The video presents a historical overview of the company MotoRex, showcasing its role as the first and only legal importer of Nissan Skylines to the US in the late 1990s. It uses a montage of archival footage, including news reports, promotional material, and an interview with Paul Walker, to highlight the company's success, the desirability of the cars, and their high performance. The narrative builds a picture of a company at its peak, celebrated in media and pop culture, before its eventual downfall.
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In the late 1990s, Hiroaki “Hiro” Nanahoshi founded MotoRex in Gardena, California and built a business around doing what seemed impossible at the time: legally bringing the Nissan Skyline R32, R33 and R34 into America years before they qualified for the 25 year rule. MotoRex went through crash testing and federal compliance work, and for a brief moment they had cracked the code.
Then Hollywood called. MotoRex employee Sean Morris brought R32s and a white 1995 R33 Skyline GT R to the casting call for The Fast and the Furious. Universal painted the R33 yellow and it became Leon’s car, played by Johnny Strong, later nicknamed “Big Bird.” Paul Walker never owned that R33, but he met the MotoRex crew around this period and became genuinely obsessed with GT Rs. He later bought a silver R34 GT R from MotoRex, borrowed their famous Blackbird R34 and eventually owned a white R34 GT R V Spec II.
They were on top of the world until it all came crashing down. NHTSA investigated MotoRex and found false conformity statements for 17 Skylines. On February 15, 2006, MotoRex lost its Registered Importer license, and shortly afterward federal eligibility for the R32 and R34 was pulled, leaving only certain 1996 to 1998 R33s eligible. MotoRex collapsed and Hiro was arrested amid separate criminal investigations.
Even Big Bird didn’t get a happy ending. The actual yellow R33 from The Fast and the Furious was later seized in Wisconsin over its import and VIN situation and crushed in 2012. One company helped create America’s Skyline obsession, put the GT R into the orbit of Fast and Furious and Paul Walker, then disappeared almost as spectacularly as it arrived.
Transcript
Since 1998, MotorX was the first and has been the only company in America to import Nissan Skylines into The US and make them legal for street use. Hey. What's up? I'm Paul Walker from the movie The Factory Three. Vlad Motor X, and put me in a Nissan Skyline r 34. Motor X currently stocks and sells numerous models of the Skyline, including the r 32, r 33, and r 34. Good morning. Hey. Listen. If you visit your Nissan dealership, you won't see these cars, but you're gonna wanna see them because they're straight from Japan and they're so, so fast. Ready to be sold no. So these are faster than, like, BMW m three's and Mitsubishi 3,000. And for those of you that are laughing at this car, it beat the Porsche nine eleven Turbo yes up high speed by eleven seconds Wow. And set a new record. Wow. So taking a look under the hood here That's gorgeous. You see we've got the twin cams. Oh. MotorX offers all Skylines in the GTS for rear wheel drive, single turbo version, and of course, as an almighty twin turbo, all wheel drive GT R. And we tier importing the Nissan Skyline GTR, and that's our primary business, yellow GTR. That's actually years gone fast and furious. And you see the yellow Skyline, that's exactly the cut. It's $9,090,000 dollars. Only 90. Okay.
