Now, if somebody could only find Jim Morrison's '67 Shelby GT500 nicknamed the "Blue Lady"... Have to check with Mom, she used to rock 'n roll back i n the day....
----Mongo
snipped from elsewhere....
more at
The Mustang that Steve McQueen drove into Hollywood history for the 1968 mo vie Bullitt emerged for the first time in 40 years Sunday at the Detroit auto s how in tandem with the debut of a new, limited-edition 2019 Mustang Bullitt.
The special model, due out this summer, will be available only in Shadow Bl ack or Dark Highland Green. It has a 5-liter V-8 engine that packs at least 475 horsepower and tops out at 163 miles per hour ? an 8 mph increase o ver the latest Mustang GT.
Like the original Bullitt car, the third-generation vehicle lacks stripes, spoilers or badges.
?It doesn?t need to scream about anything. It?s jus t cool,? said chief designer Darrell Behmer.
The all-new Mustang Bullitt is equipped with manual transmission, and the g ear shifter features a white cue ball shift knob as a nod to the original. Stan dard equipment reflects a new era, with a heated leather steering wheel and high
-tech amenities.
Features pay tribute to the car McQueen drove, with chrome accents around t he grille and front windows, classic torque thrust 19-inch aluminum wheels, a black front grille. Only the circular faux gas cap Bullitt logo on the rear cente r is visible on the exterior. The leather-trimmed interior features green accent stitching on the dashboard, door panels, center console and seats.
?It has to have the right attitude, it has to be unique in some way from a Mustang GT and, more than anything, it has to be badass,? said chie f engineer Carl Widmann.
Two identical 1968 Mustang GT fastbacks were used in the film, which debute d Oct. 17, 1968. The hero vehicle was sold by the studio to a private buyer a nd the other, used in so many chase scenes, went to a salvage yard. The latter vehicle resurfaced in Baja California, in early 2017 but the other was lost . Until now.
?This is probably the Holy Grail, if there is one,? said Ma rk Gessler, president of the Historic Vehicle Association. ?It?s one of the most important artifacts of the 21st Century in terms of automotive history. It is a national cultur al treasure.?
McQueen filmed all the chase scenes himself in the Warner Bros. classic tha t depicts a cop chasing hit men through the hills of San Francisco. Real spee d. Real crashes. Real point of view of the driver.
As it turns out, the 1968 car has been in a family garage, quietly waiting for the film's 50th anniversary. Its owner died years ago, leaving a son to hol d on to a collector car found in a classified ad from Road & Track magazine in 1
974.Hargerty, a classic-car insurance company, says that based on other famous movie cars like the Batmobille and James Bond's original Aston Martin, the origia l Bullitt Mustang could be worth more than $4 million at auction.
?We kept it a secret in the family for so long, hiding in plain sig ht,? Sean Kiernan, 36, of Hendersonville, Tenn., said. ?We hoped to restore i t, but then my dad got Parkinson?s and I had my first daughter and life was hap pening.?
Ford has been working with Kieran since he reached out two years ago. On Su nday, Kiernan, an automotive paint manager who drives a 2014 GT Mustang Californi a Special, was part of the North American International Auto Show introducing the public to the new Mustang Bullitt.
?The car shows the gentle patina of time. It has rust marks,? ? said Gessler, who noted that Detroit will be the first stop before a national tour that inclu des Washington, D.C. ?Steve McQueen wanted to create the most realistic chase scene ever on film. He found a director, Peter Yates, and Warner Bros. gave him t he reins. They took four weeks to shoot an 11-minute chase scene.?
McQueen had all the badging on the car removed. It was recognizable from ju st its angles and silhouettes. And that?s why the new model is so spar se, said Kevin Marti, owner of Marti Auto Works in El Mirage, Ariz., who created and maintains the database for every Ford vehicle built since 1967. ?Th is car is so iconic that you don?t even need to put a name on the thing. That sp eaks to the confidence Ford has.?
As the licensee of Ford production records, he tracks every vehicle identification number for more than 140 million cars, and he notes style an d color trends of each era. In the 1960s, popular cars were avocado green, wh ite and red. In the 1970s, automakers turned to browns, yellows and earthy colo rs. Now consumers lean toward silver, white and black. So Dark Highland Green w ill make a statement. It is a throwback color on a throwback car.
'That is one sexy car'
*