Biting the Bullitt: Mustang’s movie legacy

Letting rip in a 2019 Bullitt Mustang in sleepy Montagu, one expected to see irate townsfolk rushing out and waving their arms at all the disturbance caused by what sounded like a zillion kW of open-piped V8 music. In full voice, the Bullitt reminds you of some mad mountain gorilla beating on its chest and roaring full-throated challenges at every living creature in a 5 km radius: “Come on you cowards, show me what ya got!”

But strangely enough, the gentle village people seemed to egg us on to greater heights of exhaust decibels and tyre shredding. Could it be that they had shown “the movie” at the the Town Hall, that past Saturday?

Bullitt, the movie

The movie in question being, of course, Bullitt. A 1968 detective thriller starring a 1968 Mustang 390 GT and Steve McQueen, in that order.  Steve McQueen may have had the reputation of being The King of Cool, but the Mustang was noted back then as the hottest rod on the block, especially as it was decked out with open exhaust pipes and black five-spoke American Racing wheels. Steve’s ‘Stang was tantalisingly painted in a muted Highland Green.

Cutting to the chase, so to speak, the movie is all about a car chase that transpires between McQueen (Lt Frank Bullitt) in the Mustang and a bunch of dead-pan baddies in a ’68 Dodge Charger.  The rest of the plot and dialogue is incidental, although the roller-coaster streets of San Francisco make a spectacular backdrop to the action. So does Jacqueline Bisset, on occasion, but I digress…

The movie is said to have grossed over 42-million dollars, an exceptional amount for a movie of that era.

Mustang Bullitts have been around since 2001

Since 2001 Ford Motor Company has been building special editions of the Mustang to commemorate that car chase, because it recognises the fact that movies in general and that movie in particular is responsible to a huge degree for Mustang’s continuing global success.

The fact that locals all the way from Montagu to the Du Toit’s Kloof tunnel cheered our Mustang convoy on like we were some kind of heroes can only be ascribed to the fact that the movies have made the Ford Mustang one of the most recognisable cars on the planet.

The 2019 Mustang Bullitt is a throwback

The setting of Montagu and surrounds for the media launch of the 2019 Mustang midlife update and particularly the Bullitt was an inspired one for the first South African appearance of the movie Mustang. The town has a sleepy character that could well be half a century out of sync with today’s  politically-correct universe, and the Bullitt, in its own way, is a throwback of a car too.

For instance, it is equipped with a device that enables the driver to lock the front brakes on while leaving the rear brakes free. This is intended for so-called “burn-outs” : those preliminaries to an all-out assault on a drag strip where the driver first heats up the rear tyres by dumping the clutch at full revs  to create maximum wheel spin.

This anti-social behaviour seemed to be tolerated in Montagu, just so long as no one seriously overdid things. One journo managed to set fire to the front brake pads, but that happened outside the town limits.

The 2019 Mustang Bullitt in brief

The Mustang Bullitt is more about image than being seriously mechanically different from the stock Mustang 5.0 GT. It’s most serious visual signature is that it is painted in Highland Green just like the original movie car, and also features racy, black-painted wheels.

 It has 337 kW, only a 7 kW gain over the normal model. But the manual transmission, topped off with a white “pool ball” gear knob,  makes you so much more connected to the car, as does the  stiffer suspension and the extra raucous exhaust note you get when you select when you select the ultimate Sport mode.

With the manual, you can really enjoy revving that beautifully-balanced V8 all the way to 7 500 rpm and relish the fact that you’ve hit 100 in 4,8 seconds. Again, that time is all but identical to the stock 10-speed automatic Mustang GT’s time, but man, it is sooo much more involving!

More Boerbull  than Doberman

As for the ride in general, if you equated a BMW M4 with a Doberman, all pricked ears and intensity, the Mustang is much more of a Boerbull, and a friendly one at that. It telegraphs what its tyres are doing on the road in a non-threatening manner, almost with a grin, and it puts its power down in a way that is less demanding than the top German-built performance coupes.

But potential customers should be aware that already the entire  consignment of 50 Bullitts for South Africa may well be already sold, so you’ll have to try and pick up one on the pre-owned market. For a section of good used Ford Mustangs for sale in AutoTrader, click here.

