Five years have already passed but motorcycle enthusiasts are still talking about the bikes used in the Mad Max: Fury Road movie. Post-apocalyptic films like the Fury Road are always known for their lifeless environment and the scarcity of something is always the main issue. In Fury Road, water and fuel is the reason why they brought their battle in the desert riding on highly modified vehicles.
The art of adventure and motorcycle riding go hand in hand. The level of freedom and excitement that can be felt on a ride compares with very little out there in the world of travel and transport, so it’s no surprise that motorcycling has been the subject of many films over the years. Travel films are no exception – they tap into the consciousness of riders who are curious for more – always asking questions and always wondering ‘where next?
Mad Max: Fury Road is probably the best movie featuring a wide array of motorcycles. It was also considered the best film according to many movie critics. With the score of 97% approval rating in Rotten Tomatoes, it was considered one of the all-time greats when speaking about action movies.
Before Mad Max: Fury Road, there had been a number of movies featuring two-wheel vehicles. There was a 2004 The Motorcycle Diaries which features Norton 500, a 2008 One Week, 1969 Easy Rider, and a lot more. But the 2015 Mad Max is a totally different thing. It features a lot of different rides that are unidentifiable and highly-modified and in this article, we are going to know what these vehicles are.
Interestingly, before we go on with the lists of the motorcycles, take note that most of these motorcycles (except for custom), are available for sale at Zecycles.
Bikes have always played a major part in Mad Max films, and this latest Mad Max movie is no different. Starting with Max Rockatansky’s cruiser (the main character played by Tom Hardy), he was given his motorcycle by the Vuvalini women, fully loaded with supplies as thanks for helping Furiousa and the 5 wives during their attempted escape from the War Boys and Immortan Joe. The chopper has some rather questionable upholstery draped all over it, but underneath all that gaudy tapestry is what looks to be a Yamaha R1!
While pursuing Max and Furiosa’s team, the bad guys were seen rowing on it appears to be Gas-Gas TXT250s and Yamaha YZ250Fs. Halfway through the film, they come across the Rock Rider gang in some narrow, rocky canyons and they all ride motorcycles based on MX and trials off-road dirt rides.
Other vehicles ridden by members of the other gangs were more suited to flat plain, high-speed desert riding. With extended hill climber swing arms, chunky tyres and boomsticks strapped to the back these desert sledges were based on larger capacity, heavily modified street scooters.
When Max and Furiousa stumble across the Vuvalini women out in the middle of the desert, most of them use tourers and cruisers from marques like BMW, Honda and Triumph, but there are also a few unexpected, high powered beasts amongst them such as Max’s R1.
To give their rides a more “feminine” look the movie designers then wrapped the Vuvalini rides in leather and added things like sails, trinkets and Persian rug offcuts. The Honda Goldwing they used even got its own feather tiara making it the envy of every leathery skinned, irradiated desert dame. The designers used some of the most unimaginable modifications just to make the vehicles more rugged.
Furiosa’s ride looks to be a BMW R80 engine in an R69 frame. Although it is heavily modified this is one of the more easily recognised rides in the film thanks to the prop designers taking advantage of how cool the airhead engine looks in its original state.
Although the movie was released 5 years ago, not all motorcycle enthusiasts watched it so if you haven’t seen it yet, I really suggest you take time to watch it and identify the highly-modified motorcycles they used.
There are too many bikes but not all of them were closed-up so it’s really hard to identify unless you know someone from the movie production team.
The movie has also been an inspiration to cafe racer enthusiasts. Although not all bikes looked like cafe racers, most of them were heavily stripped of their original fairings and replaced with carpets, steel piles, and other unconventional materials to make the bikes look tough but naked.
No one knows if the filmmakers used and modified brand new bikes films rarely used brand new vehicles just to destroy them so we suspect most of these bikes were acquired surplus. There is also no information who or what garage modified the bikes.
The vehicles mentioned above are all available for sale at Zecycles so if you want to have a bike that looks like any of those in Mad Max: Fury Road, you can get one through Zecycles, have it modified and then boo, you have your own Mad Max: Fury Road chopper.
Modification of the motorcycle is not really that hard especially if you have something to emulate. But the big question is, will the modified bike be street legal? Of course, you can use it offroad but it would be a waste of time money having a bike that is not road worthy.
