When the lights go down on the streets of America’s big cities, a thousand subcultures come out to play. But amongst all of them, none are bigger, louder, or faster than those who spend their nights drag-racing customised muscle cars through urban centres, stockpiling nitro-boosters and computer-controlled fuel management systems to see who can fit the most under the hood.

‘The Fast and the Furious’ infiltrates the shady drag-racing underworld through the eyes of young undercover cop Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker — ‘The Skulls’), who in true ‘21 Jump Street’ tradition, has been assigned to befriend the racers and find out who is behind a series of truck-jackings. The high stakes, ultra-high octane world depicted so frenetically in the movie, as big and loud as any you’ll likely see, is not as much of a fantasy as it seems, Walker argues.

‘Apart from the semi-truck jackings, this stuff really does happen,’ he says. ‘The after-market industry for these import Japanese cars has gone up 30 or 40 per cent, at least in California, since the release of this film.

‘I’ve contacted guys involved in that market, because we had a lot of them working as technical consultants, and they called me up dozens of times to say “man, because of your movie, we’re making so much money”.’

Walker and the film’s other young stars (Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez) needed to do a lot of their own driving in this film, as director Rob Cohen attempted to make a genuinely new car movie.

‘I’m a gearhead and I love cars,’ Walker says. ‘I had to do a bit of research with the Japanese cars, but cars are really one and the same. My grandfather actually raced stock cars for Ford, and ever since I was a little kid, I’ve been fascinated with them. I did a lot of my own driving — I had my own stunt driver, naturally, who made me look really cool.

‘A big part of the reason Rob decided to do this movie was that he had a vision of a lot of shots that were never really captured before on film,’ he continues. ‘When you think how many car films with great sequences have been shot over the years, such as Ronin or Bullitt, and you think that just about everything’s been done, Rob realised the only way he could do something original or different was to just have the actors behind the wheel.’

Walker worked with Cohen on ‘The Skulls’, and has formed a close relationship with the producer-turned-director (eDragonheart’, ‘Daylight’) and a strong desire to work closely with him.

‘He’s an asshole,’ Walker laughs. ‘I was really reluctant to sign on and do the movie, because I don’t really have a lot of experience yet, and just knowing that I was going to have second billing, I was really quite nervous. I actually told him at one point that I didn’t think I wanted to do it. Rob has a fatherly approach that I really appreciate and like. He’ll come up and put his arm around you and pull you aside and talk you through things.’

Of a slightly less harmonious nature was Walker’s relationship with co-star Vin Diesel (eSaving Private Ryan’, ‘Pitch Black’), as egos from opposite sides of the country collided.

‘It took us a while to feel each other out,’ he admits. ‘He’s pretty intense and he takes his job very seriously. Initially I really didn’t know how to take him, and I was a bit concerned going in because it was a “hot cast”.

‘But Vin and I are getting along really well, and I think the reason it took a while is because he’s unlike anybody I ever grew up with. I’m extreme West Coast, and he’s extreme East Coast. The only guys I ever knew like him were the guys I saw in the movies.’

As well as competing with the egos of the other stars on ‘The Fast and the Furious’, Walker also had to compete with the real stars of the movie — the imported supercars flying around the set like rockets. For the race scenes, the producers needed to call on the help of the fanatics who were more than eager to show off their customised rods.

‘The principal cars were actually modelled after real cars,’ Walker says. ‘Those other cars were owned by the general public — they did a lot of research and advertised the filming of this import car movie in all of the import car magazines. It said to come and meet us on the Universal lot, and we’ll interview you and take a look at your car. Kids turned out in their droves, and they turned away so many. They had the pick of the litter.’

Paul Walker has found himself with a lead billing only a few films into his career, which seems to be speeding faster than a souped-up Ducatti with nitro injections, and ‘The Fast and the Furious’ is big, loud, and exhilarating in a way that other recent car chase movies (like ‘Gone in 60 Seconds’) have utterly failed to be.