This is basically what you want to have in the end of this guide. Most of the info is based on my own experience, and do not expect me to make you pick a certain car or do certain moves, do not expect a "ho-to-tune" guide or anything else. There are alot of guides for that already. My main focus is waht to do to gain 100%.

This is where you should start. If it's a fresh start of the game, having bonus cars can help during the rest of the game as they all are added to your garage after you unlock them. If not, then you have to do that anyway, so...

There are five bonus cars in the game:

1. Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VII GSR
   
2. Toyota Sprinter Trueno
   
3. Mazda RX-8 Mazdaspeed version
   
4. Mazda RX-7 Type-R Bathurst
   
5. Nissan Skyline GT-R M-Spec Nur

The 1 Is gained by beating an Arcade Mode Checkpoint in hardest difficulty.
2, 3 and 4 are unlocked for beating Arcade Mode Iron Man in each difficulty.
The last one, 5, is unlocked after you beat the game.

The next step is obtaining all the girlfriends. Getting them is a pretty easy task and you shouldn't have any problems doing so. Just a reminder: Respect Challenges are unlocked by dominating in Crew Meets events. You will have 100% in this category at the end of the game normally.

This is where misleading starts.
You unlock videos by dominating any Crew Meet event with a girlfriend. So make sure to get one first, and do not forget to Hook Up with her in The Warehouse. Each girl except one, Angelica, has 3 videos, 1 is unlocked by default. So you need to take each girl to races twice. And you don't need Angelica as she has only one video which is unlocked by default.

Desert Sanctioned and Storm Drain Sanctioned do not unlock videos.

As simple as it goes, you need to win every race out there.
Even though it's not as easy to do as it seems to. You need to max out respect at pretty much every race possible to have enough of it to get to the last event.
And this is hard. This is really hard. First of all, you need a really fast car that can drift much. Then you need to practice straight line drifting. It can be achieved at a certain angle (around 90 degree, lol) with RX-7, so practise that.
In races take every opportunity to gain respect. Fly high, drift long and do wheelies. Once you get to 250pts mark try to not crash as this will remove some points from your "bank".
In races that involve straights, well... you're screwed. You should either do them normally, or use this little tactic I came up with:

• Let everyone pass you on the start line.
  
• Start drifting crazy on straight in attempts to gain 250 respect
  
• Go fast and pray to catch everybody up

In Team Nemesis there is one drag-like race which is almost impossible to max out. In that race you should not let your rival pass you, but block him while continuing to drift.

I will repeat that: you don't need to max out every race, but most of them. So if one event just doesn't work for you - skip it. And then get back to it later if needed.

Making this 100% will also unlock the Skyline GT-R.

This is the most misleading part of the entire game.

There are 10 Street Challenges in this game. And the progress bar says 0/20. Cool, huh? And when you drive challenges, they will soon stop at a certain progress and then never increase.

Ok, so what you actually need is to defeat 20 racers in challenges.
What rival you get is RNG, and it is also based on your car's HP. In total, you will need 4 cars:

1. A car with low 100hp (110-150)
   
2. A car with around 250hp
   
3. A car with aroud 400hp
   
4. A car with 600+ hp

Keep racing challenges with one car until you won't face any new rival, then switch to another one. If done properly, you will defeat all 20 rivals. You can alway respawn a rival by declining the challange and teleporting to it once again.

This part is also misleading as hell, plus it takes alot of money to do, so keep that as the last task you will do.

Remember those bonus cars you got from completing the arcade mode and the game? Sell them.
Yes, have no doubts about that. First thing about this progress bar - it does not count those cars. Second thing - you do not have to own every car. You just need to buy it once, then you don't have to keep it in your garage. So, after you sell your bonus cars, you need to buy them again.

Long story short: you need to buy every car once, then the game doesn't care. So the best option is to buy car, sell car, buy car, sell car and so on.

This section is made for those who want to go from 0 to 100. It does not involve much technical descriptions, it only describes how to get to 100% faster than you would with simple playthrough. I will also write abit about cars you should check out and take to race.

• Mazda RX-7 - great for gaining respect, but horrible to control since it's RWD. Good option to grind for points if every other car just doesn't work
  
• Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution - fast and light, can go sideways. Might be useful for the entire game.
  
• Subaru Impreza - pretty same as Lanevo
  
• Nissan Skyline GT-R - extremely fast and stable because of heavy body. Can't be used to grind respect, but can beat every single enemy out there no problem.

Right after you get your first car, exit Street Mode and go to Arcade Mode, unlock all the bonus cars. You can use them right after you unlock them.
Start with sanctioned events. Especially if your car can't slide, power off, drift and so on. You don't need to max out respect at those events.
Everything else goes below.

So, the career starts. FIrst thing you want to do is get a girlfriend. Any available one.
Then, hook up with her and go race. Win two race series and go get a new one. Continue until you run out of girls. Remember that two events do not unlock videos.

This part is hard to optimize only because of Respect points you need to get in every race. The only hint here is to try to max out respect at every single race, which might be hard at some point. But try harder and you will eventually do that.

There is no need to take challenges untill you make races 100%. So it is wise to leave this section to the very end of your playthrough.
I reccomed to take Theatre Run challnge because it's really short and can speed things up.

There is really no way to optimize that. You need alot of money to buy every car, so the only real hint is to sell cars right after you buy them. It is also wise to leave this part to the very-very end of the playthrough, making this the last task you do.