We’re not celebrating Mad Max, we’re celebrating car design: TopGear Magazine
Ford Australia has partnered with TopGear Australia magazine to design a new Interceptor car based on the Mad Max series, but their initiative is not a promotional element of the franchise’s revival.
“Far from promoting the movie or cooperating with Kennedy Miller Mitchell, TopGear Australia magazine set out to circumvent their lack of communication. Basically, we asked if we could take some photos of their Fury Road cars, in some kind of massive world exclusive deal. They laughed, or snorted derisively, I’m not sure, and we thought ‘Stuff that, we’ll just design our own Mad Max car’,” editor Stephen Corby told Encore.
“Then we realised we weren’t very good at drawing and decided to ask Ford for help. Amazingly, they said yes. We’re not celebrating Mad Max, we’re celebrating car design,” added Corby.
Ford designers Nima Nourian and Simon Brook found inspiration in the original Mad Max vehicle – a jet black XB coupe-based Interceptor – to create several concepts that pay homage to the car’s body design, power sources and weaponry – taking it to a futuristic level with fetures such as a titanium-lined body shell to interrupt police scanners, wheels with extendable spikes to shred enemy vehicles, and an industrial-strength taser.
“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,” said Chris Vensson, Ford’s design director for Asia, Pacific and Australia.
The two new designs are part of a competition in which readers will choose a winner that will be turned into a clay model and a scale version.
“If Kennedy Kennedy, Swwwwwing, Kennedy Miller would like to get in touch and licence our designs, we’d be happy to help. At a price,” said Corby.
Directed by George Miller, Mad Max: Fury Road is scheduled for an August shoot.
The Nima Nourian design:
The Simon Brook design:
I just wonder why the Australian ‘film press’ (and unfortunately Encore is not the only offender) feature so many articles about Kennedy Miller Mitchell, arguably one of the most successful Australian production companies around (counted in awards, budgets, time in the industry or any other measure you’d like to mention) that have this snide, provincial tone about them?
The glee that’s palpable in cutting down our successes, whether it be Miller, Luhrmann or others, betrays a very small outlook and worldview. It is no wonder that our real talent drifts overseas. As an Australian who works overseas on films in both London and New York, I can tell you that this tone isn’t evident elsewhere, and this tone is the reason why I don’t work in Australia.
And why an Australian film magazine would report and support an American motor company and a British television franchise ripping off an Australian film’s intellectual property so unashamedly like this is beyond me, as to be completely baffling.
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Ben, reporting on something and supporting it are two very different things.
TopGear magazine and Ford sent out a press release that was reproduced by hundreds of media outlets. Based on that coverage, anyone would assume that KMM was involved in the promotion.
We were the only ones to investigate whether Kennedy Miller Mitchell had been involved in the project, and reported on the editor’s experience with the production company. It’s his words, not Encore’s. KMM did not respond our request for comment.