New movie and new pub owner head for Mad Max mecca

THE pub made famous by Mad Max 2, A Town Like Alice, Razorback, Dirty Deeds and countless television commercials has changed hands for the first time in more than 50 years - and an Adelaide plumber is its new master.

Silverton Hotel, which has sat in the post-apocalyptic dusty, red landscape outside Broken Hill since the late 1800s, has hosted a revolving door of international celebrities, models, bands and film crews for more than 30 years.

For the past decade, a replica black Mad Max Interceptor has been parked out front. But when the managers, Chris Fraser and Joanne Casey, move out on July 1 just before production of Mad Max 4: Fury Road, they will take their car with them.

''I can't express the joy we've had here,'' Mr Fraser said. ''It's time, but I'm going to miss it.''

The hotel's local owner, Ines McLeod, 69, has sold the building and much of its film memorabilia to Adelaide plumber Peter Price and his wife, Patsy, who have also bought the tiny town's 19th-century St Carthage Catholic Church building.

Mr Price insists he and his wife want the Silverton Hotel - which has known dozens of names in various film and television incarnations - to remain true to its tradition of a ''friendly outback pub'' in a town of just 42 people.

''It's very, very iconic,'' he said. ''We've got no intentions of changing it. Tweak it? Yes.''

The Silverton Hotel has been in Ines McLeod's family since 1956, but after running the business herself for more than 25 years she passed management responsibility to Mr Fraser and his partner in 2000. Over 10 years, their two children have often appeared in fashion shoots and advertisements staged there.

Mr Fraser said he would take his Mad Max and Dirty Deeds pictures with him to a souvenir shop they plan to open nearby.