These are some of the lead vehicles among what Car and Driver magazine says are “150-or-so lunatic machines conceived by production designer Colin Gibson.”During my freshman year at Georgia Tech, I was astounded to witness the Ramblin’ Wreck parade, an honored Homecoming tradition. Fraternities and other student groups turned automotive junk into bizarre, mechanized art.
As imaginative as those rolling creations were, I’d say the rambling wrecks don’t hold a candle to the vehicles customized by production designer Colin Gibson in “Mad Max: Fury Road.” It opens in theaters tonight and Friday.
As with the two previous “Mad Max” flicks, these vehicles are primed for chasing and fighting in a barren, postapocalyptic landscape. So they’re sporting plenty of bad-ass touches, like the skulls decorating a converted tanker.
The movie’s website says this of the tanker rig: “Mutant lovechild of semi-trailer and hotrod, twin V8’s end-to-end, 6 wheel-drive, eighteen-wheeled Leviathan charged with the barter of fluids and firearms … a beast of war as much a beast of burden.”Car and Driver magazine offers a comprehensive review of that truck and other lead vehicles. Writer John Pearley Huffman identifies that “War Rig” tanker tractor as “a six-wheel-drive Tatra semi powered by two supercharged V-8s … The semi cab seems to have been extended with the rear half of a late-1940s Chevrolet sedan.”
Huffman notes that a Mack R-series tractor tanker was a key vehicle in “The Road Warrior.” In “Fury Road,” Mack takes a bow with an R-series wrecker.
The movie was directed by George Miller, who also made the first two in the series. It’s getting excellent reviews. Check out the trailer and (following the trailer) photos and more.
The movie’s website says this of the Mack: “Like the rest of the fleet Mack is a heavy-duty recovery vehicle not immune to the call to arms and hell-bent on hurling harpoons and a hail of bullets.”
