Sure, Mad Max: Fury Road won Academy Awards for production and costume design (and was nominated for many others), but this dad that built Mad Max cars for his kids isn't too shabby either. Ian Pfaff, a director and prop maker from Glendale, California, loves Mad Max: Fury Road and his kids, Junior, 2, and Benji, 5 months, so much that he decided to make them their own crazy desert cruisers. The cars in the film are out of control and Pfaff spared little to no detail.
It was actually a pretty genius move. According to BuzzFeed, he took two Little Tykes Cozy Coupes and added scraps and other junk to them to turn them into something the Imperator Furiosa would recognize. Even if you don't like the look of the Mad Max cars, taking an old Little Tykes (you can likely find one at a garage sale if you look hard enough) and dressing it up into whatever your kid's heart desires is not a bad idea. Anyway, he used everything from old computers parts, pieces of a broken espresso machine, and even his wife Emily's old breast pumps to give them some flair.
There are action figures and dolls tied to the front and back, along with old license plates. One of the steering wheels has an old bike chain on it to make it look a little more hardcore. And just because moms always know best, Emily, who's also an artist, made busted-up metal sippy cups for the two to take on the road. Because you know, badasses don't want to spill either.
Basically, Pfaff did exactly what Colin Gibson, who designed all the cars, did for the film. For example, the War Rig in the movie is built out from the shell of a Volkswagen. All of the cars in the movie are personal and were also built for stunts (though I can't imagine little Benji flipping around all over the place the way the stunt men and women did in the film). Gibson told New Magazine's Vulture:
Each of the vehicles was designed with safety in mind, but also with each and every one of their specific stunts, their deaths, their character arcs, built into the design, into the very DNA of how they were put together.
While Pfaff's kids aren't going on one long, futuristic desert car chase anytime soon, both of the cars definitely have a lot of personality. As soon as the two sweet kids are sitting in them, they totally morph into two little people you don't want to mess with.
Whether or not the kids know how cool their cars are, their parents definitely deserve the some props for crafting the coolest toys ever.
