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Monday, July 27, 2009
Monday, July 6, 2009
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift Car of the Day: DK's 350Z
Time to check out the ride of the "other" Drift King.
by Justin Kaehler
June 5, 2006 - "Drift King" ("D.K." for short) isn't exactly the coolest-sounding name for a movie villain -- especially one that is supposed to have yakuza ties. However, for some reason the powers-that-be at Universal decided to stick this moniker on The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift's main bad guy. Though saddled with the unfortunate nickname, the movie producers did their best to make this villain appear to be cool. Not only is "D.K." the nephew of bad-ass Yakuza boss Sonny "Hattori Hanzo"
The Nissan Z you see here breaks the tradition of past Fast and Furious cars by not being an eye-sore. This Nissan isn't covered in retina-scorching candy-colored paint, nor is it covered in 20 pounds of obscenely bad vinyl graphics. In fact, this Nissan 350Z is actually a bit subtle. Not only is this car a bit of a sleeper, it actually looks pretty damn good.
The first thing JDM-heads will notice is the full VeilSide Ver.3 wide body aero kit, complete with a new front end, front and rear over fenders, side skirts, rear bumper and a nicely-sculpted rear wing. This kit is a bit extravagant to those in the know, but thanks to its nicely flowing lines and factory-like fit and finish, we'll bet that most moviegoers will be hard-pressed to tell that this Z has been outfitted with one of
Also keeping things subtle are the shades of metallic gray paint covering the car. In a very un-Fast and Furious fashion, the entire passenger side of this car has no kind of decal whatsoever. None. Nada. Zip. It's just the two shades gray metallic paint. The driver's side of this car does get the vinyl treatment, but the black scarab-inspired design actually blends in with the car and almost seems to disappear. Again, this Z is a far cry from the cars (such as the lime green Eclipse) found in the first flick.
Nestled away under that VeilSide carbon fiber hood sits a twin turbocharged 3.5 liter V6. Australian tuning company APS provided the full twin turbo set up, while American company Magnaflow provided the twin exhausts. According to the peeps at Universal, this engine set up is good for about 460 horsepower at the rear wheels.
Speaking of those rear wheels, they are VeilSide Andrew Evolution Vs, sized 19x11 inches in the back and 19x9 inches up front. (When you get a chance, take a minute to check out the lip on the rear wheel -- it's friggin' huge!) Wrapped around those rims are some Toyo Proxes T1R tires, with 245/35ZR19s in the front and very fat 285/30ZR19s in the rear. The brakes on this Z are stock, but as they're Brembo units, there's really not much of a need to upgrade 'em.
The 350Z handles like a champ in stock form, so the Universal people decided against outfitting this car with a crazy D1-spec suspension. Only a simple set of RS*R lowering springs were added so that there would be less of a wheel gap between the Andrew rims and the Ver.3 fenders.
Not much was done to the cockpit. It's pretty much stock save for a set of Sparco seats, harnesses, a Sparco steering wheel, and a custom roll cage. This is supposed to be a drift car, so we're glad that the movie producers didn't outfit the interior of this Z with tons of TV monitors and crazy neon lights. It's actually simple and functional -- just like a real drift car!
All in all, we still can't believe that this Z is a Fast and Furious car. Not only is this the first Japanese car in this franchise that isn't an ugly eyesore, it's one of the main cars as well. Does this mean that future installments of the movie franchise will have nicer looking cars? Who knows...
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