Finally - the Bullitt begins! :-)

[Dwayne]

I had my bike licence for 4yrs before I went for my car one. Had a few GSX750R's and RGV's plus my all time favourite ... a postie bike

Then I had kids, and unfortunately a few funerals and haven't owned one since.

I sometimes think about getting another one, and then I go for a drive and see the complete idiots in cars and change my mind pretty quickly. Such a shame as I do love riding bikes.

[hybrid]

Just build a track day bike.
I never understood them until I put mine on the track. I could quite easily go without rego and just do a few track days a year.

[mungus]

That was also my pitch to the management when I returned to OZ in 2007. However as she kinda rightly stated, "in Asia you lived 25 mins from a track where you could ride any day you wanted for peanuts (except race days), and you got plenty of use out of your 999 track bike plus got to ride to work and do the odd day tour. But here you are hours away from the tracks, and the track days are few and way more costly, etc. So what's the point in spending all that money on a new Duke just to ride it 3 or 4 times a year?"

The other big thing was in Malaysia the cops were ahemm, "flexible", you could fang around on country roads and not lose your licence. Just some "coffee money" if they pulled you over. Not so here, I'd likely lose my licence if I bought a fast bike in the PO-leese state of VIC.

That plus one of our best expat friends getting killed on his Monster, in a hit and run by an idiot taxi driver, a really nice bloke who left his wife with 2 little kids, kinda put my plans to bed for a while....

Still I have a dream to build a 30's Velocette rigid racer one day, having most of a spare pre war MSS Mechanical's in storage. There's quite an active velo race bike scene. A bit pedestrian by comparison, but you still get to chase blokes around a track. So maybe that's worth keeping my leathers for.

[hybrid]

Yeah you don't have to buy a ducati to have fun. The south circuit at Eastern creek is only small, so you can have fun on smaller bikes. My 500 Yam is more than enough to get me into trouble.
Anyway... yet another famous Mustangtech hijack.. sorry

[ozbilt]

Anyway... yet another famous Mustangtech hijack.. sorry

[mungus]

Yeah you don't have to buy a ducati to have fun. The south circuit at Eastern creek is only small, so you can have fun on smaller bikes. My 500 Yam is more than enough to get me into trouble.
Anyway... yet another famous Mustangtech hijack.. sorry

True, and indeed I have a few rice burners, but these days I like nice sounding 4 strokes, like thumpers and V twins (particularly Ducatis & Vincents etc), and that's part of it for me. Kinda like why do we have yank V8's instead of a cheap WRX? At least I can partly offset the lack of speedy tarmac time by having a few dirt bikes and my own farm to goof around on whenever I want. Anyway hijack over!

UPDATE: so I got the Velocette MSS back together today. So soon I'll be back into the Bullitt.

[Shaunp]

I see on Face book they have found one of the bullit cars couple of interesting mods lke vents in the boot welded shock towers etc

[mungus]

I see on Face book they have found one of the bullit cars couple of interesting mods lke vents in the boot welded shock towers etc

Thanks Shaun, I'll have a google and see what comes up.

There have been a couple of phoneys come up in the past, and it's been established where one of the 2 cars is, and who owns it (the slow scenes car, which was sold on, basically undamaged). All the credible accounts at the time, said the other car was crushed, but who really knows. I suppose anything is possible. If legit it can only be that car and the welded shock towers and trunk generator vent tie in with some recollections from the car's builder before he died in 1999.

It would be cool if it is genuine, however I think the MOC of America, Kevin Marti and maybe even David Kunz should give it a really good going over before anyone labels it as authentic. Problem is these days anyone can take a 68' San Jose GT and make it a Bullitt, dents and all. Even adding the known and rumoured mods is doable, as is aging repro tags etc. Something not so easy to find would be a set of the proper custom made magnesium Torque Thrust wheels. The true 68' mag TT's are rocking horse sh*t. There is a specialist vintage alloy wheel dealer in CA who sells old TT's etc, and knows them inside out, so he could have a look. Even then the lighter magnesium alloys ozidize at a known rate, so that could be analyzed to see if they are the right age, etc. There are millions at stake on this one, for some one knowledgeable and dodgy enough to try it. Credible industrial forensics would need to sign off on this thing before it went under the hammer I'd venture.

Kevin Marti pulled all the details on the 2 cars years ago, and if genuine all the sheet metal shift stampings should be spot on January 68' San Jose too. The only sheet metal that got changed was the jump car's rear valance later on during the filming of the chase.

But here's hoping it is real, it would be great to see it surface if so.

Thanks for the post. Interesting stuff.

UPDATE: Well here is a link on it, complete with some photos.

http://shiftinglanes.com/2017/03/origin ... t-mustang/

Hard to know if its real, the door tag looks legit but so much else is missing from the photos, and its supposedly been repainted a few times, so who knows. But i guess it's promising. The only thing is (and I say this as someone married to a latina and who loves Latin America), is that Mexico is famous for faking car parts and has a few old Mustangs too... (there is an MOC in Mexico), plus given how famous the car was and the fact that the VIN was known I'm a little suspicious that it passed through so many owners/enthusiasts and had so many changes with no one suspecting the cars identity until now.... We'll just have to wait and see.

Side note, from the text of these links the journos concerned plainly don't know much about the Bullitt story, as the car McQueen tried to buy back before he died was the slow scenes car, not the supposedly crushed one.

[mungus]

Well apparently (if you can believe the latest web gossip), Kevin Marti has now visited the car and according to one poster, declared it (or what is left of it) legitimate. But I'll wait until I see something that looks official before I believe it.

[Shaunp]

Get ozbilt to talk to Kevin they are mates

[mungus]

Get ozbilt to talk to Kevin they are mates

No need! Thanks to the miracle of the internet;

http://forums.vintage-mustang.com/vinta ... nd-16.html

Marti has apparently declared it as legit. Must be worth a bundle. From what I've read theres not much left of it though. No driveline, most OEM sheet metal replaced, missing movie parts like the FIV wheel etc.

[ozbilt]

Get ozbilt to talk to Kevin they are mates

No need! Thanks to the miracle of the internet;

http://forums.vintage-mustang.com/vinta ... nd-16.html

Marti has apparently declared it as legit. Must be worth a bundle. From what I've read theres not much left of it though. No driveline, most OEM sheet metal replaced, missing movie parts like the FIV wheel etc.

Do not believe the internet. Nothing has been confirmed by Kevin or anyone else that matters. I will be over there in May, however if he says to say nothing, then that is the end of it.

[mungus]

Yes I did notice there was no statement issued by Kevin, just a bunch of smiley photos of him with the car. At least it confirms he did visit it, but as you rightly say, he hasn't confirmed anything...

UPDATE:

Well this looks a bit more definitive. Apparently Kevin has now made a statement to Fox News and had confirmed its real and that the sheet metal checks out. So it looks like it's real after all. Some good PR for Kevin in there too!

http://www.foxnews.com/auto/2017/03/06/ ... firms.html

[rkmiller73]

So.... if you owned the other known Bullet movie fastback, would that devalue yours since now there are two (and possibly a third as one of the original stuntmen now claims).

Just food for thought, no opinions. I am glad they can save any fastback. No offense to Elanor fans, but I like the original body style.

[nassi]

No offense to Elanor fans, but I like the original body style.

Do Eleanor fans deserve consideration?