2 Fast 2 Furious - Production

Production

Neither Vin Diesel nor director Rob Cohen returned for this film, as they worked on xXx at the time. Ja Rule, who also appeared in the first film, turned down negotiations to appear on this film to pursue other projects. Originally, Tej was to be played by Redman, however, because of schedule conflicts, the part was given to Ludacris.

The Skyline GT-R driven by Brian was actually Paul Walker's personal car, which he himself customized for the movie. It sustained a ruptured oil pan and severe damage on all four rims from the bridge jump, but in a matter of hours, the car was in good running condition with the parts replaced. He had personally chosen all the racing cars in the movie. The stunt when Brian powerslided toward the crowd after winning the first race was actually performed by Paul Walker himself, convincing the producers that he could do it after practicing for days....

Some of the cars in the film were reused from the first film, most notably Slap Jack's Toyota Supra and Orange Julius' Mazda RX-7, which were repainted versions of the first film's cars fitted with new body kits. For Slap Jack's Supra, the hood was fitted with a Lexan panel to show the engine underneath. To cut down on costs, stunt doubles of the car had photographs of the engine pasted under the Lexan panels of their hoods.

For the bridge jump, all of the cars except Suki's Honda S2000 were fitted with roll cages. As the S2000 is a convertible, it was fitted with a remote control and a dummy in the driver's seat.

As the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VII was not available in the U.S. at the time (VII was not sold in the U.S until February, 2003), the stunt doubles of the car consisted of regular Lancers fitted with EVO body kits and the engines, while the original was shipped to the U.S from Japan.

The yellow Dodge Viper SRT-10 seen during the audition race was originally painted red and was among the first batch produced. Four were lent to the production crew on condition that they mustn't crash. They were repainted red before they were returned.

The Saleen Mustang that crashed during the audition race scene under a Semi was actually a Ford Mustang V6 fitted with a Saleen body kit (because the Saleen version costed over $60,000). The subsequent crash involving the Chevrolet Corvette C5 was not planned in the script.

The house used as Verone's mansion was owned by Sylvester Stallone at the time, and it was just used for the shots of both the exterior and the interior of the house, as the mansion was borrowed for only two days.

Devon Aoki did not have a driver's license (just a driver's permit) or any driving experience prior to the film's production (except driving a golf cart), so she took driving lessons during filming from the professional teachers, first learning pure driving, then stunt driving.

The scene in which the Camaro was launched on the yacht was pre-recorded. With the shot of the blast shoot on dry using a crane, the yacht was rented, and because the yacht's value was over $5,000,000, they removed the parts of the yacht, replacing them with plastic parts. The car was also filled with foam and launched from an improvised pad into the lake as the shot of the jump, and the actors were filmed on green screen.