You recognize when a Liam Neeson movie pops up, it’s guaranteed to have tons of motion, a couple of shootouts and an elderly Irish actor grunting about how he’s going to take out the bad guys unless they provide up and walk away.
You don’t expect to see the house of Holden hosting the Taken superstar.
That’s exactly what happened because the Hollywood production for The Mongoose took over Victoria in 2025, filming at a mess of locations including Castlemaine and Altona.
Nevertheless, it was the streets of Lang Lang that got the least attention from the media and the general public during production, yet it appears to have been probably the most widely utilised locations within the film.
We’re going to take you thru what we’ve spotted within the trailer and show you as most of the real life locations side-by-side.
If you happen to haven’t seen the trailer or heard anything in regards to the upcoming motion film, here’s the rundown:
“Accused of a criminal offense he didn’t commit and with nothing to lose, a war hero (Liam Neeson) leads law 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, standard Liam Neeson affair.
The automotive in query is interesting too. An S650 Ford Mustang was chosen to co-star with Neeson. Dressed as much as appear to be a Shelby Super Snake, the true cars were a mixture of four-cylinder Ecoboosts and a “hero” V8 – none of which were supercharged like the true Shelby Super Snake editions.
The irony of a Ford Mustang taking the previous Holden Proving Ground to the silver screen isn’t lost on us but Mustangs have a robust history of cinema stardom – Commodores not a lot.
That said, when you look closely within the background of the police chase shots, you possibly can spy a dressed-up Holden Caprice – a automotive that was actually inbuilt left-hand drive and shipped to the USA as a police vehicle.
You may as well spy a blacked-out Caprice meeting its demise in what we are able to only assume is a road employee’s dunger.
We did share Lang Lang with the production on quite a lot of occasions during 2025. On the time, we just presumed they’d spend a variety of time in post-production using CGI to remove the plain Lang Lang sites. Oh, how improper we were.
They utilised roads throughout the ability. While these shots are completely out of context, we are able to discover quite a lot of spots we have filmed our content at through the years.
Along with those, they utilised what was often called the “truck route” for the dirt road shots where a really CGI Black Hawk helicopter is chasing the Mustang.
And the large finale where a automotive is seen flipping down a hill takes place out the back of the ability in an area often called “Tiny Town”. We don’t have any footage of this location, but when you have got a glance on Google Maps you possibly can see it.
The hero automotive, as previously mentioned, is a Ford S650 Mustang with a Shelby body kit. There have been quite a lot of vehicles used in the course of the production of the film – not all survive these kinds of shoots – however the ones that did are occurring to live a second life here in Melbourne.
Mustang Motorsport, the official Shelby dealer in Australia, purchased the vehicles after the production wrapped up. That is common practice for a foreign film production to dump production vehicles to locals in an effort to recoup a few of the costs of the film.
James Johnson, managing director of Mustang Motorsport explained the rationale of buying these vehicles even before people knew there was a movie starring them.
“The rationale why we ended up purchasing them is because obviously we’re the Shelby shop and all those cars, the components and the vehicle, the parts they placed on them is what we placed on our cars… so if someone saw that movie and wanted one themselves, that’s what we sell,” he said.
The hero of the film, the V8 Mustang, has been returned to showroom condition and is currently on display at Lorbek Luxury cars in Melbourne.
Mr Johnson has hinted a few of the Ecoboost versions may find yourself getting a second life too.
“We’ve put them back to the unique color and I’m going to show them into track cars. Because they’re left-hand drive, you possibly can’t do anything with them… So I’ve got some engines… I’ll turn them into some track toys,” he explained.
Mustang Motorsport is planning to release a content series documenting the acquisition and reconditioning of the vehicles soon. You’ll be able to follow along or get your individual Shelby Mustang at Shelby Australia.
While the times of automotive testing on the Lang Lang Proving Ground are over, we take some comfort knowing that nearly every square inch of the ability has been captured on camera over the past few years.
Established in 1957, the 877-hectare facility was accountable for testing and developing General Motors vehicles for 63 years, before it was sold to Vietnamese upstart Vinfast for $36,300,000.00. After failing to achieve traction within the local market, Vinfast all but abandoned vehicle testing in Australia and opted to rent out the proving ground.
Here at CarExpert, we made it our second home, filming over 350 automotive reviews over the past five years.
Earlier this yr it was sold to defence contractor Defendtex for $20,350,000.00, representing a lack of $16m plus operating costs over the six years Vinfast held the title.
Vehicle testing can have been replaced by rocket testing, however the memories of the Holden Proving Ground will survive eternally due to cinematic masterpieces just like the CarExpert YouTube channel, and movies like The Mongoose.
The film is directed by Mark Vanselow and stars Neeson, Marissa Tomei, Ving Rhames and Michael Chiklis.
The Mongoose will likely be released in Australian cinemas on October 30, 2026.
This Article First Appeared At www.carexpert.com.au
