THE GIST: The long-lost 1968 Ford Mustang GT 390 Fastback stunt car from Steve McQueen’s “Bullitt” has been fully restored by Ralph Garcia after being discovered in Baja, Mexico. Authenticated by Kevin Marti, the iconic coupe is now on display at Los Angeles’ Petersen Automotive Museum.
It’s one of the wildest movie memorabilia stories.
A 1968 Ford Mustang GT 390 Fastback featured in the Steve McQueen film “Bullitt” that went missing for decades before being discovered in the most unlikely place, is now fully restored and on display at The Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles.
The iconic green coupe is one of two that were used in the making of the film. It was the primary stunt car featured in the landmark chase scene through the streets of San Francisco, while the other was a “hero car” kept in good condition for close-ups and beauty shots.
The hero car was sold off and ended up with New Jersey resident Robert Kiernan, who bought it from a classified ad in Road & Track for $6,000 in 1974. McQueen reached out to him in 1977 asking to buy it back, but Kiernan kept it and used it until it was so beat up he put it away in storage, where it sat for decades as the legend of what happened to it grew among classic car and film fans. Kiernan died in 2014 and in 2018 his son, Sean, decided to go public with the car, revealing it with Ford at the Detroit Auto Show in its unrestored glory. Two years later he sold it at auction for $3.74 million. The stunt car had a very different hero’s journey.
Since it was so beat up during the car chase, which included a crash into a ditch, it was long believed to have been sent to the scrap heap. Well, that’s almost true. While its full history remains unknown, a man named Hugo Sanchez found what was left of it sitting in a sandy lot in Baja California Sur, rotting away in the Mexican sun. He had no idea what it was, but purchased it with the intent of having it converted into a replica of the Eleanor Mustang from the film “Gone in 60 Seconds” by his friend Ralph Garcia.
But just as Garcia had assembled all of the parts ready to start the work, he got a call from Sanchez asking him to stop everything. A check of the car’s VIN by Mustang historian Kevin Marti led to the determination that it was the Bullitt stunt car, so they decided to restore it properly.
Garcia did a quick reconstruction and paint job to make it presentable for the announcement, then went to work on a painstaking restoration using authentic Mustang parts that he only completed this year. In fact, he says it’s about 98% done, as he is still looking for a few pieces needed for the finishing touches.
While the car looks new at first glance, he did leave many elements from the production intact. There’s a hole inside the trunk, which was either used as a generator exhaust or for a smoke machine during burnout sequences, various camera mounting points and damage to the undercarriage from the many brutal jumps the car was put through on San Francisco’s hilly streets for the chase.
The car will be at the museum for several months before Garcia and Sanchez put it up for sale at a yet to be determined auction with one interesting option. A few dents were intentionally added to the car when it was originally customized to make it look like a beat-up detective’s car. Garcia left these out, but the owner of the shop that did the work, Lee Brown, still has the metal pole that was used to hit it with and will be happy to replicate them for the new owner, upon request.
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Now that the stunt car’s story is almost wrapped up, there’s another Bullitt mystery that needs to be revealed. Despite the fanfare around the hero car’s 2020 auction, the buyer remains anonymous and the car hasn’t been seen in public since. But that might change soon. Garcia told American Cars And Racing that he’s been contacted about possibly bringing together the two cars for an event. He didn’t say who the owner is, but said the reunion could happen sometime before the stunt car is sold.
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2 Comments
Sad that it took the Mexican shop 8 years to restore the car, and it is still not correct. In this video, the tires have white letters instead of black, a 1967 rearview mirror instead of the correct 1968 version that attaches to the windshield, no chrome trim on the leading edge of the hood, the door tag is painted over (!), the door interior pull straps are missing, the rear valance bumper guards are missing, the “Caution Fan” sticker should be removed from the radiator fan shroud, there should be a “390 cubic inches” sticker on the air filter cover, there should be staples in the rubber hood seal on the radiator support, the sides of the gas cap base should be blacked out, etc. Is there a VIN tag on the passenger side of the windshield? Does this have the 8k RPM tachometer? Does the reproduction rear window have the centerline etched?