Ford and Top Gear Australia tinkering with new Mad Max Interceptor Concepts

A lot of us were too young to remember this movie, but for those that had a chance to see George Miller’s Mad Max movie, you might have caught sight of Mel Gibson driving around in a Ford Falcon XB GT351 Interceptor. Thirty-two years after both Gibson and the Interceptor became Hollywood royalty - well we’re going to use the term royalty loosely with Gibson considering his latest personal antics -, an Australian group headed by Ford and Top Gear Australia magazine is in the process of developing two new concept studies of the Interceptor, or as we should say, a present-day take on Mad Max’s bad-ass ride.

Ford Australia formed a group of designers headlined by Todd Willing, the company’s chief of design for Asia, Pacific, and African passenger cars. Led by Willing, the team conceptualized and designed a number of design studies using the original Interceptor as the basis for their creations. In the end, the two best studies – designed by Nima Nourian and Simon Brook – were chosen for the next stage in the decision-making process.

The two designs will then be featured on a future issue of Top Gear Australia where readers will get the opportunity to vote on their preferred design, which would then be turned into a full-fledged scale model that’s scheduled to be revealed later this year.

Is this a case of nostalgia or a marketing ploy to drum up interest on what appears to be the fourth chapter of the Mad Max franchise, tentatively titled “Fury Road”? We can’t say for sure that both items are connected to each other, but it is a little coincidental, to say the least.