when filming of Mad Max wrapped, ilmmaker George Miller was completely out of money by the end of production. He shot the classic on a shoestring budget, which he partially funded by working extra shifts as an emergency room doctor

They slapped a $7,500 price tag on the Interceptor, got zero interest, and handed it to mechanic Murray Smith as payment for months of unpaid work. Murray lasted six months before the daily ten-dollar fuel bill broke him.

Warner Bros bought it back for Mad Max 2, built a sacrifice double for the explosion, and kept the original. Later restored by fan Bob Fursenko and confirmed authentic by Murray's initials scratched behind the door trim, it crossed oceans, sat in a UK museum, and finally landed in an Orlando museum where an offer rumored at $2 million was refused. The car everyone once paid in trades is now worth more than the movie's entire budget, several times over.

Because they couldn't afford traditional wages for background talent, the production hired a real-life Australian biker gang called The Vigilantes to play the villainous Toecutter’s gang. They, along with several other extras and on-set security, were paid entirely in slabs of beer

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Mad Max went on to gross over $100 million worldwide, setting a Guinness World Record at the time for the most profitable movie ever made relative to its budget