Spend enough time going to car shows, and you’re bound to see at least a few DeLoreans painstakingly crafted into faithful Back to the Future replicas. I mean, you can’t really blame a DeLorean owner, can you? Finding joy in things is fun, and all the better for us DIY types if it means that we also get to make things (and take things apart).
On occasion, you might see a Mad Max replica—but not nearly as often as you’ll see those DeLorean time machines. The only ones I’ve ever seen in person have been Pursuit Special MFP Interceptors. Unfortunately, I’ve never had the privilege to see a faithful replica of Goose’s MFP Kwaka KZ1000—but that’s what YouTube is for.
At the 2023 Classic Motorcycle Mechanics Show in the West Midlands, UK, a lifelong Mad Max fan named Phil Cotton turned up with his dream build. The beginning of the video shows him briefly telling the story about how he’d always wanted to build this bike, but finally got around to it as a pensioner because now he had the time.
He doesn’t go into too much detail about exactly how he built the thing, but says that he made every effort to get it as close to what was shown in the movie as possible. I’m no Mad Max scholar, but it looks (and sounds) pretty darn good, if you ask me. The one difficulty he found in doing his recreation was sourcing appropriate rearsets—he said that he knows they aren’t precisely what was shown, but he’s still quite happy with the end result.
In all, he said that the cost of the bike, the gear, and the appropriate vehicle registration to make his dream come true was around £13,000. That’s about $15,801 if converted in October 2023, if you’re curious.
As alluded to above, we don’t only get to see this bike in this video, though. We also get to both see and hear a nice burnout. If you really want to appreciate that Z1000 engine sound, put on some headphones—but mind the volume during the burnout if you’re watching this way.
