How did you become a fan?

[Biker]

I'm currently emailing with a mate here who asked me to describe how I got interested in Mad Max. He then told me about his experience and it was pretty interesting reading. So I thought I'd open it up to discussion here. Maybe it's been done to death already but we've got a lot of new members here so it'd be nice to hear from them too.

Mine began in '79 I had been riding bikes for just over a year and was still screaming about on a moped when Mad Max came to our local cinema. My Dad and I had always been good friends and he suggested we go an see it together, just for the fun of it we rode in on my bike. 2 hours later I rode home from the cinema feeling like The Toecutter. I was hooked, saw it a couple of times before it was replaced by something else. A few years later MM2 was released but by then my Father had died of cancer (at 45) and it was left to my younger brother and I to see it together, I'm sure my Dad was with "his boys" that evening in spirit. MM2 blew me away, I still get a tingle when the camera pulls back fom the blower and the action starts. Mr Miller is a cinematic genius is all I can say.

Mad Max worked for me on so many levels, it was nothing like any films I'd seen before, or since. It has a such a great memory for me about seeing it with my Father... MM2 began my interest in post apocolyptic cars bikes and fiction of course, it gave me an interest in survival skills and trying to live a simpler life style, continuing to learn new skills and to rely on myself to fix a situation rather than other people to do it for me. Eg: If I have a problem with my bike, I'd learn to fix it myself (within reason of course) rather than take it to a garage. My brother's idea of servicing his bike is polishing it. He even takes his Honda CBR600 to a garage to have the oil changed!!

I can't really begin to list how many other ways the Mad Max films might have influenced me.

Sheesh I sound like "I got religion" anyway, suffice to say, I'm glad I'm not the only one who is such a fan of these films and can talk about them here.

Thanks for reading, now tell me how you got into it.

Biker

[Big Bopper Bart]

HBO showed Mad max 2 or The Road Warrior as its known in the USA back in 1982 and I remember watching this movie and being mezmorized and this feeling came over me like one would when they held the bible up and shouted to god allmighty.While I already had a HUEG lust and almost fanatical craze over cars,Mad Max 2 was like a spiritial release for me.I often wear t shirts with the sleeves cut off of them and have always becuase of the movie.I've done some crazy totally unsafe shit with cars becuase of the movies.driving at 140+ mph in a rusted 78 Trans Am.blowing the 5.0 in my moms 93 Cougar becuase i wanted to recreate what it looked like in the openining scene of Mad Max two when you see the yellow lines blur into on in the highway.primering flat black my 77 F100 and sawing off the muffler and have a buddy of mine spray bomb a cool skull on my hood.the roar of and engine especially one with 8 cyls in V formation is like a drug to me.

[HUMVEE Driver]

I think I saw The Road Warrior on a TV special in '82 or '83. I was only about 9 years old, and I was hooked on the cool cars, the makeshift weapons and armor, and the hero in black. The classic idea of using a Mack (the king of tractor trailers) truck for the ultimate juggernaut vehicle at the end made an impression, too. Whenever my family would go to rent some videos, I would always hold out for The Road Warrior so I could see it yet again. Imagine my surprise when one day at the store I noticed they had Mad Max. At that time, I didn't know that The Road Warrior was a sequel. Just like that, I had whole new post apocalyptic movie to watch. Same thing when Thunderdome was released. Now, here we are, some 23 years later, and it seems we may be getting Mad Max 4. Its been a long, fun journey...

HUMVEE Driver

[XA351GT]

I saw adverts for Mad Max on tv and my buddy Dean and I being motorheads loved anything with fast cars so we went to see it. Being 16 and on the verge of getting my drivers licence and big loud black car( my fav on cars for their menacing look) and a huge blower had me hooked at 1st site. We were so jacked after the movie that we had Dean's Astre (Pontiac's version of the Chevy Vega ) going as fast as the little 4 banger was worth all the way home. I like many of us drew the car from memory as best I could . We sat there debating what the hell they did to build the car. At the time we had settled on a 70/71 Torino body with a 71-73 mustang front end and whole lot of fiberglas. Funny is as focused we were on the outside of the cars we hadn't noticed the cars were RHD until Max was shot in the knee. This goes to show how caught we were with the US car scene we had no idea that Oz made their own cars or that they were into US styled musclecars we had thought they were more like Europes little sport cars. This car stayed with me and it took 20 years but I was able to grab the real deal . I had told Dean that I'd have the Interceptor some day and he was like" yeah sure". So when the XA arrived I called him up and asked him to stop by. The look on his face was classic when he saw the XA . he said " how the hell did you get that" .
It was to my total surprise that I was not the only person in North America that had the same idea and had been so totally hooked by a car. To quote Barry Meguiar "That's Car Crazy" . As my car was on the water I made contact with Mark Scarselli and found he felt the same way and also had a car enroute. Then I found that my car was shipped over with a Interceptor I was totally stoked and then found that the owner was moving to the east coast . Mark, Dave Boboc , john Flannery and I drove out to see this car of our dreams . It was almost a religious experience pulling into Charles ' driveway and seeing what I dreamed about for 20 years. That said none of this would have been possible without THIS WEBSITE !!!! THANK YOU PETER,I know we don't say it enough but you have enabled me to have my dream car.

[Big Bopper Bart]

And what an XA you have Tommy.plus you got your folks into Aussie muscle as well as they have a n XB right? I can't wait to hear how Scar got into the Mad Max thing I mean the dude looks like Max so maybe it was fate

[Suede]

I first saw the road warrior on USA or some such channel in the very early 90s, love at first sight. This whole automotive riddled, post apocalyptic genre fit perfectly into what i dug. Not long after id sawed off the muffler on my suzuki dirtbike, made an expansion chamber, painted it o.d green and added a swap meet streetbike headlight off a god knows what to it.

Years later im still here, purposefully yanking glass out of my daily driver cars, welding expanded steel over windows, stripping all the "factory extras" out of them, painting every damn thing in camo or flat blacks. Adding offroad lights and brush guards.. Maybe this movies screwed me over a bit. but ive had a lot of fun. Years of offroading streetcars, tearing them up and apart.

I was one of those bastards hoping y2k wouldve sent us back into the stone age, or at least into the mad max age.

[Big Bopper Bart]

Suede,bro the only thing thats skrewed ya over is the resale value of your vehicles LOL Hell I'll prob be doing something Mad Max to my 08 Dodge truck or purposly driving it through the woods to 'christen' it up a abit

[Biker]

Suede wrote I was one of those bastards hoping y2k wouldve sent us back into the stone age, or at least into the mad max age.

Guilty

LOL!!

Would have been fun too... at least the first few weeks, before the horrific reality set in

[Big Bopper Bart]

I can see it now if that shit really happened,
Dr.Dealgood: Skills,what kind ya got?
Biker: umm...hmm I can draw really good and I got a razor sharp wit......
crickets churping

[Biker]

Enter tumbleweed as well from stage left LOL!! Nice one Bart.

"Razor sharp wit"? Why thanks! Waves to the crowd, trips and breaks neck due to swollen head.


Now sit back and just wait for the thread wreckers to appear.

...any second now...