Nice 1987 AMC Eagle wagon (wood-grain trim) just sold for $32k.
Nice 1987 AMC Eagle wagon (wood-grain trim) just sold for $32k.
In reply to David S. Wallens :
David S. Wallens said:So the Eclipse goes on sale today. Final guesses to sale price?
$550,000
I'm loving the jokes in this thread!
Eleanor was a MUCH more significant car to me at that time. I hardly remember that stupid Eclipse. I remember the Supra from that movie more, even the Maxima as it did a FWD burnout in anger!
In general, I remember how dumb most of the cars were in that movie. It was why I never really enjoyed it, despite being a car guy in my teens.
Not that any of that matters. Someone will spend $350k on that POS.
It's odd that the Eclipse would be "hero" status. It was only in the first movie and only a couple of scenes. The real *hero" seems to be the Charger as it keeps coming back each time, although very modified.
Appleseed said:In reply to Indy - Guy :
The only thing I can think of is the Elenor Mustang from Nick Cage's Gone in 60 Seconds.
I don't think that car's significant at all. The original Eleanor, sure. But the remake was just a bad body kit on a classic Mustang. It looked dated even in the day. I think the only thing that made it at all significant was the marketing involved in the selling of replicas.
I agree that Dom's Charger is more significant than this Eclipse. The Eclipse was disposable, the Charger was not.
Most significant movie car in the past 21 years? No question. This car has inspired far more new enthusiasts than any other.
The oldest of those kids are buying their first cars now (probably a couple of years ago, actually). You've gotta think this is influencing their tastes :)
Keith Tanner said:Appleseed said:In reply to Indy - Guy :
The only thing I can think of is the Elenor Mustang from Nick Cage's Gone in 60 Seconds.
I don't think that car's significant at all. The original Eleanor, sure. But the remake was just a bad body kit on a classic Mustang. It looked dated even in the day. I think the only thing that made it at all significant was the marketing involved in the selling of replicas.
I agree that Dom's Charger is more significant than this Eclipse. The Eclipse was disposable, the Charger was not.
Most significant movie car in the past 21 years? No question. This car has inspired far more new enthusiasts than any other.
The oldest of those kids are buying their first cars now (probably a couple of years ago, actually). You've gotta think this is influencing their tastes :)
My son was adamant that I buy a red race car, because he's 3 and loves Lightning McQueen.
The original F&F movie came out just after I turned 18, so I was probably the target audience, and while I did see it in theatre, it certainly didn't influence my automotive tastes.
Appleseed said:In reply to Indy - Guy :
The only thing I can think of is the Elenor Mustang from Nick Cage's Gone in 60 Seconds.
Nick Cage wasn't in the Gone in 60 Seconds I saw, and Eleanor was a yellow '71 Mustang. The big one.
Nobody goes to sleep in an Eleanor or F&F bed at night.
Mia and Tia definitely confirm that it's Lightening who is the answer.
1963 Corvette Z06 currently hovering around $2.5 million.
It's 2:50 here in Florida, and Mecum is up to lot F160. The Eclipse is lot F170. So getting closer.
Sold: $155,000 plus buyer's premium--10% if there, 12% if on phone or internet. 
Happy to see it pulled above the estimates... I'm tempted to see how it trends in value like say the Bullit mustang vs others.
In reply to Gearheadotaku (Forum Supporter) / Keith Tanner :
Dom's charger is very much important to the ultimate story, but the Eclipse (and Supra) were essential to the style/tone for the first movie
I have a Hot Wheels version of this car I got for a forum member. It's still in the box and both my kids keep trying to take it.
Without this car and the Supra there probably is no F&F series. Honestly without the series, Supras are probably 25% or more cheaper too.
I have one, too, but it needs detailing.
In reply to johndej :
The Eclipse was part of the style for sure, but it could have been any of the import tooner cars. It's like they walked through the lot of cars for the movie and said "that one should show up well onscreen". And IIRC wasn't it just handed over to Paul Walker's character from the siezed vehicles or something? It was basically a set of fancy clothes.
I think the Eclipse was a smart choice back then- it was one of the few entry level tuner cars that could run with the more expensive cars. Of course the implementation left a lot to be desired. I was big info DSM's back when the movie came out, I owned a 1G Talon, a 2G Eclipse GSX, and a Galant VR4. I knew dozens of owners locally, hundreds nationwide. I can think of maybe two people who significantly modded the looks of their cars, and neither were on the same cringeworthy level of the F and F Eclipse. I do remember seeing more after the movie, but most of those were non turbo show cars with very little attention to performance.
This just reminded me of a funny story- shortly after the EVO came out, Mitsubishi wanted to make a commercial featuring their customer's modded cars. They set up a meet at Road Race Engineering, a performance shop that built rally cars and race cars. Most of their customers were performance oriented, the only cars with stickers and stripes were real race cars. Doing the suspension didn't mean slamming the car, it meant making it handle jumps (which they tested over a hump in the parking lot.) Quite a few show cars turned up at the meet. One was way over the top- huge body kit, sitting on the ground, and a paint job that you needed sun glasses to look at. It was the opposite of a race car, with more power in the stereo than under the hood. Mitsubishi wanted to get footage of it on the shops lift. But it wouldn't even make it up the standard driveway, it had to be lifted off it's suspension by a bunch of guys- to get it on a lift usually occupied by rally cars.
Y'all talking about the Eleanor mustang are forgetting that Mustangs were already iconic cars when that movie came out. The first fast & furious movie practically created the import tuner scene, or at least expanded it exponentially. I remember when it came out--I was 19 and had a Ford probe with flames painted on the front (lol) and me and my buddies all went to see it. None of us had mustangs or camaros, so we were glad to see cars like what we drove on the big screen. The parking lot was absolutely crammed full of riced out civics, and when the movie was over, all of them were driving like shiny happy people, in full gearhead mode.
I'm 40 now and have owned quite a few awesome cars, including an E39 M5 and a Porsche 911, and I will absolutely say that this movie, however horribly cringy it is now, really helped get a lot of people into cars.
It also came out before Ford came out with the S197, so we hadn't gotten used to what a modernized Mustang would look like. Plus would didn't dig the nitrous button?
I would say the F&F reflected the tuner scene, not created it.
I think the r34 from the second movie was more iconic. I tried to replicate it in Need for Speed Underground
In reply to Keith Tanner :
The import/tuner cars were showing up at dragstrips in southern California by the early 90s, and the scene was pretty well established by the time I left there in '93. F&F was what, 2001?
Definitely a reflection (caricature?) more than creation, but it was probably 'new' to many parts of the country.
Keith Tanner said:I would say the F&F reflected the tuner scene, not created it.
Most definitely. It came out when I was a college sophomore. I went to high school in rural Missouri and already knew several people with "tuner" cars - all of them were aesthetically modified but no real performance mods. I was already reading Sport Compact Car in high school, and it wasn't hard to find.
What it did was blow the popularity of the tuner scene up. Seemed like every guy my age had a fancy stainless and fake carbon fiber park bench on the trunk of their Cavalier once the movie came out.
One idea that had crossed my mind for an expensive publicity stunt: Buy the Eclipse and put together a set of videos about what it takes to actually run 10s with it.
In reply to MadScientistMatt :
Bonus points for having the passenger floorboard eject 15 seconds into the 10 second run.
I was at SEMA in 2001, I'll see if I can find some of my pictures...
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