Sung Kang is one of the most popular actors in the Fast and Furious movie franchise, and there is hardly a petrolhead who doesn’t know him. Cape Town showed up in numbers to welcome the star with the coolest cars this side of SA, and he loved it, writes News24 Motoring editor Janine van der Post.

Cape Town car culture is still alive and revving, even long, long before the Fast and Furious movie franchise gave birth to a new generation of petrolheads. But if you know Vin Diesel (Dominic Torreto) and the late Paul Walker (Brian O’Conner), you’ll know Sung Kang, the actor who plays the cool, snack-eating character known as Han. Best known for his role in Tokyo Drift, Kang has become an icon in his own right.

While the Gas Motorshow International 2026 is the main reason Kang is in South Africa, he is also here to promote his soon-to-be-released film, Drifter, his directorial debut, in which he also stars as the character Tree.

The film, which is scheduled to be released later this year in December, is a drifting-focused action drama, which he also co-wrote, and it features a hero car, the LS3-swapped Toyota AE86 named Lola.

Kang says the story follows Tree, a lonely janitor at a racetrack in a forgotten desert town, who possesses a natural talent for drifting but struggles with a tragic past. Given a chance to compete in a professional drifting event, he must learn to connect with others and trust his mentor to transform his raw skill into a collaborative, high-stakes performance.

About 20 years ago, the Cape Town car scene was already buzzing for decades before that, too. Whether you were a youngster tagging along with your dad to watch racing at Killarney, illegal racing at popular street venues, or participating in sound off or show and shine competitions, our parents and even their folks were doing the same sort of thing in their time, whether it was spinning at Indiana, the “blou dakkies”, or going to the now-non-existent stock car racing oval track in Kraaifontein. On the eve of the 2026 Soccer World Cup, which was about to kick off in Mexico, local petrolheads showed up in droves at the Gas Motorshow’s Cape Town leg of the national tour on Wednesday night, to show that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

The City of Cape Town was deeply involved in getting this leg of the national tour, with Sung Kang as the star of the show, off the ground. However, many joked that City of Cape Town mayoral croyal committee member JP Smith probably attended to take down car registration plate numbers to target motorists at the next event.

But we forget, before taking up his day job, even Smith was a young car fanatic. Regardless, the City of Cape Town has long been involved in local car culture to curb lawlessness, and, honestly, it’s good to see them trying to work together with car enthusiasts for safer events that everyone can enjoy without breaking any laws. For that, we’re thankful.

I genuinely felt like a youngster again, bumping into underground car scene friends from two decades ago, as if it were last week’s hottest car club park off back then. And the eye candy in the vehicle department was impressive, too, although I’m not sure Kang even got to see most of it - and that’s all he wanted to do.

While Kang is the headline guest star at the 2026 Gas Motorshow International, organiser and founder, Harry Naidoo, told News24 Motoring that although Han was just a character, Kang was a petrolhead through and through, and expressed that he wanted to visit Johannesburg and Cape Town since it was his very first visit to South Africa.

“So, I spoke to my team, and we made it happen and came up with a national tour for him.”
According to Naidoo, the scale of the motor show is so massive that it takes him and his staff an entire year to plan the logistics and the show line-up. So, even though the event is this weekend, he is already planning how to make the next one bigger and better, and already has some ideas and tricks up his sleeve for 2027.

More than 200 car enthusiasts, mostly from one of Cape Town’s biggest automotive brands, CapeStance, had arrived as early as 08:00 to park their vehicles for display at the event, which only really kicked off at about 17:00 for the public. When Kang arrived later, the frenzy was electric and it felt like a real-life car meet scene out of the Tokyo Drift movie itself, and that ‘Dom’ would arrive in his 1970 Dodge Charger R/T at any moment.

