The 10 Coolest Mad Max Movie Vehicles And The Cars They Used To Build Them

The "Mad Max" franchise is one that is very much focused on cars. Set in a post-apocalyptic dystopian future where bandits and marauders wreak havoc in the wasteland of Australia, the only way to safely get around is in modified cars that are way ahead of their time when it comes to weaponry and brutality. These modded out cars lead to incredible action sequences and some of the most impressive movie car stunts ever put to film as the various factions of the wasteland fight it out across different movies.

The vast majority of these vehicles are bizarre hybrids cobbled together from wrecks and spare parts that the characters find on their travels. That means that it can be difficult to tell exactly what real-life cars they are based on, especially when they are also covered in spikes, saws, guns, and flamethrowers.

Here, we have looked at some of the coolest vehicles from the first "Mad Max" to the more recent "Mad Max: Fury Road" to find out exactly how they were put together and what cars were used in their construction.

The vehicle known as BigFoot in "Max Mad: Fury Road" is essentially a classic 1940 Dodge Fargo, one of the most reliable pickup trucks of all time, mounted on a monster truck chassis. The vehicle is the primary mode of transport for the villain Rictus Erectus, who acts as the secondary antagonist in the 2015 film. Like its rider, BigFoot is bulky, muscular, and incredibly tough. It boasts a flamethrower as well as a harpoon gun, is decorated with doll's heads, and can hold up to three people. It is partially destroyed during Erectus' pursuit of Max and Furiosa in War Rig when it flips during the chase.

A monster truck seemed like the only logical choice for a character 7 feet tall — production designer Colin Gibson described it as "the only vehicle capable of climbing a fallen mountain." However, picking the right vehicles for Bigfoot was not an easy process. "I had to sit through a couple of monster truck exhibition shows, which are among the most tedious things in the universe," wrote Gibson on Shortlist. "A bunch of guys doing circles, for no apparent reason, and then driving over some already pre-cut dead cars. We ended up hiring a father-and-son team in Australia."

That father-and-son team are Monster Truck Masters. The pair allowed the filmmakers to borrow two of their monster trucks, Shattered Silence and Stress Factor, each clocking in with over 1,000 horsepower and 454 Big Block Chevy engines. Shattered Silence is based on a 2012 Dodge Ram body, while Stress Factor is a modified 2005 Holden Crewman.

The War Rig takes a starring role in the 2015 film "Mad Max: Fury Road," where it is driven by Furiosa (Charlize Theron) both in her role as an Imperator and as a savior when she returns to the Citadel after escaping from Immortan Joe permanently. It is a truly huge structure, almost 80 feet long and made up of a cabin and an 18-wheeler fuel pod. Containing dozens of weapons and able to survive attacks from practically every enemy in the movie, the War Rig is one of the fiercest vehicles in the entire series.

Partly inspired by the John Wayne Western film "Stagecoach," the War Rig was created by melding together several different vehicles. The very front of the War Rig is a Tatra T815 Truck, although the cabin was moved further back to give the vehicle a more pronounced engine and bonnet for a more stylized appearance. It went through more than three dozen revisions, including showing the vehicle in various stages of damage. The second part of the cabin was built from a Chevrolet Fleetmaster, a car that makes an awesome lowrider. It was chosen because it was common enough to be available for multiple builds of the vehicle.

"We had to build four of them and therefore needed eight of a particular vehicle from the '40s or '50s to give me a hot rod look that I could actually find for real," said Colin Gibson to DJFood. "Enter the Chev Fleetmaster, a ubiquitous hulk rusting in paddocks all across our wide, brown land."

The Caltrops are a series of vehicles that show up in "Mad Max: Fury Road." They include a 1971 Dodge Charger in the form of Caltrop #1 and a Nissan Skyline R32 known as Caltrop #2. Both are beat up, covered in rust, and don't have a significant part in the events of the film. In fact, they can largely only be seen in the background as part of Immortan Joe's armada as it leaves the Citadel in pursuit of Max and Furiosa. However, Caltrop #3 plays a more prominent role and even has a name — the Cranky Frank.

