Tip Your Nostalgia Cap To The 475bhp Ford Mustang Bullitt

Sometimes the world delivers you a slice of something wonderful, and while we’ll probably never own the new Ford Mustang Bullitt, we sure as hell enjoy looking at it.

Built to honour the 1968 Mustang driven by Steve McQueen in the classic movie Bullitt, let your eyes caress its gorgeous Dark Highland Green paintwork. It’s also yours in black, if you’ve gone wrong, and yes, it was spotted during promo filming work a while back.

Beneath the paint is a 475bhp, 420lb ft upgrade of the standard car. Top speed is lifted to 163mph from 155mphand it’s yours with a manual gearbox only, complete with white ‘cue ball’ shift knob. Steve McQueen wouldn’t have it any other way.

His granddaughter, Molly, takes the wheel in a fun remake of the legendary San Francisco two-car chase sequence… this time in a car park with only one remaining space. In a not-so-subtle dig at rivals Dodge, Ford even puts the ‘villains’ of the piece in a Dodge Charger. Bants, etc.

The Bullitt gets an active valve performance exhaust and has been tuned to recreate a burble more reminiscent of the 1960s era. It gets a Shelby GT350 intake manifold and 87mm throttle bodies.

Back in 2018, it’s all fresh and modern. The car gets a heated steering wheel, a 12-inch digital instrument cluster with a Bullitt-specific welcome screen (definitely not a gimmick, honest) that shows the car rather than the Mustang pony, and green contrast stitching throughout.

A Bullitt Electronics Package upgrade option adds navigation, electric memory seat for the driver, a stereo upgrade and blind spot warning with rear cross-traffic alert. The second of just three factory options is Ford’s MagneRide semi-active suspension, and the third is a pair of Recaro black leather sports seats.
Carl Widmann, Mustang chief engineer said:

“When making a Bullitt, there are certain things it absolutely must have. 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 bad ass.”

During the car’s unveiling at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, the original Mustang Bullitt hero car made an appearance after 40 years of speculation over its whereabouts. It’s hardly in concours condition, but we really like that.

The ‘jumper’ car, the hero car’s twin that was wrecked during stunt filming, was unearthed in a scrapyard last year.