Well, let's try this;

Interesting car seen and memory attached:

Walking past the garage acroos the street from work, I saw a Bullit Mustang in the driveway. I remember in 02 @ the NY Auto show it was the 'sleeper' production car that caught my eye among the 100's of cars there.

Who can forget Steve McQueen and that car chase? Worth renting and seeing again. He was just dripping w/ screen presence, I can't think of a current actor that has that kind of charisma.

Do they list the credit for stunt driving in movies? Who are the unsung drivers?

 

I believe McQueen did much of his own driving. I think Nicolas Cage did a lot of his own driving in Gone in 60 Seconds as well. I loved both of those cars and except for the jump at the end, loved the chase scenes as well.

 

Not only did McQueen insist on doing all of his own driving / riding (Bullit, LeMans,The Great Escape, and On Any Sunday). To make Bullit he insisted on being in complete control of the Mustang's "setup" as well. As a result, the car handled too well for the wild four wheel drifts that the Director wanted. As the compromise, McQueen did the now famous "jumps" at the flat cross street intersections. He also did all his own driving in the making of LeMans.

A couple of years ago Bullit was going to be aired on the Fox Network. As I had not seen it in years and did not have it on tape I was all excited, set up the VCR to record it. Some "Bozo" at Fox cut out most of the chase scene :-( They just don't get it.

P.S. The next time you watch Bullit, count how many hubcaps the Charger looses.

 

McQueen was definitely a man's man. Too bad his life was cut short.

I can close my eyes and seeing him jumping that fence in the Great Escape or crusing into LeMans with his street Porsche.

 

In 1971, a bunch of us would get off work at McDonalds in south San Jose, drive to the Capitol Drive-Ins, sit out side and watch the Bullit chase seen. As I recall, we counted 5 hubcaps rolling down the streets of San Francisco. After the chase we would continue on to downtown and cruise 1st and 2nd streets. Typical teenager weekend nights.

 

Although I have never met Steve McQueen. I have a warm spot in my heart for him, not only because he did his own driving but because he bank rolled the classic Bruce Brown documentary on the world of motorcycling named "On Any Sunday".

This movie was largely repsonsible in getting me interested in motor cycle road racing as I could not afford to race cars.

As it turned out, I wound up knowing many of the people that where profiled in the film. The world of motorcycle racing is a fairly small community.