The Cranky Frank is similarly ragged and damaged, but also looks much more savage and imposing than its cousins. It wasn't created for the film. Instead, it was the work of a father and son duo in Australia, who created the car in their spare time and later sold it to the filmmakers for use in "Mad Max: Fury Road."

This rat rod was then heavily altered by the production staff, although it is still recognizable as the Holden FX Ute that it was originally based on. Parts of a Holden FJ Utility were also used in the construction and a Chevrolet V8 supercharged engine was added to give it a bit more power. The lowered roof and central position for the steering wheel and seat made driving the Cranky Frank difficult and many stunt drivers were allegedly unwilling to jump into the driver's seat.

The People Eater is a former ally and advisor to Immortan Joe who acts as the brutal mayor of Gas Town and a secondary antagonist in "Mad Max: Fury Road." A former businessman, the character can be seen wearing a fancy suit and his vehicle matches his attire. The People Eater's limousine is essentially a classic limousine mounted on a truck. Compared to many of the other cars in the franchise, it doesn't have a lot of weaponry, with just a single machine gun above the cabin, but it's usually protected by several other vehicles escorting it. Ever the businessman, the People Eater makes use of the limousine as a mobile fuel refinery that can supply other vehicles in the wasteland.

The cars involved in the construction of the People Eater's limousine include a heavily modified AM General M814 Cargo Truck and a Mercedes Benz W123 Turbo Diesel. The structure was held together with a metal frame intended to represent a horizontal fracking tower on 12 wheels. The Mercedes cars were artificially lengthened by cutting them in half and adding panels before they were mounted on the rig. Speaking to DJFood, production designer Colin Gibson explained: "With the People Eater chassis, I was lucky enough that a wedding company closed down and their pair of old Mercedes stretch limos were up for sale, cheap. So, they became him. And then we did a little lattice cut-out instead of windows.

The Buzzards are a group of seemingly Russian bandits that operate across the wasteland. Violent and bloodthirsty, they drive a variety of vehicles, from small cars all the way up to the terrifying Buzzard Excavator. The only thing that they have in common is that each vehicle used by the Buzzards are covered in spikes, making them look almost medieval. This, along with the mounted saws, makes them an imposing and deadly weapon to any enemies they come across.

The Buzzard's vehicles were not intended to be beautiful or particularly well-designed. Director George Miller wanted them to be cheap and nasty, looking as if they had been put together quickly without much thought. The Buzzard Excavator was created from a MAN 6x6 truck along with a real-life excavator that was mounted on the truck bed. Out of the 5,000 spikes created for all of the Buzzard vehicles, the Excavator used up 1,757 of them.

"We used bent and battered steel panels," Colin Gibson said in an interview Business Insider. "All the spikes and panels were built out of old cars. But the stunt guys expressed some concern about rolling them at high speeds into rocks, so I had to replicate a couple where the steel spikes were stiffened goat skin which buckled and were less dangerous."

The Peacemaker is unique in "Mad Max" for a number of reasons. Firstly, it is one of the few cars that uses tracks rather than more traditional wheels. It is also built from a muscle car, giving it a distinctive appearance. The property of the Bullet Farmer — another ally of Immortan Joe, and leader of his own faction — it proves useful in the tracking down of the War Rig. It is able to help remove a blockage so the rest of the pursuers can move forward and manages to get through a swamp thanks to its tracks when other vehicles are bogged down.

Another way that the Peacemaker stands out is that it was custom built by a third party. The main part of the vehicle and its tracks are a custom made EV1 (Extreme Vehicle One) from Howe and Howe. The same EV1 design was used in the 2013 film "G.I. Joe: Retaliation." On top of the ripsaw tank is the chassis of a 1970s Chrysler Valiant Charger, with various aviation parts stuck to the body to give it a shark-like appearance, with Colin Gibson telling Jalopnik "we strapped some leftover sections from a Cessna up front." The vehicle also makes use of a water-cooled Merlin V8 engine.

Let's be honest, anyone who watched "Mad Max: Fury Road" will certainly have remembered the Doof Wagon. This huge vehicle contains a hefty collection of booming speakers and features a guitar-playing bandit with an instrument that doubled as a flamethrower. Lacking in weapons, the Doof Wagon is more like a mobile morale booster, blasting out music to inspire troops and terrify Immortan Joe's enemies on the battlefield.

