Brian O'Conner (Walker), the disgraced cop from the first film, is on the run because he let Dominic Toretto escape. He goes to Miami to start a new life. Here he makes new friends with Tej Parker (Ludacris), an ex-street racer, and Jimmy, a well-known car tuner as well as Suki (Aoki), also a street racer. O'Conner is now known by his street name "Bullitt", and rules the streets with his Nissan Skyline, much like Toretto in the first film. He competes with fellow street racers in high stakes races to win money utilizing the skills he learned as a member of Toretto's now disbanded team.


One night after winning a race, he is caught by US Customs agents after his car is disabled by the fictional harpoon-like ESD (Electronic Disruption Device) that is deployed by US Customs Agent Markham (Remar). He is arrested and his former boss FBI Agent Bilkins makes a deal with him saying that if he accepts to take part in a mission, his criminal record will be wiped clean.
Custom Honda S2000 at the Petersen Automotive Museum with a Veilside bodykit


O'Conner and Bilkins then travel to Barstow, California where O'Conner proposes the deal to his childhood friend and ex-con Roman Pearce. Together their mission involves working undercover as street racers for a South American (Argentine) drug lord - Carter Verone (Hauser), with help from Monica Fuentes (Mendes), an undercover U.S. Customs agent who becomes Carter's love interest. They win a highly charged "audition" race and strike a deal with Verone, who stated, "Drive the package to the Keys and I'll personally hand over 100Gs($100,000) at the finish line". Roman Pearce requests that the prize be $100,000 each.


This leads to several scuffs and car sequences throughout the movie, along with some spectacular car races. During the course of the movie O'Conner and Pearce begin to realize the major trouble they are in and ask Tej to arrange a race for "pink slips" with two of the racers from the audition race earlier in the movie; O'Conner and Pearce win Korpi's 1969 Yenko Camaro and Darden's 1970 Challenger R/T.


Later on that night O'Conner and Pearce arrive at Verone's nightclub so Verone can torture a police detective named Whitworth into creating a "15 minute window" to keep the local police away from O'Conner and Pearce so they may transport the money. He uses a rat trapped in a heated container to scrape him. The next morning they embark on the mission in their Mitsubishis with Verone's money in the trunks and two of his henchmen riding along. During the transportation of Verone's money, the corrupt Detective Whitworth calls in the army of police units he has waiting nearby. During the chase they lead the police to a warehouse complex. The police surround the front of the garage area so O'Conner's and Pearce's street racer friends create a "scramble" diversion allowing O'Conner and Pearce to sneak away in the Camaro and Challenger to continue their mission and Brian allow Tej to drive his Evo 7 and allow Suki to drive Roman's Mitsubishi Eclipse Spyder.