You have seen it, if you have watched the movie, is the car that, in the last scene, saves the day. This is why Ford built this pony car, to finish the job properly where other's failed to achieve .

1967 The Fast & Furious: Tokyo Drift's Ford Mustang

Specifications
  • Make: Array
  • Model: 1967 The Fast & Furious: Tokyo Drift's Ford Mustang
  • Horsepower: 375
  • [do not use] Vehicle Model: Array

The car featured in the film is, a true american car .. or is it so. We will discuss about this a little later, let's talk now about this car's history.

Originally based on the Ford Falcon compact, The Mustang was introduced at the 1964 New York World's Fair, Mustang Mania instantly swept the country, and a new automotive market segment was created - the 2+2 or better known as the 'pony car. Borrowing minor design cues from the Lincoln Continental and two-seat Ford Thunderbird with an intentional touch of Ferrari at the grille, the Mustang can be regarded as a true master of engineering, earning a number of prestigious auto industry awards and accolades its first year. Including those are Motor Trend Car of the Year, pace car duties for the 1964 Indianapolis 500, and the Tiffany Design Award for "excellence in design," the first automobile so honored.

The base, yet well-equipped Mustang hardtop with its 105 hp (78 kW), 156 ft•lbf (212 N•m) 170 in³ (2.8 L) inline six-cylinder engine and three-speed manual transmission, a well built motor, but after 3 years the scene changes.

In 1967 Ford's chief engineers struggle to find a way to fit the newly design car its promise heart. A massive 289 V8 engine, for that they need a larger engine bay and from this came other necessities. Suspensions were beefed up to accommodate the added weight and this meant strengthening the body and frame. As a result the length was increased by 2", the width by 2.7", and the height by 1/2". Not so much as to spoil the familiar Mustang styling but enough to create a gutsier look matching the new performance.

There were 13 engine/transmission combinations, from the familiar 120 hp straight-six to the venerable 271 hp 289 V-8 or the special 390 c.i. V-8 with 320 raving horses under the hood, engine direct from the Thunderbird, which was equipped with a four-barrel carburetor.Transmissions included a 3-speed automatic and a 4-speed manual.

Not unexpectedly the interior was larger, providing greater roominess and a luxurious new instrument panel, an AM/eight-track "Stereosonic" sound system, and one of the first AM/FM monaural radios available in any car.

By its first anniversary, over 418,000 Mustangs had been sold, breaking the all-time record for first year sales of a new nameplate.

In 2006 Universal studios, the ones who produced the movie, needed specially modified car, to fit their needs for the upcoming film. Particularly they set their eye on the 1967 Ford Mustang, but its V8 engine was not suited for the job, sow they added “some” Japanese tuning parts.

One of these Mustang heart's was an RB26DETT (RB is the engine code used by Nissan to denote the engine type. 26 means 2.6 litre, D refers to the dual overhead cam setup, E refers to the electronic (multi point) fuel injection, and TT means twin turbo.), taken from a R32 GT-R Skyline.

This engine is used in all high perfomence Japanese car's. The standard puts out around 280 horsepower, although it is possible, with modification, to get as much as 850-1000hp. The ones that were used in the movie, where tuned to stay around 320-330 horsepower range.

There are no off-the-shelf kits to make classic Mustangs ready for Skyline power, so a lot of custom fabrication work was done to make this set-up work. The few parts that could be bought include a Sparco intercooler, Be Cool radiator, GReddy exhaust manifold and a custom N1-style Magaflow exhaust. The RB26's fuel system remains stock, but it gets its gas from a trunk-mounted Fuel Safe fuel cell that sends the go juice to the engine via some Earl's stainless steel lines.

For those who don't know, The Skyline GT-R is a 4-wheel drive car, so in order to make things work for the Mustang who has rear-wheel drive, they took a 5-speed manual transmission from a 1998 Skyline GT-S and bolted it to a Currie Enterprises 9-inch Ford rear end. This of course keeps the Mustang's drive wheels at the rear, which is very important when building a drift car.

Another one, that was also used in the shooting was an 430-cubic-inch Ford Windsor V8s and four-speed "Toploader" manual transmissions. With at least 375 horsepower on tap, the V8 Tokyo Drift Mustangs could spin their tires with ease - and would, no matter what. The beaten and battered Mustang got to 60 mph in 6.7 seconds and consumed the quarter-mile in 14.7 seconds at 96.7 mph. For a drift car built to bash into other cars while wagging its tail violently, that's not bad.

Universal equipped the Ford's with a Global West suspension pieces and rack and pinion steering in common. And all three had 245/35R19 front and 275/35R19 rear Toyo Proxes T1R tires and Volk Racing Grey GT-7 wheels keeping them off the ground.

We salute the chief enginieers at the Universal pictures for making this piece.