'Mad Max Fury Road' vehicle showcase @ Sydney Opera House, 13 May 2015

You'd be hard pressed to gaze upon anything more authentically Australian than the Sydney Opera House. For this ex-pat, however, the crazy-ass characters and vehicles from the Mad Max films I watched growing up would have to qualify as signature bits of Australiana, too. The Opera House has to be seen in its magnificent Sydney Harbour setting to be appreciated, but George Miller's first two Mad Max films, and especially the long, bloody car chases, exploded on US cinema screens right before my pulverised eyeballs.

Which made stumbling upon the vehicles from Max Max: Fury Road parked in front of the Sydney icon last week like finding a kangaroo with a Crocodile Dundee poster dangling from its pouch.

Aradhna and I flew into a clear and cool Sydney last Wednesday. She had business to attend to so after dropping a bag at our CBD hotel I headed towards Circular Quay to work beside the water of bustling Sydney Cove. Found a spot facing the Opera House (right) and immediately heard the helicopters you can see hovering overhead in the photo. I've watched giant cruise ships dock at Circular Quay in the past -- I once worked in North Sydney, just beyond the Coathanger -- but nothing beside ferries were to be seen on this glorious fall morning. I assumed the helicopters were covering something newsworthy, like a car crash near the bridge.

I was close.

At some point I glanced towards the Opera House's forecourt, a popular spot for concerts and gatherings generally associated with flag-waving and/or fireworks. The view was mostly obscured by a harbourside restaurant but I could make out bits of metal poking into the sky. Moving for a better look I saw police barriers and an LCD screen flashing the words 'Mad Max Event'.

'No fucking way!' exclaimed the 15-year-old within.

'Way,' mumbled my 49-year-old self.

I walked to the forecourt, passed through some barriers, and was soon face-to-grill with the actual vehicles of 'Mad Max: Fury Road'. TV reporters teetered on heels and an assortment of film-related folks hobnobbed with camera-aiming slobs like me. A very Australian affair: everyone was laid back, security was lax, and no one 'big-noted' his or herself. Most of the press attention was aimed at a man I later discovered was the genius responsible for the design of the post-apocalyptic vehicles, Colin Gibson. If I'd have known who he was I would have bear-hugged the dude ... every vehicle gleaming in Sydney sunshine was candy for any gearhead's eyes.

We were all eventually asked to take a seat on the Opera House steps for an official 'show' that was to begin shortly. An hour later the forecourt was packed and a pair of video screens counted down to the show's launch. A pair of insipid local DJs sounding like a pair of adolescent boys mainlining Red Bull introduced video clips and were eventually drowned out by roaring engines and the primitive howls of 'War Boys' climbing in, on and around the vehicles. It was a full-on spectacle by the time three modified motorcycles started circling and gravity-defiant War Boys performed stunts on high poles attached to larger vehicles. I sat with assembled media, tourists and office workers on lunchbreaks, aware of the fortuitousness of this midday extravaganza.

To quote Tom Petty, 'even the losers ... get lucky sometimes ...'

According the flyer shown above, each vehicle has a name and backstory. This is The Nux Car. It's a 'super-turbocharged, nitrous-boosted 5 window deuce coupe'.

All the shiny things but I couldn't take my eyes off this beast. It's called The Gigahorse. It consists of a pair of 1959 Cadillac Coupe de Villes in flagrante delicto, according to the flyer, and powered by a pair of V8s. It's armed with a flamethrower and harpoon. The fake punks in the foreground perhaps thought their getups would get them invited into photos. Puh. Leez.

This 1956 Pontiac Custom Safari is called Surfari.

From left to right: Vehicle designer Colin Gibson stands atop The War Rig, a 'mutant lovechild of semi-trailer and hotrod, twin V8s end-to-end, 6-wheel-drive, 18-wheeled leviathan'. Next to it is previously mentioned Surfari, and next to that is Razor Cola, which visually references Mad Max's original Interceptor.

Two more shots of The Gigahorse. First, one with a small boy at its front left wheel ...

... and this, with giant man/former wrestler/current actor Nathan Jones at its front left wheel. Jones plays a character named Rictus Erectus in Mad Max: Fury Road. Which is logical, as he's one of the largest humans I've ever seen.

On the left sits a vehicle simply called Buick. On the right, F350. The Sydney Opera House looms behind.

One of the videos showed the vehicles being driven to Sydney Opera House. The film's 'War Boys' were apparently given permission to ride atop The War Rig, which may explain why the Calder Freeway was closed earlier that morning.

War Boys, unleashed.

Vehicles of the apocalypse with serene Sydney Cove in the background. On the far right sits Doof Wagon, which features Coma the Doof Warrior on flame-shooting bass guitar. Coma is 'blind and disfigured, slung in a web of bungy and spread-eagled before a stack of speakers, hurtles across the desert on a repurposed 8x8 M.A.N. missile carrier.' Bet Sir Paul's bass can't spit fire.

Motorcycles pass before Oldsmobile.

Just in front of The Gigahorse sits Elvis, 'a pair of GMC 6's slung end-to-end on the extended chassis rails of a 3-window coupe' with a V12 and nitrous injection. And a machine gun.

The crowd was invited to see the vehicles up close after the show but I'd already had my time amidst the steel beasts.