SEO optimization might do wonders for marketing. But if you're even remotely involved in the aftermarket automotive space, there's no better good PR than a proper custom car build. That's why even if Meguiar's car care booth at the 2024 SEMA show could've been a display full of squeeze bottles, they decided to bring two entire restomods to the show.
We've already seen this 1959 Chrysler 300 with a modern HEMI drivetrain swap drop at this year's Detroit Autorama. But across the booth on the other end sat another, equally impressive restomod. Some might argue, this R34 Skyline GT-R tribute vehicle to the 2 Fast 2 Furious film is even more jaw dropping. If you didn't know any better, you could've been fooled into thinking this is the genuine movie car.
This illusion is all thanks to the work of Mickey Andrade and his team at throtl, the San Diego-based restomod team. With over 800,000 followers on Instagram, throtl is one part aftermarket parts retailer and one part restomod garage with several notable builds behind them. Back in 2018, Meguiar car care reached out to the throtl team to use their products in a number of their short-form social media videos. From there, the shop started building custom rigs on a part-time basis for Meguiar's online marketing campaigns.
Typically, Meguire showcases its SEMA builds in one of the parking lots outside the Las Vegas Convention Center. But the gravity of what the throtl team achieved with this movie tribute made its spot inside its cozy confines feel deserved. As Mickey sat down with us at SEMA, the pride he took in his work was on full display as he explained the finer details. "It's actually not a GT-R, it's actually a GT that converted to a pseudo GT-R," Andrade said of his most recent build. Had he never spilled this secret, we'd have believed that this was the same car Paul Walker was driving around back in 2002.
"It's an ER34. I tunneled the front frame rails to fit axles and the floor plan to fit the transfer case. We've actually outfitted a full four-wheel-drive drivetrain underneath a car that wasn't meant to have it. So, pretty special and a lot of fabrication went into doing that," Andrade went on to say. "We had a special engine built that makes about 1,400 horsepower over in Australia, so there's a lot of that theme going on in this build." More than a few Aussie brands have pulled serious weight in supplying high-quality parts for this build. As the undisputed kings of the GT-R aftermarket, this should come as no surprise.
Photo: Benny Kirk/autoevolution
With a billet aluminum engine block, forged internals, and two massive turbos to back up a sizeable bottle of NOS, we're shocked the hood doesn't shoot off the rest of the body when maximum boost is applied. Mixed in with all the Aussie parts is a fair amount of interior and exterior trim provided by Nismo Parts USA. Vital exterior body panels specific to the R34 GT-R's timeless classic look would've been dearly missed had they been omitted. It all goes towards building a tribute vehicle that has all the looks of Brian O'Conner's boy toy racer but a very different use case.
"All in all, it's a drag car build that we use to tribute 2 Fast 2 Furious as though the movie were made today, what the car might look like, and what parts might get used. This crate engine's very special, it's the first one out of their factory, and making north of 1,200 horsepower is very impressive," Andrade said of the uniquely American application of a JDM icon. "We're looking maybe 7.90s or 8.00s in this car at the drag strip [quarter mile]. It has a two-speed Powerglide transmission and a Platinum Racing 8.8 bolt-in differential, and it's a full billet unit. New driveshaft, new axles, fully built to go fast, and it's exciting."
Did we mention the entire, from start to finish, was stripped down, put together, and made to run just in time for SEMA in just nine days? Might be burying the lead a bit there, but to pin down the significance of a custom build to how quickly it was built seems rather out of place here. As a true-to-form tribute to a cinematic icon and one of the most famous movie cars of this century, the throtl team did such a fantastic job we think Paul Walker himself would be proud.
Add on a drivetrain and aftermarket goodies in line with the spirit of SEMA, and this build made sure the Meguiar booth at this year's show was nothing short of sensational. For a shop that builds around 18 custom rigs a year, throtl closed out 2024 with their best one yet.
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