Ford goes Mad with Interceptor concepts
BY MIKE COSTELLO | 30th Mar 2011
The company says it will turn one of the two designs, penned by designers Nima Nourian and Simon Brook in an after-hours project at Ford’s Victorian styling studio, into a scale version later this year. A magazine reader poll will determine which design makes into the flesh.
Australian film director George Miller – who created the Mad Max franchise with the original low-budget Mad Max film in 1979 – is currently trying to make on fourth instalment, reputedly starring Hollywood A-lister Charlize Theron.
Filming has been postponed for several months after unseasonable rain turned the semi-desert location near Broken Hill, NSW, into green fields.
“Unfortunately for Mad Max, what was wasteland is now this wonderful flower garden,” Mr Miller told The Daily Telegraph in Sydney.
It is unclear if the winning car will appear in the movie, although Mr Miller said all the vehicles needed for the film had already been built.
The first Mad Max pulp action movie, set in an future outback wasteland as world oil supplies ran out, launched the Hollywood career of star Mel Gibson, who drove the evil looking, matte-black XB Falcon-based Interceptor in the movie that was filmed, like the latest instalment, around Broken Hill.
Revealing the two fresh Ford designs, Ford’s Asia, Pacific and Australia design director, Chris Svensson, said: “Our entire team was very excited to be involved in this after-hours project, and they approached it with a great deal of enthusiasm – even those that were too young to remember the first Mad Max movie."Both designs incorporate an arsenal of weaponry perfect for laying down the law in a futuristic, apocalyptic wasteland.
Mr Nourian said: "There are some great scenes in the first movie with high-speed chases and clashes with the bad guys, and I thought I'd take that one step further.
“So instead of having weapons and machine guns, we've got an industrial strength taser that'll zap cars dead and out of the way.”Brook’s rival design is equipped with inner-wheel spokes that can pop out and shred the sides of other cars.
"They'd do some serious damage to other people's vehicles," he said.
