A 1948 Hillman Minx body bolted to a Mitsubishi L300 van chassis doesn’t sound like a recipe for a good time. But when the finished product spent time on the set of Mad Max: Fury Road, it becomes a piece of movie history you can actually park in your garage. One of the leftover vehicles built for the 2015 film is now up for auction on eBay, and it’s likely to draw serious bids from collectors who missed the big-name car sales a few years back.
Most of the star vehicles from Fury Road were auctioned off shortly after production wrapped. The War Rig, the Gigahorse, and several of the more recognizable chase cars found new homes. This particular buggy wasn’t one of the headliners. It was an extra, plain and simple. The listing notes that it appeared in a brief shot being transported on a car carrier near the back of Immortan Joe’s convoy. You’d be hard-pressed to spot it on screen, and the seller admits some of its scenes ended up on the cutting room floor.
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A Frankenstein build with real movie bones
The car is a mashup of two very different vehicles. The rusted body comes from a 1948 Hillman Minx, a British sedan that’s rare enough in the U.S. that you’re unlikely to see one at a local cruise night. The chassis underneath is from a Mitsubishi L300 van, a workhorse that hasn’t been sold in America in decades. Together, they make for a genuinely strange-looking machine with a jacked-up rear end, giant tires, and an exhaust pipe that exits through the rear wheel well.
When the car was previously offered for sale in 2024 by Propstore Auction, the listing identified it as one of the buggies used by the Buzzards, the spike-covered gang that attacks Imperator Furiosa’s War Rig early in the film. The Hillman doesn’t appear to have the metal spikes that defined the Buzzards’ other vehicles, so it’s possible it was originally built for that scene and then repurposed when it didn’t fit the shot.
The listing doesn’t specify what engine sits under the hood, but it’s likely the same small-displacement gasoline or diesel motor from the donor L300 chassis. Power goes through a five-speed manual transmission, and since the car is right-hand drive, you’ll shift with your left hand. The interior is set up for stunt work, with an easily accessible hand brake, a roll cage, and a battery kill switch. The seller claims everything works, though the listing includes the disclaimer that the car is “not intended for driving.”
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That caveat feels like a missed opportunity. This thing looks like it would be a riot to drive, or at the very least, a riot to watch someone else try to register at the DMV. The body is the real deal — it’s hard to imagine anyone going through the trouble of faking a 1948 Hillman Minx shell — and the Mitsubishi chassis is stout enough to handle the abuse. The overall look is part off-roader, part patinated custom, and part 1970s Street Freak, which is to say it fits right in with the rest of the Fury Road fleet.
What you’re actually bidding on
Movie cars occupy a strange corner of the collector market. Some buyers want the exact vehicle driven by the lead actor in the big scene. Others are happy with something that appeared in the background for a few seconds. This Hillman falls into the latter category, and that’s reflected in the pricing. It won’t fetch the seven-figure sums that the main cars commanded at auction, but it’s also not the kind of thing you’ll find at your local used car lot.
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The eBay listing gives you a chance to own a piece of a film that’s widely regarded as one of the best action movies ever made. The fact that it’s an extra, rather than a star, means it’s more affordable — but it also means you’ll spend a lot of time explaining to friends why there’s a rusted 1948 sedan on a van chassis in your driveway. If you’re the kind of person who thinks that’s a feature, not a bug, this might be the car for you.
Bidding is live now, and there’s no word on what the reserve price might be. The car is being sold as-is, with the seller noting that it’s a functional build but not a daily driver. For the right buyer, that’s probably exactly the point.
