Episode #4 - Brian's Eclipse from The Fast and The Furious

[Music] hi everybody I'm Craig Lieberman original owner of the fast and furious Supra the skyline from too fast to furious and the Maxima from the first movie as well I was technical advisor on the first two movies and today I want to talk to you about a topic that I get asked about a lot its the Eclipse the Eclipse is one of the most loved cars in the franchise it's also one of the most replicated with an estimated 50 replicas now floating around the world I talked about this car in my book a little bit but it's one of it's still one of the most asked about cars you think the information would be readily available online but I've done tons of research myself and I found that most of what you're gonna find online is just simply wrong so putting together my notes and using the notes I had from the book and after numerous recent conversations with the owner John lapid it's time to set the record straight about this car so let's dig in first it's important to understand that we're talking about the hero car which is the original car having been owned by John lapid John lapid's 1996 Eclipse RS started off for screen and then was painted silver John showed up with this car in its silver color at one of my casting calls for the movie way back in early 2000 since his Eclipse was the only one that showed up his car got cash because we're absolutely looking for an eclipse for that rule the movie portrayed the car as being some high power tuner car capable of running with cars like Dom's rx-7 but nothing could be further from the truth John's Eclipse was an RS which meant it was a non turbo 2-liter four-cylinder rated at 145 horsepower the car had some basic bolt on mods and that was about it at best the car made about 150 horsepower the nitrous kit you saw in the movie was actually fake it was never hooked up that doesn't matter though as this car would have been a high 14 or a low 15 second car in the best case scenario with street tires and street suspension it might not even have done that the body kit was by robocar and it was really a ripoff of the Blitz kit for that car at the time John had put some really nice 19-inch a DRM classic wheels on the car and the way John had it it was a really nice-looking car the interior is representative of cars that error Sparco seats in the steering wheel some carbon-fiber overlays a couple of custom gauge panels and a custom built roll cage was added accessories included goodies from folia tech like a shift knob pedal car in a sound system by stoning again it was pretty typical of show cars at the time the brakes and suspension received a few simple tweaks like cross drilled rotors sway bars two knobby adjustable suspension fake disc covers for the rear drum brakes and the obligatory underbody neon lighting this was not a race car but in the movie the producers sure do make it seem that way right so what do they get wrong for starters a three stage nitrous kit wouldn't have been used on the stock motor such systems are usually for dedicated big engine race cars or big turbo cars Stage one in that case might be for building boost stage two might be for mid track after the car has settled and stage three might be for a high boost race gas setting the stages refer to how much nitrous is being delivered at any setting in a 15 second car you certainly don't need three stages of nitrous not on the stock motor the stock motor would grenaded anything more than say 75 200 horsepower anyway so it's academic second since this car was not a turbo and not an all-wheel-drive model all the nitrous in the world wouldn't have helped this car go much faster moving on to other elements of the sequence we are greeted with the famous danger to manifold bit I argued against this of course pointing out the absurdity of that phrase I made a few suggestion as to how they could convey a sense of danger to the engine's health simply by showing something like a low oil pressure light a temperature gauge sweeping into the red or by displaying a message on the laptop that said something like overboost warning nope all that got shut down in favor of a more simple message that non car people could understand next was the notion of the floor board falling out I argue that Vin Diesel's feet would be dangling from the car Fred Flintstone style 1 Brian rescued him I lost that argument to the production team wanted to see fire and sparks in this scene I presented alternatives that were more realistic but these two were shot down as an advisor I only had so much influence at the end of the scene there's talk about fried piston rings yet the car still managed to limp back to the starting line a bit improbable but whatever but driving the car after that like nothing happened is highly unlikely fortunately the car is killed properly and finally when Johnny Tran fills it full of lead in the scene of just a few minutes later one part of the scene that never sat right with many people was when the car blew up when the car didn't blow up Dom screams this word NOS as if it's flammable or explode that's not the case it's combustible but only under certain conditions blowing up the car was a fun bit and was absolutely thrilling to watch them do it to pull this off the gut of the car and removed the drivetrain they built a large canister inside the car carefully placed it on the car center of gravity and a hole was cut in the floor to funnel the blast downward doors were attached with cable stays to prevent them flying off and the windows were tinted black so you couldn't see the gutted interior when the chemical mixture is ignited it produces thrust to move the car up and the color of the flames can be manipulated by this mixture it was a fitting end of this car so you may be saying yourself why don't we blow up a perfectly good Eclipse actually this car was not exactly a perfectly good Eclipse in fact we had six eclipses to film this movie hero one was the car owned by John lapid it's used for the establishing shots when the car pulls up when car pulls up over at farmers market scene and there's a discussion between ja Rule and and and Paul Walker they're looking under the hood of car that would be the hero car hero two is the car used for interior shots the interior shots would be things like scrolling across the gauges with the camera that kind of thing what's interesting about the hero two cars after the movie the car was sold the George Barris if for those of you don't know George Barris was a guy who did the original Batmobile from the 1960s and a few other cars like the Munsters cars all this probably before your time but he had somewhat of a reputation in the business this car that was sold to George Barris the car was eventually sold to a buyer in the Netherlands the same person who owns my super my old Supra what people don't know as Barris funkified the hell out of this car's interior and it stands today as a tribute to Barris as cluelessness in the tuner industry just look at the picture stunt one this was the exploded car the exploded car was resurrected and is now sitting in a lot in a museum in Las Vegas Nevada and it's it's pretty much the way it was after we put the fire out so it's pretty cool if you ever get a chance to see it stunt - this car was actually repainted blue and refitted with a bow mechs kit for too fast too furious I was tasked with redoing some of the cars from the first movie to reuse in the second movie so we painted over them we had to change the body kits change the wheels and all that sort of thing so this was one of the cars stunt number three was repainted candy red and the same thing a bone mechs body kit different wheels different exhaust and reused too fast too furious my car is now in Rusty's Museum in Tennessee the buck car the car that we would have used for mounting on a gimbal to do action shots with the whereabouts of that car unknown the Mik rig car the car that was cut up and used for this sequence where Brian is running from the cops with Dom in his front seats the whereabouts of that buck are know presumably Dennis McCarthy still has the car so let's also talk about one of the topics that people approached me about every week I could get probably ten emails a day about this people want to talk about building replicas hey Kraig can you help me out to build a replica can you give me a parts list and all that other kind of stuff so let's talk about building replicas for just a second well that's a great idea there's something you need to consider many of the companies have made these parts are long long since out of business or the parts have long been since discontinued essentially this means that your only option is to buy the parts that exist for these cars and are already out there in the marketplace but nearly all of them are being used on existing replicas builders of these existing replicas have spent thousands of hours researching the right part numbers and scouring the internet globally for available parts don't expect anyone to give you the full list of parts and part numbers it's not going to happen why because many of these people are still trying to find some of these parts for themselves it's also worth noting that this car wouldn't be cheap to build figure 6,000 for the car then you add headlights body kit wheels which are impossible to find tires the old stereo components from 1999 which you can only find them used they're discontinued seats that are discontinued doing a proper paint job and molding the body kit on the car the interior fabrication work making a custom roll cage which is not an easy task a proper suspension kit to mimic what was in the movie suspension which was to knobby stuff so that stuff's not cheap I don't even know if they make it for that car anymore Carbon hood harnesses and all the other little bits you're gonna looking at probably thirty five thousand minimum and that's only if you can find all the parts now speaking candidly I've seen many of these replicas personally most are cosmetically similar but really aren't accurate that's not a bad thing it's just a reminder that you'll have to truly figure out how far you want to go and how far you can afford before you undertake such a project in the end the Eclipse is in was special to many people because it was representative of the tuners scene at the time it wasn't the fastest or most exotic tuner car at the time but it was good-looking and it wasn't a Nubble that's why it'll always be a fan favorite thanks for tuning in to everybody I hope that information helps you and keep watching see you next time [Music]

