You realize when a Liam Neeson film pops up, it’s assured to have tons of motion, just a few shootouts and an aged Irish actor grunting about how he’s going to take out the unhealthy guys except they offer up and stroll away.
You don’t anticipate to see the house of Holden internet hosting the Taken celebrity.
That’s precisely what occurred because the Hollywood manufacturing for The Mongoose took over Victoria in 2025, filming at a large number of places together with Castlemaine and Altona.
Nonetheless, it was the streets of Lang Lang that bought the least consideration from the media and the general public throughout manufacturing, but it seems to have been one of the extensively utilised places within the movie.
We’re going to take you thru what we’ve got noticed within the trailer and present you as most of the actual life places side-by-side.
For those who haven’t seen the trailer or heard something in regards to the upcoming motion movie, here is the rundown:
“Accused of a criminal offense he didn’t commit and with nothing to lose, a conflict hero (Liam Neeson) leads regulation enforcement on a cross-country automotive chase with the assistance of his brothers in arms and a sympathetic public rooting for his getaway.”
So yeah, commonplace Liam Neeson affair.
The automotive in query is attention-grabbing too. An S650 Ford Mustang was chosen to co-star with Neeson. Dressed as much as appear like a Shelby Tremendous Snake, the actual vehicles had been a mixture of four-cylinder Ecoboosts and a “hero” V8 – none of which had been supercharged like the actual Shelby Tremendous Snake editions.
The irony of a Ford Mustang taking the previous Holden Proving Floor to the silver display isn’t misplaced on us however Mustangs have a powerful historical past of cinema stardom – Commodores not a lot.
That stated, should you look intently within the background of the police chase pictures, you’ll be able to spy a dressed-up Holden Caprice – a automotive that was truly inbuilt left-hand drive and shipped to the USA as a police automobile.
You too can spy a blacked-out Caprice assembly its demise in what we will solely assume is a highway employee’s dunger.
We did share Lang Lang with the manufacturing on a variety of events throughout 2025. On the time, we simply presumed they might spend a number of time in post-production utilizing CGI to take away the plain Lang Lang websites. Oh, how flawed we had been.
They utilised roads all through the power. Whereas these pictures are fully out of context, we will determine a variety of spots we have filmed our content material at through the years.
Along with these, they utilised what was often called the “truck route” for the grime highway pictures the place a really CGI Black Hawk helicopter is chasing the Mustang.
And the massive finale the place a automotive is seen flipping down a hill takes place out the again of the power in an space often called “Tiny City”. We don’t have any footage of this location, however when you have a glance on Google Maps you’ll be able to see it.
The hero automotive, as beforehand talked about, is a Ford S650 Mustang with a Shelby physique equipment. There have been a variety of autos used throughout the manufacturing of the movie – not all survive these types of shoots – however the ones that did are occurring to stay a second life right here in Melbourne.
Mustang Motorsport, the official Shelby supplier in Australia, bought the autos after the manufacturing wrapped up. That is frequent apply for a overseas movie manufacturing to unload manufacturing autos to locals in an effort to recoup a few of the prices of the movie.
James Johnson, managing director of Mustang Motorsport defined the rationale of buying these autos even earlier than individuals knew there was a movie starring them.
“The explanation why we ended up buying them is as a result of clearly we’re the Shelby store and all these vehicles, the parts and the automobile, the components they placed on them is what we placed on our vehicles… so if somebody noticed that film and needed one themselves, that’s what we promote,” he stated.
The hero of the movie, the V8 Mustang, has been returned to showroom situation and is presently on show at Lorbek Luxurious vehicles in Melbourne.
Mr Johnson has hinted a few of the Ecoboost variations could find yourself getting a second life too.
“We’ve put them again to the unique color and I’m going to show them into observe vehicles. As a result of they’re left-hand drive, you’ll be able to’t do something with them… So I’ve bought some engines… I’ll flip them into some observe toys,” he defined.
Mustang Motorsport is planning to launch a content material sequence documenting the acquisition and reconditioning of the autos quickly. You may comply with alongside or get your individual Shelby Mustang at
Whereas the times of automotive testing on the Lang Lang Proving Floor are over, we take some consolation figuring out that just about each sq. inch of the power has been captured on digicam over the previous few years.
Established in 1957, the 877-hectare facility was chargeable for testing and creating Common Motors autos for 63 years, earlier than it was bought to Vietnamese upstart Vinfast for $36,300,000.00. After failing to achieve traction within the native market, Vinfast all however deserted automobile testing in Australia and opted to lease out the proving floor.
Right here at CarExpert, we made it our second house, filming over 350 automotive critiques over the previous 5 years.
Earlier this yr it was bought to defence contractor Defendtex for $20,350,000.00, representing a lack of $16m plus working prices over the six years Vinfast held the title.
Car testing could have been changed by rocket testing, however the reminiscences of the Holden Proving Floor will stay on without end due to cinematic masterpieces just like the CarExpert YouTube channel, and movies like The Mongoose.
The movie is directed by Mark Vanselow and stars Neeson, Marissa Tomei, Ving Rhames and Michael Chiklis.
The Mongoose will likely be launched in Australian cinemas on October 30, 2026.
