The "Mad Max" films are famous for their wild and rebellious-looking vehicles. The motorcycles, especially, that feature in the movies are the hardest to ignore. In "Mad Max: Fury Road," over 47 custom bikes were built from scratch inside an abandoned Sydney bus terminal. The design that these bikes featured couldn't be found in the showroom models. Instead, they featured found materials that had been cobbled together and designed to look like the rides from a post-apocalyptic world. They were even
dubbed "bitsers" by the crew, which refers to a vehicle constructed from small bits and parts from multiple models or scrap metal, welded into something barely road-legal but a perfect fit for a movie like "Mad Max: Fury Road."
Interestingly, the foundation for many bikes came from Yamaha pre-production models. Especially the FZ1, R1, WR, YZ, and Tenere 660. Long swingarms borrowed from American hillclimb bikes further gave many of them a stretched-out look. Some bikes, like the Sand Dragster, were heavily modified Yamaha YZF-R1s with stainless-steel paddles and chunky off-road tires for the Namibian dunes where the film was shot. In keeping with the film's rough survivalist theme, a few bikes even featured horse saddles instead of traditional seats and were further adorned with weathered bags, skulls, feathers, cloth, and spare gas cans.
Read more: Every Motorcycle Keanu Reeves Owns In His Stunning Collection
The Most Iconic Motorcycles From Mad Max
Among the craziest motorcycles from "Mad Max," Charlize Theron's Furiosa rode a stripped-down BMW flat-twin known as the Beemer Bobber, and the bike was equipped with ski-fitted forks to survive harsh terrain. As for stunt riding, she often used a YZ250F. It was a lightweight Yamaha dirt bike with a 250cc engine, which Theron could handle easily thanks to her previous riding experience. Star Tom Hardy, on the other hand, couldn't ride a motorcycle — he doesn't even drive a manual car, bike coordinator Stephen Gall told Australian Motorcycle News — so his scenes were performed by a double using a variety of disguised R1s.
The Rock Riders relied on Yamaha YZ450s, one of the most legendary Yamaha motorcycles ever made. It was customized for high-speed jumps and off-road chase scenes in the movie. To enhance the safety, rubber-molded seats were swapped in for the original steel ones during jumps.
One standout motorcycle was the Bare Bones Belter. This skeletal YZ450F was fitted with a second (non-functional) fork up front for an aggressive profile. Meanwhile, the Tenere 660 Desert Sled carried three riders in a dramatic push-start scene and showed the engineering extremes the crew went to for authenticity.
Other Iconic Motorcycles From The Mad Max Series
Director George Miller's love for motorcycles in "Mad Max" goes back to the original films. For instance, the 1977 KZ1000 that Goose (Steve Bisley) rides was customized with La Parisienne fairings. The Z1000 that the villainous Toecutter (Hugh Keays-Byrne) rides, on the other hand, was one of 13 bikes modified for the film and embodied an unpolished outlaw style. In the same way, Wez's (Vernon Wells) KZ1000 in the sequel, "The Road Warrior," was modified with a kangaroo hide seat and stripped of bodywork to create a brutalist, geometric look. That bike drew inspiration from the Suzuki Katana and was built to handle intense stunt work.
Similarly, in "Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga," the legacy continued with fresh innovations for its most motorcycle-heavy installment yet. Dementus (Chris Hemsworth), the film's villain, rode a radial-engine chopper built around a rare Rotec R2800 aero engine. It was one of only six ever made by JRL Cycles. Dementus also commanded a triple-BMW R18 chariot with over 270 hp, controlled by leather reins. BMW even officially supported the production by supplying the matching bikes to the film. Every motorcycle was tailored to reflect the personality of the rider, whether it was a stripped-down dirt bike or a chariot powered by three engines.
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