A movie-loving petrolhead has spent $125,000 to create his dream car – the Mad Max Interceptor. Michigan born Dale Walter, 50, fell in love with the powerful vehicle when he watched George Miller's seminal film over thirty years ago in a tiny theatre, where he told his friend 'someday I will own that car'. The famous car has featured in three of filmmaker Miller's four pictures, including the latest Mad Mad: Fury Road, starring British actor Tom Hardy in the title role. In 2008, Dale commissioned specialist company Mad Max Cars to convert his 1972 Australian Ford Falcon into the iconic Interceptor – a process which took five years and $125,000.
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MotorTranscript
00:00You can shut the gate on that one, Maxi. It's the duck's guts.
00:21Over three decades ago, 50-year-old Dale Walter from Michigan set his heart on recreating
00:26one of cinema's most iconic cars.
00:29Mad Max is one of my very top favorite movies of all time. And when I was sitting there
00:34in the theater and they rolled out the car, the scene in the garage, where they first
00:38show it to him, I turned to my friend and I said, someday I'll own that car. And he
00:42said, yeah, right. Well, 30 years later, I sent him a picture of me next to the car.
00:47Just so bad. I mean, just such a bad car.
00:51But to build the replica of the Police Interceptor, which has so far featured in three films from
00:56the Mad Max franchise, Dean first had to get hold of an Australian Ford Falcon.
01:02I flew out to Washington to take a look at it. And when I first saw it, I remember saying,
01:06I have never paid more money in my life for a bigger piece of junk.
01:11Undeterred, Dean paid over $120,000 to convert the 1972 Falcon into a convincing Mad Max
01:20Interceptor.
01:22And this is the heart of the car. That is a 351 Cleveland. It's 450 horsepower. It was
01:31built by Proformance Engineering. We spent $12,000 on the engine alone. My favorite thing
01:36about the car is probably the engine sound. I considered putting a stereo in it, but that
01:44engine note off that 351 stroked the 390 is just so choice that I just like listening
01:50to it.
01:51The steering wheel is the Max Robb steering wheel that was used in the movie. And you
01:57can see in the shifter, it has the lever to turn on and off the blower.
02:02One of the interesting things about the car that I get asked all the time is, is the blower
02:05real? And no, it's not. Because if you remember in the movie, he would turn on the blower,
02:11which is the big scoopy thing to get more power to the car. A real blower can't work
02:16like that. The way a blower works is it's forced air induction. And if you turn it on
02:20and off, you would probably blow the bottom out of your engine.
02:22So the way this one works is it's on a magnetic clutch. When I pull the lever, it spins up
02:27the blower, just like in the movie. If you notice here, it has the RVS radio, just like
02:33the one in the movie had. And what Mad Max car would be complete without your handy dandy
02:41double barrel shotgun? So we have a replica of that here because these are really legal
02:46even in the United States.
02:48One of the other features of the car is it does have a movie accurate siren.
02:58It also has a movie accurate horn.
03:01And like the car in the movie,
03:07we have a PA system as a police car would.
03:10Hey, you, stop. Hey, you know you're a turkey.
03:15Like Goose says in the movie.
03:18When I first saw the car after it was rebuilt, I was absolutely stunned. Absolutely stunned.
03:23It took them five years to do this, but the wait was worth it.
03:28Well, you've seen it. You've heard it. How about we go for a ride?
03:36The Interceptor always turns heads, even on the highway.
03:43You get all kinds of odd looks. You get either, that car looks familiar or people whose eyes
03:48light up and they go, that's the Mad Max car.
03:52I think it's great. It was a great movie. It's a great tribute to the car.
03:56I didn't see it first. I heard it first.
04:01The car's pretty cool. I think the car's awesome, actually.
04:04Brings me back to when I was a little kid watching a movie for the first time.
04:08And the car's also attracted the attention of some other Mad Max buffs,
04:12who are keen to get their hands on the wheel.
04:15I get asked a lot of times, would I sell the car?
04:18The car is pretty much priceless to me at this point.
04:21Of course, there's always a price.
04:23If somebody walked through the door with $25 million, I would pretty much hand them a car.
04:37You know, this was such a dream for so long, 30 years,
04:41to now be sitting here behind my own Mad Max Interceptor. It's pretty cool.
04:49But for all its big screen bling, Dean's Interceptor does have its downsides.
04:54I often wonder how it would fare in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.
04:58And I think not so well, simply because it gets about six miles to the gallon.
05:06And you could tell in the second movie Max added those huge tanks.
05:10There's a reason for that. This thing sucks gas like it's going out of style.
05:14So for that reason, not so well.