Walker had a collection of 25 to 30 cars, many of which are kept and
serviced at
Always Evolving on Constellation Road in Valencia owned by his childhood friend Rich Taylor. There's some BMW E36 M3 lightweight specials, really rare stuff, he says. An E30 M3, of course. His favorite car, a Nissan S15 Silvia, almost unseen in America. An R34 Skyline GTR comes as no surprise, yet it's not
thatone. A Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution that was shipped from Europe. Not, in fact, overnighted from Japan.
"Does Paul get annoyed when people quote lines from the movie at him?" we asked Taylor.
"Yeah," he said, "if you go up and say hey, what's up, that's fine. If you just shout lines at him, then it gets annoying."
Walker raced in the
Redline Time Attack Series in a BMW M3, until the series folded in 2011. Three years ago, he championed a Mazda Miata with Motorsports Enterprises Racing at the brutal 25 Hours of Thunderhill, his first wheel-to-wheel race. "It was pissing rain all weekend," he said. "Couldn't see anything. You had to use The Force." He mimicked driving with his eyes closed, sticking a right foot out. Team MER overcame a differential and two transmission swaps to take a victory in the E1 class. Walker "displayed the quick and consistent speed of a veteran racer," said
an MER press release.
Standing trackside at Willow Springs, the dust subsided, and then, those magic words: "You guys want to drive?" He hopped in the yellow LFA with Rich, Gushi leading in the CCS-R. We rode shotgun with Matt D'Andria, co-host of
"CarCast with Adam Carolla" and the only other journalist here. They started half a lap ahead of us around the Streets of Willow, and with every new lap the yellow LFA inched closer and closer to Gushi, barreling up the straightaway into turn one at 120 mph.
"Hey, he passed Ken!"
"Did he really?" D'Andria glanced out the side window.
"Mhm."
"Oh, you know he's not gonna shut up about that."
No surprise there -- the CCS-R has a stock IS F engine, at 416 hp, while the LFA packs both 136 more hp and the adrenaline-fueled misgivings of
Brian O'Conner. He's a good driver, said Gushi, and he definitely had fun out there. After his session, Lexus wired him up with a microphone to ask him a very simple question: what did you think of the car?
"We featured one in 'Fast Four,' or
'Fast Five,' " said Walker. "Loved it. Now I'm just trying to figure out how to manipulate Lexus into lending me one for, like, two years."
"Sure thing, Paul," we imagine a Lexus rep musing quietly to himself. "We'll lend you the black one. But if you wreck it,
you owe us a 10-second car."
