No, you are right... The Skyline isn't a rice car, its even worse!!! Its a NEW expensive car that looks like a crappy car.
The people in CA are much different when it comes to cars than anywhere else. What you drive is 10x more important, which I think is lame of course.
There is certainly a "Fast and Furious" type crowd and they for the most part are almost as hardcore as the kids in the movie. I actually know a lot about it because I dated a girl whose live revolved around racing her supercharged Supra, which I may ad I thought was a piece of poo. She ruined it with all kinds of little lights, wings and other plastic. I thought her friends were the Napoleon wannabe club. They were ALL insanely little guys, all races but mostly white. In fact they all thought they were Eminem also, which you can imagine, didn't mix well with me. They had the guns, which I guess they thought made up for their height. One of them even put a gun to my head when I told him how much I liked banging that chick I mentioned (I guess he liked her or something).
I drive a 99M3. I bought in new in 2000 but I am going to replace it soon.