The purr and growl of Ford’s latest Mustang muscle
It swaggers like Steve McQueen, and sounds like Barry White. Welcome to the newest instalment of an American icon
If you’re all about channelling your inner Steve McQueen, there’s really only one car for you.
In 1968 the smouldering Hollywood hot-shot starred as police officer Frank Bullitt in, yes, hit movie Bullitt. The swaggering McQueen radiated his regulation cool.
Some might say, however, that arguably the brightest star of his era was outshone by the film’s real draw: a 1968 Ford Mustang 390 GT 2+2 Fastback, which lights up perhaps the most electrifying car chase in cinematograph history.
As usual with scenes of automotive mayhem, multiple cars were required: two Mustangs, plus two Dodge Chargers for the bad guys. But in that singular tearing up of the streets of San Francisco the Mustang’s reputation was carved in celluloid.
(Movie trivia has it that when McQueen tried to buy the surviving Mustang a few years later, the owner, a Warner Brothers employee, refused to sell.)
