{"id":823099,"date":"2026-07-25T14:42:32","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T14:42:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/823099\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T14:42:32","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T14:42:32","slug":"holdens-old-proving-ground-immortalised-by-hollywood-and-a-ford","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/823099\/","title":{"rendered":"Holden’s old Proving Ground immortalised by Hollywood and a Ford"},"content":{"rendered":"

You know when a Liam Neeson movie pops up, it\u2019s guaranteed to have tons of action, a few shootouts and an elderly Irish actor grunting about how he\u2019s going to take out the bad guys unless they give up and walk away.<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t expect to see the home of Holden hosting the Taken superstar.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s exactly what happened as the Hollywood production for The Mongoose took over Victoria in 2025, filming at a multitude of locations including Castlemaine and Altona.<\/p>\n

However, it was the streets of Lang Lang that got the least attention from the media and the public during production, yet it appears to have been one of the most widely utilised locations in the film.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re going to take you through what we have spotted in the trailer and show you as many of the real life locations side-by-side.<\/p>\n

Looking for your next car?<\/p>\n

CarExpert can help you research<\/a>, compare<\/a> and buy<\/a> so you choose with confidence.<\/p>\n

\"TwoThe ride and handling “tram tracks” in the film…\"A…versus real life.\"ANeeson enters a highway in the film…\"A…that is actually the entry to the “noise road”, although technically the wrong way…\"AProtesters protesting on the “noise road” (note the very Australian-looking HiLux)…\"A…versus the real life “noise road” where we take our interior decibel readings.\"ALike a scene from a NASCAR race, one of the hero Mustangs takes out the Dodge Charger interceptor…\"A…on the “hill road” where we conduct our big trailer tow tests.<\/p>\n

If you haven\u2019t seen the trailer or heard anything about the upcoming action film, here’s the rundown:<\/p>\n

\u201cAccused of a crime he didn\u2019t commit and with nothing to lose, a war hero (Liam Neeson) leads law enforcement on a cross-country car chase with the help of his brothers in arms and a sympathetic public rooting for his getaway.\u201d<\/p>\n

So yeah, standard Liam Neeson affair. <\/p>\n

The car in question is interesting too. An S650 Ford Mustang was chosen to co-star with Neeson. Dressed up to look like a Shelby Super Snake, the real cars were a mix of four-cylinder Ecoboosts and a \u201chero\u201d V8 \u2013 none of which were supercharged like the real Shelby Super Snake editions.<\/p>\n

The irony of a Ford Mustang taking the former Holden Proving Ground to the silver screen isn\u2019t lost on us but Mustangs have a strong history of cinema stardom \u2013 Commodores not so much.<\/p>\n

That said, if you look closely in the background of the police chase shots, you can spy a dressed-up Holden Caprice \u2013 a car that was actually built in left-hand drive and shipped to the USA as a police vehicle.<\/p>\n

You can also spy a blacked-out Caprice meeting its demise in what we can only assume is a road worker’s dunger.<\/p>\n

\"AThe hero car \u2013 or one of them.<\/p>\n

We did share Lang Lang with the production on a number of occasions during 2025. At the time, we just presumed they would spend a lot of time in post-production using CGI to remove the obvious Lang Lang sites. Oh, how wrong we were.<\/p>\n

They utilised roads throughout the facility. While these shots are completely out of context, we can identify a number of spots we’ve filmed our content at over the years. <\/p>\n

In addition to those, they utilised what was known as the \u201ctruck route\u201d for the dirt road shots where a very CGI Black Hawk helicopter is chasing the Mustang.<\/p>\n

And the big finale where a car is seen flipping down a hill takes place out the back of the facility in an area known as \u201cTiny Town\u201d. We don\u2019t have any footage of this location, but if you have a look on Google Maps you can see it.<\/p>\n

\"ARIP Holden Caprice<\/p>\n

The hero car, as previously mentioned, is a Ford S650 Mustang with a Shelby body kit. There were a number of vehicles used during the production of the film \u2013 not all survive these sorts of shoots \u2013 but the ones that did are going on to live a second life here in Melbourne.<\/p>\n

Mustang Motorsport, the official Shelby dealer in Australia, purchased the vehicles after the production wrapped up. This is common practice for a foreign film production to sell off production vehicles to locals in an effort to recoup some of the costs of the film.<\/p>\n

James Johnson, managing director of Mustang Motorsport explained the rationale of purchasing these vehicles even before people knew there was a film starring them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason why we ended up purchasing them is because obviously we\u2019re the Shelby shop and all those cars, the components and the vehicle, the parts they put on them is what we put on our cars\u2026 so if someone saw that movie and wanted one themselves, that\u2019s what we sell,” he said.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Mr Johnson has hinted some of the Ecoboost versions may end up getting a second life too.<\/p>\n

“We\u2019ve put them back to the original colour and I\u2019m going to turn them into track cars. Because they\u2019re left-hand drive, you can\u2019t do anything with them\u2026 So I\u2019ve got some engines\u2026 I\u2019ll turn them into some track toys,” he explained.<\/p>\n

\"AerialTiny Town – you can see this on Google Maps if you look closely.<\/p>\n

Mustang Motorsport is planning to release a content series documenting the purchase and reconditioning of the vehicles soon. You can follow along or get your own Shelby Mustang at Shelby Australia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While the days of car testing at the Lang Lang Proving Ground are over, we take some comfort knowing that almost every square inch of the facility has been captured on camera over the past few years.<\/p>\n

Established in 1957, the 877-hectare facility was responsible 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 gain traction in the local market, Vinfast all but abandoned vehicle testing in Australia and opted to rent out the proving ground.<\/p>\n

Here at CarExpert, we made it our second home, filming over 350 car reviews over the past five years.<\/p>\n

\"ALooks like a highway, but this is actually just the western end of the “noise road”. You can see the road loops around to the left.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year it was sold to defence contractor Defendtex for $20,350,000.00, representing a loss of $16m plus operating costs over the six years Vinfast held the title.<\/p>\n

Vehicle testing may have been replaced by rocket testing, but the memories of the Holden Proving Ground will live on forever thanks to cinematic masterpieces like the CarExpert YouTube channel, and films like The Mongoose.<\/p>\n

The film is directed by Mark Vanselow and stars Neeson, Marissa Tomei, Ving Rhames and Michael Chiklis.<\/p>\n

The Mongoose will be released in Australian cinemas on October 30, 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You know when a Liam Neeson movie pops up, it\u2019s guaranteed to have tons of action, a few…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":823100,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[64,63,134],"class_list":["post-823099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=823099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823099\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/823100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=823099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=823099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=823099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}