Battletruck (also known as Warlords of the 21st Century in the U.S. and Destructors in Italy) is a 1982 New Zealand post-apocalyptic science fiction action film co-written and directed by Harley Cokliss and starring Michael Beck, Annie McEnroe, James Wainwright, John Ratzenberger, and Bruno Lawrence.
The surviving trader takes the war party to the source, which is a hidden supply depot lost during the local government's collapse and thought to be radioactive.
Corlie is saved from a squad of men sent to return her to the camp by Hunter (Michael Beck), an ex-soldier armed with a high-tech motorbike.
Needing further medical attention for a leg injury, Hunter takes Corlie to live in the walled city of Clearwater Farm, governed as a strict old-fashioned democracy, where she is quickly accepted by the community.
Hunter takes Corlie back to the Clearwater people and asks Rusty to build him an armoured car to attack Straker's "battletruck".
While Rusty and Hunter and a few others are thus occupied, one of the residents turns traitor and knocks out Corlie, puts her in a horse-drawn wagon, and heads out to deliver her back to Straker.
Hunter, meanwhile, gets some distance ahead, jumps out of the car and climbs to a high place overlooking the road and it is now revealed that the whole attack on Straker's headquarters was a ruse to lure the truck into an ambush.
A battle ensues, the truck still careening wildly back and forth while Corlie tries to control it with the dead body of the driver slumped over the wheel and Straker furiously shouting commands to everyone.
Eventually, Hunter fights his way to the front, temporarily stuns Straker, grabs Corlie, and jumps with her from the back of the still-wildly out of control battletruck with Straker still in it and still screaming, making death threats, and bumbling about the smoking ruins of the interior of the truck before it falls off a cliff, crashes and explodes, killing him and the battletruck sinks to the bottom of the lake.
[3] The music for the film was composed and conducted by Kevin Peek and performed by Eastern Orbit and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.