As he goes to get in his car he notices that black Dodge parked across the street. He had seen it earlier in the day, and there it was again. Two men doing a really bad job of trying not being noticed. He gets in his car a green 1968 Mustang and pulls out. Sure enough the black Dodge pulls out, makes a U turn, and starts to follow at a discrete distance. He speeds up, makes a few quick turns (he is on home turf after all) and loses them. As the occupants of the Dodge look for him, they notice he is now coming up behind them. Now with both cars stopped at a red light, as the light changes, the Dodge guns it and makes a left turn across two lanes of traffic. From here the chase is on. A chase that will end up with the two killers in the Dodge dead, and the now famous green Mustang in a ditch with a broken axel.
The two killers in the Dodge go unnamed, but the driver of the Mustang was Lt. Frank Bullitt, and what occurred is one of the most iconic movie chase scenes ever. In today’s age of totally unbelievable case scenes, such as cars jumping over helicopters, this in my onion is the gold standard in chase scenes. The only one that comes close is Ryan O’neal in The Driver.
It seems only fitting that in 2018, 50 years later that Ford would pay homage to one of their most famous cars with the 50th Anniversary Bulitt edition of the Mustang (in green of course. At the 2018 Chicago Auto how, I made a point to get to the Ford display before the show opened. I had been told that the car would not be open for interior shots. After a brief conversation, and a promise not to take more than 10 minutes, I was permitted to shoot the interior.
On a final note, as I reviewed my shots I noticed there was no Mustang or Ford logo on the grill. When I got home I loaded the DVD, and fast forwarded to a front shot of the car. As many times as I have seen this movie, I had never noticed the same was true in the movie. There were no Logos on the car.
Joel