9/20/2023 0 Comments Mad max carIn its reincarnated form the car had gone full badass. Well, that meant they needed their damn car back. And maybe more than one. The first movie was a storming economic success. So much so, that it spawned a sequel. In much of the world, it was called “Mad Max 2,” but some stateside marketer had a little more imagination, and christened it “The Road Warrior.” Further unbelievably, nobody wanted it. It was like missing buying Microsoft at $6 a share. They didn’t have enough money to pay everyone, so they gave the car as payment to one of the mechanics. He, in turned, tried to sell it. Given the perspective of hindsight, it’s mind-boggling what happened to the car and the end of principal photography of the first movie. It got a black treatment, a Monza front end, some honking rolling stock, eight side pipes (of which only two were functional per side), and a survive-the-wasteland interior. Then they took it to an outfit called GrafX that did the mods. They started the process with a white, production run car with a 351. The production team originally wanted Mustangs, but found it far cheaper and easier to use Australian Falcons. How cheap were they? The movie crew used it for daily transportation for simply getting around. Would have been a sight to see in the drive-thru. Everything was pushed to the economic edge. The legendary supercharger wasn’t purchased - it was borrowed from a Top Fuel team and, at least in the first movie, it was totally non-functional. Indeed, the choice of the car was itself an economic compromise. Today, an action/adventure movie can go solidly into the triple-digit millions, but they did it on an astonishing and paltry $400,000 Australian. He starts it, with a roar of eight rocker exhausts and the whine of the supercharger. He tells Max that he put it together from “a piece here and a piece there,” while also addressing the cams, the fuel and the supercharger, and the fact that it puts 600 horsepower to the wheels. Max smiles. The mechanic concludes: “She’s meanness put to music and the bitch is born to run.”Īnd with that, this 1973 Ford Falcon GT XB enters movie history, spawning huge fandom, countless replicas, novels, comics and even video games. But nobody involved in making the original movie had an inkling that that was going to happen. The chief mechanic becomes delighted to be presenting Max with the car. However, the work turned it all the way up to 11. Besides its magnificent black-on-black, one of the most prominent features on the car is a Weiand through-the-hood supercharger with a Scott injector hat, and as the trio approaches the car, that setup dominates the visual field. And the car is truly something to see. It’s a Ford Falcon XB GT. That car, with the right wheels and tires, was already aggressive. They walk him through the MFP garage, lighting spotty, but enough to see a bunch of marked cars with hoods open, undergoing work, a near dungeon of horsepower maintenance. The head mechanic leads Max right to the Interceptor, along with support from another MFP officer. The Last of the V-8 Interceptors: The Volo Museum’s Mad Max Ford Falcon XB GT Not before they don’t offer him a severe sweetener to reconsider: A custom-built ride, alternately known as the Pursuit Special or the last of the V-8 Interceptors. In post-apocalypse Australia, the world has well and truly gone to hell. Deprivation, anarchy and outright barbarism are the order of the day. To the tiny extent that any forces of civilization remain, it’s the MFP: Main Force Patrol. They pursue and intercept the forces of death and destruction. The best and baddest one of all of them is Max Rockatansky, known for a cardio system that runs ice water instead of blood. But he’s decided to pack it in and quit the force.
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