He let the Bullitt go with a bang.
The iconic green Ford Mustang from the 1968 Steve McQueen thriller “Bullitt” was sold for $3.4 million at the Mecum Auctions event in Kissimmee, Fla., Friday. It was the latest chapter in the long-lost car’s story, which may be even better than the movie.
The custom 1968 Mustang GT 390 is one of two — a dedicated stunt/camera car and this one that McQueen drove for his close-ups — that were used during the making of the film, known for its legendary chase sequence through the streets of San Francisco. The damaged stunt car was reportedly sent to the crusher after production wrapped, while the hero car ended up in a Road & Track classified ad in 1974 and was bought for $3,500 by a New Jersey man named Robert Kiernan for him and his wife to use as a daily driver.
Three years later, Kiernan got a letter from McQueen asking to buy it back. The Kiernans told him thanks, but no thanks, and drove the car regularly until 1980 when the clutch went out with 65,000 miles on the odometer. It was then parked in the couple’s garage. Robert planned to get it fixed one day but never did. The Kiernans and their two children, Kelly and Sean, eventually moved to Tennessee and brought the Mustang with them, but eventually put it in storage, where it deteriorated over many years.
No doubt bought by a man suffering from Toxic Masculinity.
Ya got me.
Don’t watch TV, but have watched the Mecum Auctions.
That’s entertainment and education regarding the vagaries in pricing as the market dies with us dinosaurs.
Can buy about 95 new ones for that kind of money.
Would rather have the ’68 Charger.
Recently checked out Volo Auto Museum in Volo, Illinois. 3 or 4 of their buildings are lined with movie cars, batman, fast and furious, ghostbusters, blues brothers, ford v ferrari.. donald trump’s limo, brittany spears beamer, princes di’s car.. and a lot more with rare old car and rare old camper exhibits. A few of the exhibits are actually showrooms where you can pick from over 50 or so restored and original muscle cars for sale. The prices are actually reasonable/affordable at the higher end.. I drooled over a few of the GTOs, road runners, chargers, and camaros. You’re not supposed to touch them but you can get right up on them, poke your head in the window and peek underneath them. My wife ended up somehow peeling me away before we ended up with a land yacht that wouldn’t fit in the driveway. Now I’m going to show her this article and say, “see, $17k-$70k is a steal compared to $3.4 mil.” lol.
He beat the snot out of that car, I’ll give him 3.1 million and not a penny more.
Great looking muscle car.
IMO, McQueen was the coolest man/actor of all time.
I thought the other car was found in a junk yard in Mexico and had also been purchased by a car refurbisher.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/steve-mcqueen-bullitt-mustang-mexico-junkyard/
Was recently made aware of the car on Jay Leno’s garage. Great episode.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Hu4vKWBMCo
Did Rick Harrison buy it?
In the late 70s I owned a ’65 Mustang Fastback that had been a car enthusiast’s pet project. It was stunning. People thought it was a Shelby and asked to take pictures of it. I got more tickets in that car than it was worth and I finally sold it cheap. It’s probably worth $60,000 today.
^^^si….cooler than Dirty Harry? Never.
@Grool: You know why that Mustang whupped that MoPar? Because it was a movie! 😀
The clip
https://youtu.be/FJZ-BHBKyos
🍿
A 12 year old car with 68,000 miles wasn’t fit to be run.
Yes children, we had to change sparkplugs twice a year and do many other adjustments regularly or they just wouldn’t run. They looked great but be thankful for your automatic everything that lasts decades without rusting out beneath you.
Once Upon a Time in America….there were MEN.
When introduced in’64, the Mustang was immediately tagged as a “secretary’s car” (Ford advertising didn’t help). Ford tried to give the car a more macho image via Carrol Shelby’s GT 350 modifications (Shel didn’t like the car). Trans Am racing and Bullitt helped the image a lot, but I will always consider the Mustang a secretary’s car , in all it’s iterations.
OK, McQueen the coolest man? Ahh, no but the coolest actor, fook yeah. Name one cooler, I’ll wait…..yeah.
Best car chase? Well having seeing it again, TU anon, maybe. The chase in Ronin is ALSO pretty fookin good. Frankenhimer ain’t no slouch and Bullitt the movie over all, is lame-o. Take Steve out of it what have you got? Squat.
McQueen edges out Eastwood. Probably because McQueen was more my era.
gin-
That car was snotless when Bullitt was done.
If you like this kind of stuff, check out Barn Find Hunter on YouTube.
@PHenry ~ I have it on good authority that Steve McQueen used to crap several pounds of ‘Toxic Masculinity’ before breakfast every day!
… may not have been the ‘most masculine’ but he was definitely the ‘coolest’ in my book
@Tony R:
I owned a 1985½ SVO Mustang that was most definitely not a secretary’s car, unless the secretary was named Bruce.
You may not have liked it; it was a four-banger, but it put out the same HP as the (so-called) 5.0 liter V8 by means of an intercooled turbo that boosted to 17 PSI. The front end was about 200 lbs. lighter than the GT and it cornered like a six-legged dog even with that live rear axle. Six Konis helped with that.
Dodge! lol I call them Bundymobiles.