The first clue that Ford would deliver a special Mustang to mark the 50th anniversary of the movie Bullitt came when it withdrew the colour Guard from its inventory.
Guard is a dark green similar to the signature Dark Highland Green of the Mustang GT Fastback driven by Hollywood star Steve McQueen (above) in the classic 1968 film chase.
Ford NZ communications manager Tom Clancy confirmed last year that Guard was gone from the colour pallette. Why? “It’s just that they’re not doing that colour any more,” he said. Why? “Don’t know. We’ve been told it’s been withdrawn.”
A year on and spy pictures of what’s been called the new ‘Ford Mustang Bullitt’ have been posted to an online forum, many months after a Ford promotional video briefly showed a similar car in a wind tunnel.
Two grainy images taken during a video shoot in Chicago show a Mustang with a round ‘crosshair’ logo at the rear and black ‘Torq Thrust’ wheels with polished chrome lips – equipment that isn’t currently available in the wider 2018 Mustang range.
The actual colour of the car isn’t clear, but online forums and motoring websites in the US are convinced it’s Dark Highland Green, a special edition with a GT performance pack to mark Bullitt’s 50th birthday in 2018.
Ford last produced a Mustang Bullitt with the crosshair logo on a version of the 2008-09 Mustang GT, built to celebrate the film’s 40th birthday.
The go-faster pack would likely include upgraded suspension and brakes, a shorter rear axle ratio and about a 10-12kW boost in power. The 2008-09 Bullitt Mustang had such revisions.
The 1968 film featured one of the best car chase scenes ever, 11 minutes of action in which Detective Frank Bullitt drove his Mustang GT through the streets of San Francisco after the bad guys in a 1968 Dodge Charger R/T.
