The birth of the Mustang
“This is the spirit of the wild Mustang”. A conversation at today’s classic car show in Ghent learned that not everybody knows that the Mustang like we know is actually quite different from the original Mustang concept car. Here’s a great video of the real ‘first’ Mustang.
“One of the treats in the video is seeing Phil Clark at work on the original Mustang logo. We also see Clark hard at work shaping the clay on the buck and his sketches adorn the walls of the studio. It’s a tribute to an extremely gifted designer who died when he was only 32 but left behind a legacy of automotive design and a daughter, Holly, who’s dedicated to making sure the world remembers her father’s contribution to the Mustang. This Ford PR film captures the inside story of the team’s efforts that put the first Mustang on the road.”
Chasing the ghosts of ‘Bullitt’
The Wall Street Journal drives with Loren Janes, now 79 year old former stunt double of many movies including the incredible ‘Bullitt’. Time to debunk some myths:
As Mr. Janes and I drove around the city, three myths were shattered. First, despite the hype, McQueen did not do his own driving in the movie’s most dangerous scenes. "Steve was a great driver, but he was only behind the wheel for about 10% of what you see on screen," said Mr. Janes, who was McQueen’s stunt double from 1959 to 1980. "He drove in scenes that required closeups—but not in the ones that could kill him. Steve always asked me first whether a stunt was too dangerous for him to take on."
When you’re strange: The Blue Lady
A colleague of mine shared this little Youtube clip with me the other day, Jim Morrison from The Doors driving his 1967 Shelby GT500.
Jim Morrison driving his 1967 Shelby G.T. 500. The clip is from the film “When You’re Strange” (directed by Tom DiCillo) which is in turn borrowed from the movie “HWY: An American Pastoral” which Jim made in 1969 with some friends. This footage is considerably clearer than my previous post of Jim driving the car. Go full screen with this clip, the resolution is killer. You can even see dust on the car it’s so crisp and clear.
I did a lot of research on the Shelby and all indications are it was trashed after Jim hit a telephone pole when he was drunk. He had clipped it before, but on that occasion he bent the frame, ending his time with The Blue Lady (his name for the car). Jim met the same fate as the Shelby two years later, though some think he’s still alive. It’s kind of fitting as some people are convinced this car still exists. Maybe he’s still driving it.
Shelby fans, note the car has no front grille emblem, no trunk emblem, small lettered Speedway 350 tires, uneven, hammered rear exhaust outlets, comfortweave seats, fender mounted antenna, and half the molding on the driver’s side taillight is missing. LOL. Best of all, it’s a 4-speed nightmist blue car with parchment interior and 10 spoke wheels. He knew how to pick ‘em, huh? That’s the way I would have ordered it. If only you could go back in time!
An identical car sold at Barrett-Jackson auctions for $330,000 in January, 2008.
GM’s original 1956 four seat sports car proposal
"Let’s revert to the slab stern and high luggage compartment, the nearly vertical rear window, the leather strap and ‘chunk of road machinery’ feeling."
That’s from a multipage document describing the need for an American four-passenger sports car, a text leading to one of the most successful product launches Detroit ever enjoyed, Ford’s April 1964 Mustang. Written in 1956, it was presented to — and furiously rejected by — Harley J. Earl, General Motors’ styling chief. Its author, Barney Clark, wrote Corvette advertising copy at the time. A few years later, working for J. Walter Thompson on the Ford account, he talked with product planner Don Frey about it. Lee Iacocca may be the "father of the Mustang," but he got the notion via Frey and Clark, and thus indirectly from GM. Even the final 108-inch wheelbase was first determined by GM’s Anatole Lapine, who subsequently became Porsche’s design leader. Nothing’s simple in the car-design business.
Read the original document here.
[Via Automobile]
Bullitt special: The Making Of
aka Steve McQueens ‘commitment to reality’.
“Short film on the making of the 1968 feature ‘Bullitt’. If you think you know street racing and fast cars, you should check in for a quick history lesson.”
Click on the image to see the video:
“When megastar Steve McQueen and director Peter Yates set out to make Bullitt, the object was to make a "real" film with one of the most ambitious chase scenes in the history of cinema. And they did it before computers and CGI enabled filmmakers to do the lion’s share of the dangerous work with the click of a mouse. The chase scene in Bullitt remains an all-time classic, with McQueen’s 1968 Mustang Bullitt going head-to-head with a black 1968 Charger R/T 440 Magnum. The chase was real, with speeds surpassing 100 mph on the hilly streets of San Francisco. Steve McQueen teamed up with stunt driver extraordinaire Bill Hickman, and the other cars in the scene were driven by eight of the best stunt drivers around to create an epic high speed chase for the ages.”
That clearly worked out nicely :)
[Via Autoblog]
Bullitt special: the chase
Yes I’ve posted this one here before, probably even more than once. But you cannot expect me to make a special around the movie without showing you the chase again don’t you think? And yes I know you’ve seen it before, just watch it once more – it still is the best car chase of all times remember ;)
Bullitt is a 1968 thriller film starring Steve McQueen. It was distributed by Warner Bros. The director was Peter Yates. The story was adapted for the screen by Alan Trustman and Harry Kleiner, based on the novel titled Mute Witness (1963) by Robert L. Fish (aka Robert L. Pike). Lalo Schifrin wrote the original music score, a memorable mix of jazz, brass and percussion. The movie won the Academy Award for Best Film Editing (Frank P. Keller) and was nominated for Best Sound. Writers Trustman and Kleiner won a 1969 Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for Best Motion Picture Screenplay. Bullitt is most-remembered for its central car chase scene through the streets of downtown San Francisco, one of the earliest and most influential car chase sequences in movie history.[1] The scene had Bullitt in a dark “Highland Green” 1968 Ford Mustang G.T.390 Fastback, chasing two hit-men in a “Tuxedo Black” 1968 Dodge Charger R/T 440 Magnum. (In honor of the Mustang in the film, the Ford Motor Company produced a limited edition 2001 Ford Mustang GT “Bullitt Mustang,” which took styling cues from the ’68 movie car and even mimicked its exhaust note).
Bullitt Special: Intro
The greatest car chase of all times? You bet it is. The next couple of days will be dedicated to the movie and the car chase in particular. Over the last few months I collected some cool content that every Mustang and Bullitt geek will definitely like.
Stay tuned!
Jalopnik ‘Forza Motorsport’ GT500KR
Jalopnik had their own branded Mustang built in Forza Motorsport 3 – the 1968 Ford Shelby Mustang Jalopnik Forza Motorsport GT500KR – as it’s named. Could have been a shorter name right?
Anyway, here it is.
If you play Forza Motorsport, you’ll have to figure out for yourself how to get this one, but it sure looks worth finding out.
Ford Mustang at the movies
Or ‘in the movies’ actually. I just found the IMCDB website aka Internet Movie Cars Database which allows you to search for movies and tv-series by entering a car’s make and model into the search field. So that’s what I did and then I sorted them out by importance/role with the most important one on top. Not that it’s hard to guess what movie that could be of course.
Like. And for the Bullitt fans, I have a special around Bullitt coming up in a couple of days. Stay tuned.
Hot Rod sees the light [AdClassix Week III]
This entry belongs to the 3rd edition of the AdClassix special we’re organizing here this week – all in honor of some great classic Mustang ads. You can find the full collection here at the end of the week.
“The Cobra Jet will be the utter delight of every Ford lover and the bane of all the rest because, quite frankly, it is the fastest running Pure Stock in the history of man” – Hot Rod Magazine (March 1968)
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