The second movie car, the one rumored to be locked away in a collection in Kentucky has come out of hiding. It was actually in New Jersey and owned by a school teacher and her family. They recently put the car back in running condition and it still sports the original dark highland green paint and the 390 big block and four speed.

Ford used it during the unveiling of the 2019 bullitt and it was actually shown privately to the granddaughter of Steve McQueen just before the unveiling.

http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-cult...steve-mcqueen/

 

Nice story. That chase is imprinted in my mind. I have watched it many times, by far my favorite chase scene.

 

The strangest thing to me about the Bullit Mustang is that I'm old enough to have seen Steve Mcqueen on a talk show saying the car had a modified small block engine. I sort of presumed that maybe the jump car had the lighter engine and the other had the 390. But, I don't know and have never seen an explanation of what he said.

I have read that the General Lee in the tv show "Dukes of Hazzard" used a small block car for jump scenes and a big block for the chase scenes. I also read that the show destroyed over 70 Chargers in the 3 years of production.

 

As the story goes, the jump car had the original 390 BB yanked out and it was replaced with a small block and that was the car that was put in the ditch at the end of the chase scene. It was recently found in a junk yard in Baja Mexico and all that was left was the shell and the vin. that car is currently undergoing a restoration as we speak. The other car changed hands a few times and ended up in Jersey and owned by a school teacher and her insurance salesman husband since 1974. That car still has the big block and is 98% complete and original to the way the studio modified it back in 1968 and it still runs and drives.

 

On a related note, ford unveiled the 2019 bullitt and it has at least 475 hp, the performance pack as standard, unique 19" bullitt style wheels, faux gas cap with bullitt script, debadged exterior, six speed manual only, and comes in black or highland green.

Also they unveiled the newest vehicle in the ford lineup to wear the ST badge, the 2019 ford edge ST, it's basically an edge sport with the 2.7 ecoboost v6 cranked up to 335 hp and revised suspension.

 

On one of the car shows a few years back they were chatting about the Dukes of Hazard cars. They destroyed a lot of cars but what I found interesting is that most of them on the long jumps, the engine was a slant 6. This was according to the guy that was building the cars for them. Weights were installed in the stripped down car so it would fly right. Grave Yard Cars just did one of the Dukes cars that did one of the featured "Freeway"jumps.

 

In some of the Dukes of Hazard jumps, if you watched carefully you could see the front fender crumple when the car landed and then speed away with straight fenders.

 

How difficult do you think it will be to reserve/order a 2019 Bullit?

 

Start getting real friendly with your local dealer.....................

 

That's sort of what I thought. They will probably go to the highest bidder..
Have they said how many they are producing?

 

One of the things that Steve McQueen said was that his friend riding the motorcycle talked him in to doing the motorcycle crash scene in front of him and he said that he panicked and ran the car into the ditch because he was so concerned about his friend and they left that in the movie.

 

I used to know a guy that worked on the DoH movie set and that built cars for them. He said that they had to add 1200# of weight in the trunks in an effort to keep the cars level and for the same reason they preferred to use 6 cylinder cars with lighter engines for the jumps. But he also that EVERYTIME one of them landed the frame folded up and the car was totaled. He said that only got one jump per car and that eventually they were buying up any Chargers in the SE that used the same body style ('68-'70).

They ruined a lot of good cars for an extremely trashy show IMO.

 

One of my friends bought a new 68 Dodge with the 440 engine and it felt like it was the most powerful car I had ridden in. Several years later, I test drove a used 68 Charger with that engine thinking I might buy it but the body was so loose and flimsy that I couldn't accept it. The Chevelle bodies were much much more solid.

 

It must have been something wrong with that charger. I had a '68 w/ 440 and never noticed a problem with it. But my favorite was my '70 RR Superbird with the 440 Six Pak. I also had a '70 Challenger RT with 440/6 but it was too light in the rear. My buddy had Chevele but it didn't handle nearly as well as my Superbird!

 

Back in the late '70's and into the '80's, my Dad got into buying and selling used cars. He already had the family business of appliance repair and A/C, but he was also a Car Guy. So it was natural. Eventually he and my uncle partnered up and became used car dealers. Back then I was in my late teens/early twenty's. I remember traveling to new car dealers with him looking for cars on their wholesale lots, and going to the car auctions to buy cars for his car lots, which at one point we had three small lots. Even at that time a Mustang fastback, especially a '66-'68 was gold. '69-'70's were easy to sell but not like '67-'68's. 289's were the norm, but when we got one with like a 390 it went fast. Prior to the Dukes of Hazard, the '68-'70 Chargers were just an ordinary car. Easy to get and sell for a good price. Afterwards they could still be had but at a much higher price. As soon as he got one it received any repairs it needed, and got painted "Orange". Didn't matter what engine it had. Most of what we could get to sell usually had a 318 in it. If it had a big block in it, it usually would be out of our price range, or it was rough and would cost more to fix then what we could sell it for. But when we got one ready for sale it went "Likity Split". The Road Runners, Challengers, Darts, and Demons were fast sellers. One of my favorites, which Dad kept, was a '70 Road Runner that had a 383 Magnum with a Pistol grip 4 speed, and it was an "Air Grabber car. It was a pale green with the laser type stripes on the side. I loved that car............