The latest updates to the Mustang as a range see it graced with LED switchable instrumentation and other mod-cons that make it more or less competitive with its ultra-tech competitors. No-one is going to pretend that a Mustang has M4 levels of cabin finish, but in a way this too makes the car more user-friendly: you tend to not take yourself so seriously behind the wheel of a Mustang.

The pricing is also friendly. Here are the prices for the up-dated Mustang range and the new Bullitt:

Pricing

Mustang 2.3 Fastback 10AT                                   R768 000

Mustang 2.3 Convertible 10AT                               R831 000

Mustang 5.0 GT Fastback 10AT                              R915 800

Mustang 5.0 GT Convertible 10AT                          R978 400

Mustang Bullitt 5.0 V8 GT Fastback 6MT                 R995 400

For an in-depth launch  review of the latest Ford Mustang range in South Africa, click here

 

Getting back to that movie legacy

The car’s American heritage is interwoven with the movies. Ford has calculated that Mustangs have appeared in well over 500 mainstream movies since the car went on sale in mid-April, 1964. The Mustang was never intended to be an exclusive ride, but more a sporty car that could be bought and driven by people from all walks of life.

The launch date of April 17, 1964 was preceded by the biggest automotive press launch for a car up to that time. In a way it pre-dated today’s global on-line “virtual” launches of new models. Ford’s Lee Iacocca told assembled journalists at the New York World’s Fair on April 13 that they were part of a contingent of more than 2 000 reporters world-wide who were simultaneously attending Mustang press conferences in Great Britain, France, Belgium, Holland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Austria and Portugal.

The launch was filmed and shown on television and in movie theatres world-wide, and thus from the get-go, the Mustang was associated with the movies. What’s more, a Mustang would have a significant role in one of the blockbuster movies of 1964.

Top 5 Mustang Movie Moments

1. Goldfinger, 1964. James Bond (Sean Connery), driving his famous Aston Martin DB5, gets involved in a mountain duel in the Swiss Alps, over the famous Furka Pass. His opponent is a young lady (played by the beautiful Tania Mallet) in a white Ford Mustang convertible. Famously, Bond uses his Aston’s extendable knock off wheel-spinners to slash the tyres of the Mustang, which lurches off the road, but otherwise survives unscathed. This is the very first Mustang Movie Moment, as filming of the sequence began just a month after the Mustang’s global launch.
   
   
2. Bullitt, 1968. This is the movie that provided the template for all future car chases. And because it features real stunt drivers in real cars with nothing digitalised or otherwise faked, many petrol heads believe it remains the ultimate car-chase sequence. What makes it so great is that Steve McQueen’s ’68 Mustang GT and the baddies’ ’68 Dodge Charger adopt impossible lean angles, tail slides and tyre distortions around the undulating streets of San Francisco. Apparently McQueen, an excellent racing driver in his own right, wanted to do the stunt driving himself, but insurance considerations put paid to that.
   
   
3. Grand Prix, 1966. Just a year after the Shelby Mustang was launched – a highly-tweaked racer-for-road produced in low numbers by ex-racing driver Carroll Shelby – a black and gold Mustang GT350H appeared in Grand Prix, one of the best movies ever made about motor racing. The rebel/hero of the movie, played by James Garner, drives his Mustang GT350 H around the mountains above the Mediterranean coast. That Mustang was actually a Hertz Shelby model that you could hire!
   
   
4. K9, 1989. One of the most delightful movies featuring a Mustang in a high percentage of footage was K9. It starred James Belushi as a detective and a recalcitrant police dog (K9 is term for a police dog in America).The highlight of the movie is when Belushi straps the Alsatian up tight in the 1965 Mustang convertible’s seat belts and sends him and the car (with its top down) through a car wash. Great fun.
   
   
5. Gone in 60 seconds, 2000. This is the ultimate movie for Mustang freaks, starring Nicholas Cage and a customised Mustang with Pro-Street goodies built to resemble a modernised 1968 Shelby Mustang GT500. The car was painted silver and christened as “Eleanor”. The car-chase-rich move was a huge hit and spawned a revived craze for street racing and modified cars, that persists to this day. Of course, it also had a huge effect on the interest in Mustangs that increased the car’s cult status in all parts of the world.