Kang’s team arrived about an hour before him to ensure everything was up to standard, and to set up a merchandise area and a spot for attendees to be photographed with him. The star later arrived with Naidoo, and they moved straight upstairs to the massive stage on the top floor, where well-known car scene MC Victor Pardal facilitated the engagement with Kang and the Cape Town crowd.

I was so moved that this megastar took questions from the audience before playing a teaser trailer for his film, Drifter. Naturally, as a journalist, I was going to take advantage of the opportunity, and my husband, who is an even bigger fan of Kang than I am, signalled to Pardal that I had a question. I asked Kang what he preferred between Weber side drafts (high-performance twin-choke carburettors designed for precise fuel metering and superior engine response, widely used in classic and performance vehicles) and ITBs (individual throttle bodies that are a performance intake system where each engine cylinder has its own throttle valve, improving airflow, throttle response, and high-RPM power). I also told him that I knew his dream car was a 1968 Ford Mustang Fastback, and why he didn’t own one yet.

Kang was very impressed by my technical questions and knowledge of his preferences, and the interaction became very rewarding. I was talking cars for a good couple of minutes with one of the coolest petrolheads on the planet – bucket list stuff.

He then said to the crowd about my questions: “That is a true enthusiast, thank you for such amazing questions. She really knows me!” He then teased my husband when my husband shouted that we watched videos of Kang every night. The star turned an innocent comment a little sideways, but it had the crowd laughing with him, and us. Even though he was responding to me and really addressing the crowd at the same time, I will keep pretending it was a private conversation.

About his dream car, Kang said it was just that, and that he was keeping the Fastback a dream so he would never stop chasing it.

So for now, he trawls Facebook Marketplace, just checking out cars for sale and haggling a price, even though he has no intention of buying one just yet.

After receiving a couple of gifts from show attendees on stage, Kang moved back downstairs to take photographs with fans and sign some merchandise. The line of people looked endless, snaking right around the second floor of the three-story parking lot in Granger Bay, where the event was held at the V&A Waterfront.

Besides the insane crowd interaction, the thing that impressed me the absolute most about Kang was just how approachable he was with the crowd.

And really, who doesn’t want to meet and take a picture with “Han” from Tokyo Drift: Fast and Furious? That man stood for more than a good hour, taking photo after photo with fan after fan, and the twinkle in his eyes and smile on his face never faded once.

When he eventually took a short break in the hospitality area, where we had just done some interviews with Naidoo, he could take off the character mask for a few minutes as he took a moment to rest and compose himself again. His cheeks must have been aching by then.

I watched this man in awe. Much later that night, when I got home and went back to watching more of his videos, I found a recent viral interview of his on social media in which he said something really profound.

“We’re being programmed to hate each other, to look for our differences, to look behind their shoulder and go, ‘that guy doesn’t want me here.’ We feel like we don’t belong anywhere, right? We’re being programmed to think like that.

“It’s super depressing and always gets me down personally, but when you go to a car event, and you come to this. You go to a car meet, and there are people from all walks of life. Right now, I’m sure everyone has different political ideologies and religions, and wherever you’re from is where you’re from, but when we come in here, we’re brothers, we’re sisters, and we’re uncles and aunties, and you know, like we are really a tribe. Right?

“It’s so important because we need each other. We need this beautiful experience together just to be able to roam around, and you’re talking about this car and that car.”

That was when the connection I had felt with him, from the moment he had spoken to us, finally made sense.

Han might be a character, and so is Tree, in his new movie, but Kang is a true petrolhead, and he resonated with the car enthusiasts of Cape Town so much.

Just as he had in Johannesburg, and as he will at the main event this weekend in Durban at the Gas Motorshow. It’s no wonder he’s one of the favourites in car culture all over the world.

The Gas Motorshow International event takes place on 13 and 14 June outside the Suncoast Casino in Durban. Tickets, ranging from R300 to R1 500, can still be bought online at Webtickets, or at Pick n Pay stores for Sunday. Saturday’s tickets are already sold out.

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