Facts
-
Year of manufacture
1994 -
Movie
2 Fast 2 Furious (2003) -
Movie role
Slap Jack’s Supra -
Screen driver
Michael Ealy -
Status
Original “hero car” featured in the film -
Engine
2,997 cm3, six cylinders -
Power
330 hp -
Gearbox
manual
A gold-coloured Supra, a raised drawbridge and just a few minutes of screen time, but enough to secure a place in pop culture: Slap Jack’s part in 2 Fast 2 Furious is brief, but hard to miss; he challenges Brian O’Conner’s Nissan Skyline, takes off over the raised bridge deck – and ends up crashing into a billboard.
The car on display at the Red Bull Ring Classics is an original ‘hero car’ used in the movie. ChromeCars will be presenting it in its unrestored original condition and in running order.
The vehicle
Understated styling was never part of the concept with this particular Supra. A gold paint finish, a low-slung front end, a wide flared body, striking graphics and a rear wing that makes its own unique statement: the car embodies the tuning aesthetic of the early 2000s without looking dated.
These are precisely the qualities that make it so fascinating to us now. The Supra was not rebuilt for later exhibition but has been preserved in its original, unrestored condition. According to ChromeCars, it has a 2,997cc engine delivering 330 horsepower, is operated by a manual gearbox and is completely roadworthy. It is therefore not just a film prop, but a functioning piece of cinema history.
Movie character
Slap Jack is one of the street racers who meets Brian O’Conner at the start of 2 Fast 2 Furious. Tej Parker organises the race through Miami; Slap Jack takes the lead at times in his golden Supra, forcing Brian to push the Skyline to its limits.
The race outcome is decided at the open bascule bridge. Slap Jack jumps, lands hard and loses control. Moments later, the Supra is embedded in a billboard. The audience learns very little about the driver – his car does most of the character work.
Fun fact
The engine visible beneath the transparent bonnet wasn’t always what it appeared to be in other movie cars. According to Craig Lieberman, the vehicle consultant at the time, the crew stuck a life-size, high-resolution photo of the elaborately constructed engine beneath the transparent bonnet of some of the stunt Supras.
The trick worked well on camera: a real engine in the detailed hero car, a printed engine in some of the stunt vehicles. Hollywood pragmatism at its finest.
The story behind the movie car
On screen, you see only one gold-coloured Supra. Behind the camera, however, there was a small fleet of them. An article in Sport Compact Car at the time reported that the key vehicles in 2 Fast 2 Furious each had several doubles with varying specifications and build quality.
The sharing out of film duties was practical: a carefully built hero car had to look convincing in close-ups and detailed shots, while more basic stand-ins could handle jumps, hard landings and collisions. ChromeCars lists the vehicle displayed as the original hero car. Consequently, every stunt in the film shouldn’t automatically be attributed to it, though the authentic appearance that the camera presents as Slap Jack’s Supra certainly can.
Technical specifications for the Slap Jack movie cars also vary depending on the specific model. The film Supra reviewed in 2003 featured a large GReddy single turbo, a Versus Motorsports body kit and the distinguishing ‘Gold Mine Pearl’ paint finish. These details are well documented for one of the movie cars from that period, but cannot be definitively attributed in every respect to the chassis number shown here today.
The legend
Where multiple movie cars that look almost identical are in use, their histories are often quickly confused with one another later on. To this day, a number of stories circulate about the Slap Jack Supras:
- A heavily weathered Slap Jack stunt car is said to have been rediscovered years later on a plot of land in the USA. According to reports, however, this was not the hero car shown here.
- At least one of the movie cars is associated with later appearances in Today You Die, Grandma’s Boy and an episode of NCIS. Which specific vehicle appeared on screen in each case is not fully documented.
- Fans repeatedly claim that it was used later in the movie Tokyo Drift. However, there is no conclusive evidence of this. The legend therefore does not centre on a single Supra, but on the entire small fleet of film cars. What we can be sure of in the case of this particular car, however, is that it is an original hero car from 2 Fast 2 Furious, preserved in its unrestored state and in running order.