It doesn’t get much more badass in this world than a giant musclebound Australian man wearing leather overalls and a cape astride a seven-cylinder radial chopper with a dirt bike tire on the front with his tiny teddy bear. This singular promotional image for the upcoming Chris Hemsworth-supported Anya Taylor-Joy vehicle “Furiosa,” shared by Hemsworth on Twitter, is enough to prove to me that the film will be only slightly less badass than Fury Road which preceded it. I say slightly less because as rad as Taylor-Joy can be, I’m not certain she can bring the dark gravitas of Charlize Theron’s ‘Fury Road’ Furiosa.
We got a glimpse of the bike in the first official trailer release, and even more of it in the second, but this image is the best look we’ve had yet. It might be the coolest motorcycle in cinema since Rey’s speeder in ‘The Force Awakens’.
Like many other vehicles in the Mad Max universe, this bike is deeply impractical. For one thing, most of the chases happen on open desert or long-ruined infrastructure, so a lowslung hardtail seat is going to totally beat Hemsworth’s sculpted glutes to a pulp. For another, there’s hardly any ground clearance for the bottom cylinders of that engine, and even with skid protection, it would take little more than a poorly placed pothole to send the whole thing ass-over-teakettle. Whatever, I’d still ride it. The bike, I mean.
Radial engines were most often used in airplanes in the pre-gas turbine era. I’m no radial engine expert, but there are still some modern radials built today for enthusiast aerobatic aircraft and home-builders. Australia’s Rotec Aerosport does build a seven-cylinder 110-horspower radial, which this one could be. 110 horses on a bike like this would certainly be fun, if slightly unwieldy. With it mounted transversely, the heavy rotating mass would definitely work against the rider through the corners, but should make for very stable upright highway cruising. It probably kicks off a ton of heat, though. Again, the bike.