MotorEx 2015 brings Hollywood to Sydney

Buckle up for a close encounter with Hollywood's four-wheel stars. 

"Holy smoke, Batman, check out those wheels!"

"And look, Boy Wonder, isn't that Herbie the Love Bug flipping his hood at us?"

"Why yes, Batman, even the Scooby Doo Mystery Machine, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the car Burt Reynolds drove off a bridge in Smokey And The Bandit and the cars from the original Mad Max are here."

"Oh, and don't look now Boy Wonder, but I think that one over there is the ute Bob Hatfield drove in A Country Practice."

From the sublime to the ridiculous, 30 of the zaniest and ridiculously hard-driven, crashed and bashed cars from popular movies and TV shows since the 60s are on show this weekend at Sydney's most extravagant car show, Meguiars MotorEx at Sydney Olympic Park.

Many were used as feature cars or extras in the shows, while others are replicas, faithfully recreated by collectors and movie fans.

Southwest Sydney collector Michael Formosa has 10 star cars on show — including one of the four authorised replicas of the TV show Batmobile and a Trans-Am used in the Smokey And The Bandit movie that has Burt Reynold's signature on a sun visor.

Formosa says: "I'm a car lover and a movie lover. My son convinced me it was a good hobby to get into."

And his timing was impeccable.

The onset of the Global Financial Crisis in 2009 was the perfect time for Formosa to get the car collecting bug.

When he wanted to buy, desperate American owners wanted to sell.

We do it for enjoyment. Some cars we do up from scratch

As he says: "2009 was a very good year for me. I bought a lot of cars then. They all panicked over there (in the US). Some of them were bargains."

His Batmobile, though, worth about $300,000, pales in price against the real car used in the '60s TV show that was recently sold for more than $4 million.

"I think it's up for sale again. It went for some silly price."

Formosa says he collects the cars with his sons for the fun of it.

"We do it for enjoyment. Some cars we do up from scratch. Christopher, 20, and I do the bodywork and the electricals."

Just about all the 35 cars in his collection are in running order.

"My background is in industrial electronics but I have been working on cars since I was knee-high to a grasshopper."

Herbie The Love Bug owner Alexander Micakovski, from Western Sydney, was planning on building his own replica when a movie car popped up for sale on an internet fan forum.

"I was lucky enough to find a real one," he says.

And this one, used in the 1977 Herbie Goes To Monte Carlo and 1981 Herbie Goes Bananas movies, is virtually alive, with all its bells and whistles flashing and swishing just like it did in the movies.

"These days it is all computerised," Micakovski says.

"On mine the wipers go, the headlights will flash, the indicators will flash, the headlights will actually look left and right and then go straight ahead, and the hood will lift up and down like in the movie. Then we've got the oil squirting feature out of the back wheel arch."

Just stand back when Micakovski puts it through its paces at Meguiars MotorEx this weekend.

"I am a big fan of the Herbie movies, but I love my cars. I like unique cars," he says. "I have seen all the films 100 times since I was a little boy. I think the idea of having a car as a best friend that can drive you around is pretty cool."

So how much is a real Herbie worth? Micakovski says another Herbie used in the movies recently sold for $A165,000 in the US.

Other genuine movie and TV show cars on display include: a Crown Victoria from Superman, The Blues Brothers' Dodge Monaco Police Special, General Lee from the 2005 film Dukes Of Hazzard, a 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO Tribute from the 1991 flick Delirious and Choppers from Easy Rider.

Replicas include the Bullitt movie Mustang, Drag-U-La and Munster Koach from The Munsters, a 1932 hot rod from American Graffiti and a DeLorean from Back To The Future.

MotorEx show manager Owen Webb has been pulling together the star cars as a new feature of the annual show that this year will feature more than 450 vehicles, ranging from "work of art" street machines to hot rods, muscle cars and more chrome, polish and excessive paint schemes than you could dream of.

They are not car enthusiast cars, they are more mainstream

Amid all this motorised muscle the human star of the show will be American George Barris — known as the King of Kustoms.

Barris, now 89, designed and built the original Batmobile, the Monkees' TV show Monkeemobile and cars for shows including The Beverly Hillbillies and the Munsters.

"He's actually called the King of Kustoms. The Barris Award (is named after him). It is the most sought-after custom car award in the world.

"George started building custom cars in the '50s and saw the opportunity to build movie cars. The Batmobile was the first. He's 89 and he's still building custom cars."

Barris will be interviewed at noon today and tomorrow and will be available to chat to fans and sign autographs.

Webb says the movie cars have a wider appeal than other cars on show.

"They are not car enthusiast cars, they are more mainstream."

He says one of the highlights is a replica of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang owned by south coast collector Mike Ellard.

"It's really, really good. It's a spot-on replica."

Apart from the cars six large screens will be showing highlights from the movies and shows they starred in, plus a few costumed characters for the kids to greet — including Batman.

While the star cars will grab the limelight Webb says there is much more to see in the show arenas that stretch over 50,000sq m. "That's a lot of football fields," he says.

They include the top 50 showcars from around Australia.

"These elite showcars, they are just art, purely show cars."

There will also be 140 show cars known as street elite that are drivable and 100 muscle cars, including V8 favourites Falcons, Mustangs, Camaros and Holdens.

A highlight will be the unveiling at 11am today of 14 "blockbuster vehicles".

Webb says none of these show cars have been seen in public before.

He expects about 30,000 people will flock through the doors of the Sydney Olympic Park site this weekend.

And if you get the bug to hot up your own car or build a street machine, there will 120 specialist businesses with stands there.

"It's not just a show, it's a place for business," says Webb.