History's Greatest Automotive Mysteries, Myths and Rumors Revealed by Matt Stone

Author:Matt Stone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Quarto Publishing Group USA
Published: 2012-07-14T16:00:00+00:00

YOU DRIVE LIKE STEVE MCQUEEN

LEGEND: Steve McQueen drove all of his own stunts in the 1968 film Bullitt

In the eyes of many film fans, the chase scene from the 1968 movie Bullitt was, is, and remains the best ever filmed. There have been some valiant challengers: the late John Frankenheimer’s heart-pounding work through the streets of Paris in Ronin; making Minis fly in The Italian Job (the original and remake); and the Seven-Ups, which involved some of the same folks who worked on Bullitt. And let’s not forget some great action driving sequences several of the Jason Bourne movies.

But when the lists are made and the bets are laid down, Bullitt comes out on top. Every time. In spite of a few charming continuity goofs and cameras occasionally visible in the back seat of Lieutenant Frank Bullitt’s tire-smoking Mustang fastback, the scene was lauded for its authenticity and realism at the time. So much so that is garnered an Oscar win for film editing. See it on a big screen today, and the views out the windshield as the Mustang and bad guys’ Dodge Charger careen down San Francisco’s Taylor Street will still make your stomach roll.

McQueen plays Frank Bullitt, a grizzled veteran investigator with the San Francisco P.D. His girlfriend is a young, nubile Jacqueline Bisset, and the reptilian politico villain is played by Robert Vaughn at his handsome and snarky best. I visited San Francisco, and drove most of the chase scene route, in preparation for an article for Motor Trend Classic magazine.

From its earliest iterations, the script called for an “automotive action scene”; this was likely one of the reasons McQueen and his Solar Productions were involved in the first place. This actor/producer insisted on absolute realism, with no camera speedups, and of course this was long before the notion of computer-generated animation. The rest of the plot is inconsequential to this exercise.

Ford was the official car provider for the movie, the main four-wheeled characters being two 1968 Mustang GT 390s, painted that now famous shade of Highland Green Metallic. The cars carried back-to-back serial numbers, and although rumors persist that one was really a 302-powered car and one had an automatic trans, hard-core Bullitteers have vetted the build codes and confirm both were 325-horse, big-block, four-speed models.

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