Ford Mad Max Interceptor Concept

Concept Cars 31 Mar 2011

TopGear Australia has teamed up with Ford Australia’s design team to create a vision of a new-generation Interceptor vehicle concept for movie franchise Mad Max.

TopGear Australia magazine has asked the Ford’s Australian design team to create a new Interceptor, the iconic car used by Mel Gibson in the first movie, directed in 1979 by George Miller.

This partnership celebrates the revival of the Mad Max franchise, marked by the filming of a new episode announced in 2009 by director George Miller himself.

Ford Australia’s Melbourne-based Asia, Pacific and Australia Design Director, Chris Svensson commented “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. We had a special screening of the original movie so they could understand it.”

Led by Todd Willing – Ford chief designer passenger cars Asia, Pacific and Africa – the team created several concepts that pay homage to styling cues from the original Interceptor, that was based on a jet black Ford XB coupe.

The proposed works were created by a group of designers that included: Nima Nourian, Simon Brook, David Dewitt, Max Tran, Nick Eterovic and Sven Delcour.

Among the different entries, TopGear Australia has selected two designs, created by Nima Nourian and Simon Brook, chosen for their visual strength, technology and weaponry.

These concepts are featured in the April issue of the magazine, and will be voted by readers in an online poll.

The winning concept will be turned into a clay model and then a scale model, expected to be revealed later this year.

Mad Max Concept by Simon Brook

Simon Brook‘s design takes inspiration from the current FG Falcon, combined with elements taken from the rétro Interceptor – such as the squared wheel arches and the two tank covers in the back – from the car used in the second episode – which in this case store plasma for the car’s turbines.

He commented: “I tried to imagine a future landscape where vehicles are created from older models (like the FG) and modified for purpose.”

“I wanted to keep it clean and aerodynamic in its essence, but still brutal and tough.”

“During high-speed pursuits, the wheel’s inner spokes on my design would pop out and start ripping up other cars,” Brook said. “They’d do some serious damage to other people’s vehicles.”

Mad Max Concept by Nima Nourian

Nima Nourian‘s first inspiration for his concept came from the stealth fighter planes and from some elements of the original car, such as the side extractors.

Eventually he decided to move on: he added a titanium-lined body shell capable of interrupting police scanners and replaced the machine guns with an industrial strength taser that could easily “zap cars dead and out of the way”.

He commented: “It has futuristic feel but also has some visual cues of the bars and the (Perspex covered) lamps they used for the original car. It also doesn’t have a bumper, because in Mad Max II there was no front bumper.”