Though Dominic “Dom” Toretto (Vin Diesel) would later become synonymous with a black Dodge Charger throughout the Fast & Furious films, the first vehicle he is seen driving in The Fast and the Furious is a 1993 Mazda RX-7. To reflect the style of modifications popular among performance tuners of the day, filmmakers cast a custom RX-7 owned by Kieth Imoto as Dom’s vehicle. Imoto’s original design was only slightly modified for filming. To help distinguish it from other vehicles in the opening race scene, production painted the car red instead of its original grey and added custom vinyl graphics.

Courtesy of Gabriel Tremblay / The Furious Garage