There are some banger car films that have come out of Australia, but this one hasn’t seemed to get the recognition it deserves as one of the greats.
When you think of Australian car films, the critically acclaimed Mad Max film series, Eric Bana’s Love the Beast, or maybe even The Wog Boy, come to mind.
They’re all fantastic movies, but there’s one that deserves a watch for any upstanding car fanatic or Australian automotive nostalgia freak: The Big Steal.
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While The Big Steal is a teen comedy, don’t let it deter you from the fact that it’s well written and holds up even by 2025 standards – besides a few dated comments.
It follows Danny Cark from Footscray in Melbourne, who is obsessed with the idea of owning a Jaguar one day. He’s also got a massive crush on a girl named Joanna at school.
The movie starts by showing Danny’s room covered in Jaguar posters and him holding an E-Type model. His father, Desmond, tells him to forget his dream of owning a Jaguar because they’re a working class family and asks, “What will the union think when they see my son driving around in a Jaguar?”.
Cutting to his 18th birthday, Desmond gives Danny the family car as a gift: a 1963 Nissan Cedric. Danny asks his dad, “What’re you going to drive?” and the camera pans to a brand-new 1990 Nissan Pintara.
Danny’s friends are unconvinced. After all, in the opening, Van, his best friend, pulls up to the house in a modified HJ Holden Monaro. Despite that, Danny is still excited about the car, but is still embarrassed to be seen in it when a group of girls pull up next to him in traffic.
He finally works up the courage to ask out his crush, Joanna, but in haste, he tells her, “I’ve got a Jaguar”. She agrees, although not because of the car, but Danny still needs to follow through.
He and his two friends go looking for a used Jaguar when they stumble across a crooked used car salesman, Gordon Farkas, selling an XJ6. Gordon puts the sales moves on Danny, making out that he’s an expert as he owns an XJ6 Series II.
Even though Cedric was essentially part of the family, Danny traded the car in, added a $2490 deposit, and got a terrible finance deal for the rest of the car at $160 per month for 48 months.
Of course, the XJ6’s engine blows up on the day after Danny tries to race some hecklers in a 1966 Pontiac GTO. Joanna is annoyed and leaves, and Danny is left heartbroken with a dead car.
Without ruining too much of the rest of the movie, Danny and his friends devise a plan to trick a drunk Gordon Farkas into staying away from his car while they swap the engines.
Furious when he finds out, Farkas blames Joanna’s father, who also has an XJ6, for stealing the engine. Farkas steals the wrong car, defaces it and then finds out that it was actually Danny.
There are plenty of car chases throughout the movie, and despite having a budget of just $AUD2.3 million (for reference, Goodfellas came out the same year and had an $AUD39 million budget), it’s shot beautifully with minimal cheesy lines.
What strikes us the most is that it was clearly written, or at least guided, by someone who knows their cars well. There are no moments like in The Fast and the Furious where the screen says “danger to manifold” and the floor falls out.
Despite being all about cars and mechanically accurate in most instances, The Big Steal is easy and entertaining for most people to watch, even if you’re not all that into cars.
It’ll be an especially important watch for Melbourne residents too. It features a blast back into ’90s Victoria, like Chinatown, St Kilda’s Luna Park, and, of course, suburban Footscray pre-gentrification.
Sure, it’s slightly dated in some parts, but like all movies from this era, it’s become sort of camp. There are so many memorable quotes that you will find yourself repeating for weeks after.
Now, when I say you’ll sit there, and every five minutes say, “Oh my gosh, look at that car… I remember those” or “wow, I owned one of those back in the day”, I mean it.
In the first driving scene alone, you’ll spot a VC Commodore, Datsun Sunny, Mazda 929 HB Coupe, Toyota Corolla KE70, Peugeot 504, Toyota Celica ST162, and many more.
In the next scene, Van’s girlfriend pulls up in an Alfa Romeo 2000 Spider Veloce, but not before the Aussie-built Nissan R31 Wagon flashes on the screen, or before a 1965 Ford Fairmont comes up.
Next, he goes to the car yard. As they walk up, you’ve got a Mazda RX-7 FB, Toyota T-18 liftback, Ford Escort MK-II, and even a Mazda RX-3.
Of course, the star of the show is that 1976 Jaguar XJ6 Series I powered by a 4.2-litre straight-six. It was what really brought Jaguar into its own with the sedan market.
Although Jaguar sold around 100,000 Series 1s internationally, they were still a popular option in Australia as a luxury European car that was more obtainable for most buyers than a Ferrari or Aston Martin of the era.
We tried to track down the original Jags from the movie, but unfortunately, they have disappeared without a trace. None of the registrations are active.
However, if you want one, you can pick up a 4.2-litre XJ6 for under $AUD10,000.
The movie didn’t have any huge names in it. Farkas was played by Steve Bisley, who also starred in Mad Max as Jim Goose, while Danny Clark, played by Ben Mendelsohn, went on to act in Animal Kingdom and The Place Beyond the Pines.
The movie didn’t gross well at the box office either, bringing in just $AUD23 million, but we don’t think it gets the recognition it deserves. It has the tropes of The Castle, cars that can best Mad Max, and gorgeous cinematography that you would never pick was shot on this budget.
We urge you to give The Big Steal a watch, which you can do for free on ABC iView.
The post ‘Australian Fast and Furious’: The greatest forgotten car film ever appeared first on Drive.