Long missing "Bullitt" Mustang found!

Holy carp!!! This is fantastic news. They've been looking for the for years, I can't believe they found it. I recall ready that the studio agreed when signing the contract they they get their pick of the two cars, McQueen gets the other. Of course the studio got theirs and his went missing. He even hired private investigators to try and find it to no avail. People close to McQueen have said that he always felt the studio hid it as they wanted both cars. Looks like Steve was mistaken after all.
 
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They seem to have found the stunt Mustang.

The other Mustang (the closeup car) was never really lost. It was driven for a few years, changed hands, and ended up sitting in a barn in rural Ohio for decades with some front end damage. McQueen himself tried to buy it from the owner in the 1970s but the guy wouldn't sell. It's still there today.



The fates of the two 1968 Charger R/Ts are not known. The stunt car is almost surely scrapped as there wasn't much left of it when filming ended. It was bashed up & burned up. Destroyed prop cars didn't have the slightest value in those days.

Somebody claims to have found the closeup Charger several years ago. It's got a lot of circumstantial evidence but nothing concrete. The dealership & date when it was first sold, the colors/options, some odd holes drilled in the body that match photos of the car during filming, etc. Warner Bros doesn't have any surviving info on the cars so we will probably never know for sure.
 
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The King Of Cool is rolling in his grave, to bad he never got his hands on her again
 
A few years back (the last 5 years), the chase scene was recreated with a new mustang. I remember watching a video online (can't find it now) in which they showed alternated shots between the original movie footage and the recreated footage. Not only was the '68 Fastback so much more beautiful than the new 'Stang, but what really struck me was how much more badass its engine sounded compared to the newer one.

They don't make 'em like they used to.

The Wook

ps~Here's me and my baby--a '67 Nightmist Blue coupe, one year older than the Bullitt car. Sadly, I let her go a while back. Her name is Gretchen. She was built at Ford's factory in Metuchen, NJ. Gretchen from Metuchen. And speaking of sound, with a V8 and dual exhaust, her rumble was totally badass--whether accelerating or idling.

Mustang1967.jpg

LeavingForCali.jpg
 
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@Thewook I think that was for a Ford commercial promoting the new Mustang wasn't it?
 
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drcraig13 said:
@The Wook I think that was for a Ford commercial promoting the new Mustang wasn't it?
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Maybe, I can't recall. But it wasn't commercial length, what I saw. No, it was the whole chase scene recreated--which they mixed with the original film scene, by both alternating shots, and using a split-screen to show the same shot simultaneously.

If anyone finds it, please post.
 
The scariest part of the story is that the car was headed for a fate worse than being crushed:

Now it appears the Mustang had been living undercover in Mexico for the past three decades, before being discovered by Hugo Sanchez. Ironically, Sanchez bought the rotten bodyshell with the intention of turning it into a replica of another famous movie Mustang: ‘Eleanor’, from the 2000 remake of Gone In 60 Seconds.
Click to expand...

Shoot me now.
 
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Alcatraz the tv show did a recreation of the chase using modern cars.

What most people do not know is that the stunt bullitt did not use the big block 390 engine, they used a small block 289 to decrease weight for the jumps.
 
karmajay said:
Hey you may not like the movie but the mustang in that movie was pretty nice!
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You don't have to hate that film in order to see it would have been a tragedy.

It's like saying they found the original lightsaber hero prop from A New Hope, but it was turned into a futuristic nunchuck for a new kung fu movie. A Star Wars fan would not say, "That's OK. I like kung fu movies."

No offense but clearly you have no reverence for Bullitt.



And, for the record that modern film does feature a riced up '68 fastback that is nicely photographed - but in a lousy film with terribly edited chase scenes, terrible writing, embarrassing dialogue and bad acting.
 
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No offense but clearly you have no reverence for Bullitt.
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No offense taken. While I understand the significance of the movie and the chase scene for its time when you view it through today's eyes it really looks quite discombobulated. Cars crashing into other cars for no reason, etc, etc. Classic 70s car chase for real! :)

Also I agree when you say turning one important prop car into another would not have been great. My comment was just noting the Cage movie mustang looked pretty great. (And yeah, I've owned a few mustangs )
 
dascoyne said:
It's like saying they found the original lightsaber hero prop from A New Hope, but it was turned into a futuristic nunchuck for a new kung fu movie. A Star Wars fan would not say, "That's OK. I like kung fu movies."

No offense but clearly you have no reverence for Bullitt.
Click to expand...

It was nothing but a rusted out body when the guy bought it and planned to turn it into an 'Eleanor' replica. Tons of abandoned project cars end up on the scrapheap and at the time there was nothing to suggest it was anything more than that. As soon as the guy found out what it was, he dropped the idea. No need to freak out.
 
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Grey said:
It was nothing but a rusted out body when the guy bought it and planned to turn it into an 'Eleanor' replica. Tons of abandoned project cars end up on the scrapheap and at the time there was nothing to suggest it was anything more than that. As soon as the guy found out what it was, he dropped the idea. No need to freak out.
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I'm not saying that makes him a bad person. I'm saying it would have been a terrible tragedy if he never found out.

I think the movie is a great classic. How would you expect me to respond to someone saying that it's no big deal because they thought Eleanor was cool, too? Sheer blasphemy. I think it's a justifiable freak out.
 
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dbuck said:
Alcatraz the tv show did a recreation of the chase using modern cars.

What most people do not know is that the stunt bullitt did not use the big block 390 engine, they used a small block 289 to decrease weight for the jumps.
Click to expand...

i did not know that! very cool!
 
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