In “Furiosa: from the Mad Max saga” the motorcycle is much more of a protagonist than in other installments of the franchise. It was released in theaters last week and, according to what the specialized media say, it is not working at the box office as expected. In fact, they describe it as an unmitigated failure, with revenue so low that it is doubtful whether it will be able to recover what was invested.
But far from entering into questions of film consumption, whether this sequel is aimed at the most fanatical, or whether it has been stretching the gum more than viewers were willing to accept, we are going to focus on the motorcycle of one of Their protagonists. We talk about Chris Hemsworth's motorcycle and the creation process they carried out.
Although we talked about it a while ago, the truth is that Hemsworth's motorcycle with a radial engine that comes from airplanes is still spectacular. But we also now know much more and all thanks to an interview that the RideApart colleagues have done with the person in charge of the film's vehicles, Laurie Faen and its creator, John Levey of JRL Cycles.
Thanks to this conversation we can discover all the details of the peculiar motorcycle and learn more about how the vehicles from “Furiosa: from the Mad Max saga” were created. One of the facts is that the engine and the bike itself come directly from Australia, like Chris. It is a 7-cylinder Rotec and the entire motorcycle was created from it.
Chris Hemsworth's motorcycle in Furiosa existed since 2010
The curious thing is that the motorcycle already existed, it was not made expressly for the film, and it had been dancing around Canada and different shows, but it was completely unfinished. So they took it and continued working with it against all odds. It was Laurie who contacted John because the motorcycle was not in order, and from there they began to carry out all the work that resulted in the motorcycle that we can see on the screen.
And everything had to be adapted to the style that was required, making mechanical changes… and, at the same time, checking that everything was working correctly. Especially when the gearbox was added, a work of art.
The changes also reached the cycle part, where they had to vary the angle of attack, so in the end they took the bikes to a track to see how it behaved. Not only Chris's motorcycle but the rest and, especially, that Roman-style car that carries two BMW R18s as if they were workhorses.
As you can see, a great job that actually began to take shape in a certain way almost 40 years ago, when John became an enthusiast of radial engines after his time at an aviation school. Since then he looked for a way to make motorcycles with a radial engine, and although he has only built five, several of them are famous including this one that appears in Furiosa.
Furiosa may not be the highest-grossing film in the saga, it may even hinder its future and put an end to the franchise. But there is no doubt that, on a mechanical level, the work they have done in the vehicle section for this delivery has been spectacular.