To carry all of that equipment, the Doof Wagon needed to be made from a sturdy base. The production crew repurposed a decommissioned 8x8 MAN KAT 1 missile-carrier, an eight-wheel drive truck designed to launch rockets and missiles. The engine was swapped out with a supercharged V8 to give it enough power to move at the necessary speed. Iota, the singer and musician who stood atop the Doof Wagon as the character known as the Doof Warrior, even confirmed that his guitar genuinely shot out fire, and he could control it with the whammy bar.

The strange sound system is made up of large speakers and subwoofers. "We built the stack with the last 60 Marshall speakers in the world," Gibson wrote on Shortlist. "[We] connected them to the front of one truck, and then used a whole lot of air-conditioning ducts from old buildings as the resonator boxes for the drums."

In the Business Insider interview, Gibson noted that the speakers were almost always playing music, so much so that "some of the actors could barely hear themselves act." 

First appearing in "Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior," the Snake Truck is a red vehicle with a giant snake painted on the side of the car's body. Used by the skinheads, it plays an important role in the first sequel, where it is used to torture members of the Compound, as well as pursue Wes and the Mack Truck. During this sequence, the vehicle is badly damaged when it is hit by a tanker, although it manages to drive off into the distance to fight another day.

A Ford F-100 truck was used to create the vehicle, a car that features prominently in several "Mad Max" movies, including in "Mad Max: Fury Road" where it forms the base for the Tyre Medic vehicle employed by Immortan Joe's forces at the Citadel. This model had its windshield removed and was replaced with one from a speedboat, giving it an angular appearance. The production team also lowered the truck bed by cutting out sections to provide enough room to add the weapons at the back.

Additional headlights, roll bars, and other accessories were also added as modifications to give the vehicle a distinctive style. The Snake Truck seemingly survived the filming process, something of a rarity given the dangerous stunts that take part in, but is not in a good condition. It has simply been left to rust without any care and is no longer in working condition.

The Bullet Farm faction drives a number of vehicles known as the claw cars. These include cars made from custom International Utes and Ford F250 tow trucks, equipped with a variety of weapons to make them formidable machines of war. The Ploughboy is one of these claw cars, but it also has a more practical use, with a plough to help search for lead and bullet shells that have been discarded in the wasteland to manufacture into new weapons. A powerful harpoon also means that it can capture enemy vehicles or tow allies to safety.

The Ploughboy is made from a classic Holden EH wagon, although some sources suggest the vehicle is also based on the similar 1961 Holden EK Special Station Wagon. However, it has been cut away from its original base and instead fastened onto a off-road frame more suitable for travel across the wasteland. Among the many cars used in "Mad Max: Fury Road," this one wasn't discussed much by the production team, so there's little indication about what kind of modifications they made and what kind of engine powers the car.

Arguably the most iconic vehicle from the "Mad Max" series is the Interceptor — otherwise known as the Pursuit Special. Offered to Max by his bosses at the Main Force Patrol as a way of trying to convince him to stay in the police, he later steals it to exact his vengeance on the motorbike gang that kills his wife and child. The Ford Falcon is used throughout "Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior" and also makes a brief appearance in "Mad Max: Fury Road."

The car itself is based on a 1973 Ford Falcon XB GT coupe, not exactly one of Ford's most ionic models. The car was originally intended to be a futuristic vehicle with stylized spoilers, but this idea was dropped when it became clear that replacing parts would be difficult. Instead, the production staff purchased several cars at auction, one of which would become the Interceptor. The teammodified the car to add a Concorde front as well as a supercharger sticking out through the bonnet.

Only a single Interceptor was built for the first film in the series and it was put up for sale after the conclusion of promotional work for the movie. Yet, the team acquired it once again when work began on the sequel, and altered it further to give it a well-worn look. When it came time to film the fourth film in the series, director George Miller and production designer Colin Gibson put together a new version of the Interceptor, which was promptly destroyed in the opening scenes.