Given some of the crazy events of the past few years, it wouldn’t be too far-fetched to imagine the world devolving into a state resembling something out of a Mad Max film. That’s what made Todd Allsop’s concept catch our eye. His idea was simple: What would Max Rockatansky’s Pursuit Special Interceptor look like if it were based on today’s Mustang?

First published in the June 2022 issue of Street Machine

Being such an iconic car, it’s hard to imagine the Interceptor as anything other than an Aussie XB hardtop, but as it turns out, the movie car was initially set to be based on an early Mustang. But because the car had to be fully functional and driven hard for the film, parts needed to be readily available, so the Mustang was swapped out for local metal instead. This had the added bonus of being much kinder to the film’s bottom line, given that just $20,000 of the modest $350,000 budget was allocated to props and vehicles.

There were many approaches I could have taken to this brief, as so many different versions of the Interceptor have appeared in the various Mad Max movies thanks to wear and tear, crashes, modifications and the like. I opted to base this new Interceptor around the iconic features of the original coupe as shown in the first and second films, adding a few modern aftermarket components and custom details.

Starting with a stock FN Mustang GT, I first added the Interceptor’s most prominent feature – the GM 6/71 blower with Weiand front cover and Scott injector hat – to the ’Stang’s 5.0-litre Coyote V8. Zoomies with flared polished tips were added to match. Re-routing the exhaust through the zoomies rendered the back portion of the exhaust system redundant, so some sheet-metal strakes were added in the large holes left in the rear diffuser.

For the rolling stock, the el cheapo Sunraysia wheels just had to stay, as well as the BF Goodrich radials. Crappy fourbie steelies may seem an odd choice for the Interceptor in the first place, but given the tight budget for the first film, the builders of the original car had to settle for the least-expensive stuff they could find. “They were the cheapest pieces-of-shit steel wheels we could lay our hands on!” explains Ray Beckerley, one of the Interceptors’s original designers and builders.

With the mechanical features sorted, I moved on to the body modifications. Replicating the original flares and spoilers wasn’t quite going to suit the Mustang, so I modelled some custom flares, drawing inspiration from a few modern aftermarket options. While there are plenty of aftermarket side scoop options for late-model Mustangs, I was hard-pressed to find one that didn’t interfere with the new flares, so I designed a custom unit with a scoop insert reminiscent of those on the Falcon hardtops.

When it came to designing the front end, there’s no modern-day equivalent of the Peter Arcadipane-styled Concorde panel van to base it on, with most customisation of new Mustangs being confined to aftermarket components and bolt-on aero. Just slapping the Concorde front end on the ’Stang wouldn’t look right either, so the stock grilles were switched out for Roush Performance units, and R-SPEC fascia corner pockets were added. The Mustang’s chrome headlight details were also re-finished in gold as a nod to the headlight covers of the original Interceptor.

To finish off the aero package, I then created a roof spoiler, shaped similarly to the original but carrying through the roof’s swage lines and adding a shallow notch in the top edge. The rear wing is based on a Liberty Walk S550 unit, with some slight modifications to the corner pieces.

With ‘guzzoline’ being such a precious commodity throughout the films (and coinciding with the recent real-life hysteria around fuel prices!), the new Interceptor just had to be fitted with extra fuel tanks. Based on the fit-out from The Road Warrior, the rear glass and bootlid were removed and the parcel shelf and boot channel areas cut away for the two extra tanks. It goes without saying that cutting into those areas wouldn’t help the Interceptor’s structural integrity, so, inspired by the car’s internal rollbar in The Road Warrior, I developed that idea further to make a half-rollcage, with bars extending out through the rear window opening and tucking away either side of the fuel tanks.

If the world does collapse into madness one day, I know what I’m building!

IN DETAIL:

• Extra fuel tanks
• Roof spoiler
• Zoomies
• Half ‘cage
• GM 6/71 supercharger and Scott injector hat
• Sunraysia wheels and BF Goodrich tyres

Got a cool idea for a build that you’d like to see brought to life in Expression Session? Email us at [email protected] with a detailed explanation.