movie with a $38 million budget quietly rewired what a generation thought was cool about cars. Paul Walker sliding a Supra around corners. Vin Diesel disappearing into a black Charger. A lime green Eclipse that probably caused more calls to import tuning shops than any single film before or since. The franchise that followed went on to gross billions, but the cars always stayed front and center. Now, the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles is giving them a proper home.
The Fast & Furious 25th Anniversary Exhibit is now open at the Petersen, and it’s the most comprehensive collection of screen-used franchise vehicles ever assembled under one roof. We’re talking hero cars, stunt doubles, and production prototypes across two gallery spaces, and many of them are being displayed together publicly for the first time.
What’s Actually on Display
The lineup reads like a checklist for anyone who grew up obsessing over the franchise. Walker’s Candy Orange 1993 Toyota Supra is there, arguably the most iconic car in the series and one that single-handedly made the 2JZ engine swap a household name in tuning culture. Alongside it sits Diesel’s 1968 Dodge Charger R/T, a muscle car so woven into the franchise’s mythology that it showed up in nearly every installment. Then there’s that acid-green 1995 Mitsubishi Eclipse from the original film, the car that started everything, plus Suki’s pink 2001 Honda S2000 from 2 Fast 2 Furious.
These aren’t replica builds or promotional vehicles. The Petersen is showing screen-used cars alongside their stunt counterparts, giving you a side-by-side look at what actually happened on set versus what you saw in theaters. That context alone makes this worth the visit.
Opening Weekend Had an Extra Layer
The opening events included a 2000s-style car show held in a parking garage, which was a genuinely good idea. That era of import culture had a specific energy, loud exhausts, body kits, neon underlights, and trunk setups that had absolutely nothing to do with going fast, and leaning into that nostalgia was a smart move by the museum. If you missed opening weekend, the exhibit is still running and well worth the trip if you’re in LA.
Why It’s Worth Your Time
I’ll be honest: I’m not the world’s most devoted Fast & Furious fan, but I have a lot of respect for what that franchise did for car culture. Before those films, American mainstream audiences weren’t paying attention to Supras or Skylines or the import tuning scene. The original movie brought that world into multiplexes, and the cars in those films weren’t props so much as characters. That same energy is alive today in the custom truck and off-road world, where builders are turning vehicles like the Ford Bronco into personalized machines with the same kind of passion tuners brought to Supras in the early 2000s. Seeing them in person, understanding the real engineering and fabrication work that went into them, that’s a different experience from watching them on screen.
The Petersen is one of the best automotive museums in the country, and this exhibit fits naturally into what they do. If you’re visiting LA or already in the area, this is a legit afternoon out. Tickets start at $22.
Getting There
The Petersen Automotive Museum is located at 6060 Wilshire Blvd in Los Angeles. Tickets are available on the museum’s website.