Channel: Craig Lieberman

Views: 385,892

Rating: 4.9165773 out of 5

Keywords: the fast and the furious, paul walker, vin diesel, craig lieberman

Id: 0XcnbLdjBUE

Length: 9min 28sec (568 seconds)

Published: Sat May 05 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/TappedOut182]

Craig just did an interview with John Lapid who owned the Eclipse. He explains why he bought the RS, etc.

Craig’s videos are fascinating because he talks a lot about all the behind the scenes stuff and openly mocks a lot of the dialogue in the movie (specifically 3 stage nitrous, the danger to manifold, etc).

That being said back then Hot Import Nights and the like were about show, not go. That’s where these cars came from.

[u/HankSteakfist]

You owe me an 18 second car

[u/RamblingMutt]

Next your going to tell me that putting a huge wing on a fwd car that has basically no other aero won’t improve its 1/4 et

[u/spongebob_meth]

Yep,

So most of the riced out "tribute" cars are true to form since they're usually non turbo shitboxes.

Its a sad day when a GSX gets that treatment.

[u/phosfluorescence]

First few Fast and Furious were so bad they were good. Plus, they were the first car movies for people who liked imports, besides early movies like Cannonball Run. Come on, a movie in the early 2000s with Supras, Skylines, FDs? Many people knew nothing about these cars at that time. It didn't matter they got so much wrong. They had celebrities from the scene like RJ DeVera, Tsuchiya, etc. There was shit for import fans, muscle car fans (charger, lightning), Euro fans (that weak Jetta), non car fans (Ja Rule? IDK). First movie to even pretend to cater to import fans.

[u/Frigg_off_MrLahey]

They added sounds from a Turbo Honda for the Eclipse scenes in post lol. There is also a scene where they pop the Eclipse hood and you can see the 420a N/A engine and header without a turbo.

[u/ch4rc0al_5]

Wasn't the Skyline in the movie just a kit car with a Volkwagen engine?

[u/Tools4Tyler]

Lol, at 5:55 did he talk about about that guy?

[u/lsjunior]

This guy is doing a entire video series about the cars from the movies. How they ended up with the cars and picked them. He was a consultant for Universal and they used his Supra as Brian's car at the end. He had small cameo as the flagger at race wars.