Having a look through the CC Cohort, this photo of a black 1968 Dodge Charger being followed by a Highland Green 1968 Mustang fastback by tbm3fan jumped out at me. tbm3fan said “No one paying attention except me who had to speed 80 mph to catch up the 1/2 mile for a photo.”
I wonder if both cars, seen east of Berkeley CA, are owned by the same person who is a more hard-core fan than most of us? I don’t have a Highland Green Mustang, but when I was in San Francisco a few years ago I made sure to drive down Taylor Street, which was the scene of the infamous jumps during the movie car chase.
What do you think – coincidence or convoy?
Further Reading:
HaHa – what a great picture! But aren’t the cars in the wrong order? The Charger should be chasing the Mustang. Let’s hope that it didn’t end in a big fireball. 🙂
Not so fast! Remember that Steve McQueen ended up behind the Charger through some subterfuge or another very early in the chase scene, so this mostly is the correct order.
Great start to my morning! (And yes – what JP said.) This pairing was not a coincidence.
The “Bullitt“ Mustang was a plot element in one of the “Blue Bloods” episodes.
Sorry Mustang fans, the Blue Oval never catches the Mighty Mopar in the film. Why a true Mopar man would rather crash in flames than let a mere Mustang pass him.
I can’t say for sure if it’s a coincidence, but I can say for sure that those two drivers definitely know they they’re driving Bullit style.
Now: asking the important questions –
JohnH875, were you driving a green VW beetle?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UZj2nJkZ81k
That video is great. I have a new respect for the green VW.
The VW even reprises its roll in the recreation of the famous chase scene in the short lived Fox TV Series “Alcatraz” in 2013…
Ironically, the female detective driving the 2013 Mustang, used a 1968 Hunter Green Bullitt Mustang as her daily driver in the show. Either the producers did not want to wreck such a Curbside Classic, or since the show (the season finale, and sadly series finale after Fox canceled the show) was sponsored by Ford, and thus worked out to be a perfect commercial for the newest Mustang (at the time).
Short-lived is unnecessary when describing a Fox TV series, it’s simply Fox TV series 😉
I remember seeing that clip, and yeah I had no idea it was part of some bigger series, I thought Ford’s marketing department put together an over polished bullitt tribute with a cheesy “nobody dies” ending for YouTube.
Actually, I had in my text right after the words “cancelled the show”… “as they are wont to do”, but thought it overkill as like you say, if you’ll allow me to paraphrase, ‘Fox TV Series’ and ‘Short Lived’ are kinda redundant. I’m still pissed off that they cancelled Firefly, all these years later.
The ‘Nobody Dies” thing? – Well I guess we’ll never know. I watched this show, and as I recall, the guy stabs the girl, right after she saves his a$$…. And there, we have a cliffhanger to which we will never get a resolution. This is why I usually stay away from series on Fox. About the only thing they never cancel is The Simpsons… DOH!
I still miss Firefly. It was infuriating as hell watching them keep ’24’ on for years and years after that.
That’s one of the reasons why I don’t follow shows on network TV anymore, they’ll cancel anything good or anything made with enough quality to catch my interest because the expense of making the show doesn’t reap the advertising revenue.
That is true about the Charger being more faster then the Mustang. I read somewhere that the driver of the Charger needed to dial it back in order for the Mustang to keep up.
There is a lot of discussion on this in the Bill Hickman article linked at the end of the post, highly recommended!
Lokki, no unfortunately no Beetle was involved in my San Fran visit, we had a silver Chrysler 200. The old model. While it was not an excellent car it did its job, and I would even say it made the run up the Pacific Coast Highway more fun than if we’d take the option of a convertible Mustang (as offered at the rental car desk), because we were able to push the car closer to its much lesser limits. Ok so that might be a bit of a stretch, but at least our luggage all fit in the trunk, not something we were confident of with the Mustang.
So was the Mustang double clutch up shifting at least 7 times? 🙂
“No one paying attention except me who had to speed 80 mph to catch up the 1/2 mile for a photo.”
This is an American icon! You philistines!
Are you kidding? This HAD to be a staged shot – no way would I EVER come across a pairing like that! That would be like me seeing my – or a reasonable facsimile thereof – of my 1964 Impala SS convertible I owned in the service!
What a cool shot, though, staged or not.
Can tap and view photos in comments in native size, but not photos in article. Oh well, if he wants to leave it that way.
-from my iPad
Chill out, I don’t think I’m in your time zone and this is the first chance I’ve had to address this! The first photo doesn’t go any larger, I have fixed the second.
Grrrrr… Fix. The. Tap & Zoom!
-sent from my 5s
Actually on the getting-rarer occasions when the traffic on California Route 24 is that light, 80 mph is not an “abnormal” speed, at least until a black-and-white Blue Oval shows up. It is not rare to see traffic outpacing the BART trains at their usual 75mph (maximum 80). I’d guess from the (relatively) light traffic and the condition of the cars that these are semi-pampered specimens being driven carefully to another location for a car show or something similar.
I’d say the chances of a highland green 68 Mustang with torqthrust wheels tailing a black 68 Charger with hubcaps being random is about the same as a million monkeys on a million typewriters producing Shakespeare!
But how many hubcaps flew off the Charger while he was following? Bonus points if the answer is more than 4.
I recall it was seven in the movie.
Some of the new generation watch the movie and they don’t like it. Maybe becouse it’s not a car movie but a decent cop drama.
The chase scene still gives me goosebumps even after all those years, it consolidated the idea of Mopars being the bad guys car of choice for future movies.
Congrats for the pic. It is one in a million chance to see this live.
Cool shot!
For me, what makes the Bullitt chase so good is the fantastic Lalo Schifrin soundtrack before the Detroit soundtrack takes over.
How many times, and from how many angles, does the green Beetle appear….
Continuity.
First, for those who think this may be staged it is not. The picture was taken on early Saturday morning on Highway 24 heading up to the St. Stephens exit. This section of the highway is a small valley. As you head west past the Mt Diablo exit you start up a crest. I was at the crest, giving me good field of view, and I spotted the cars nearing the bottom. I’m heading to the USS Hornet, so I have my camera, and race to catch up. I did as seen by this photo and there is another taken from a closer perspective of one of the cars.
No one really noticed this which I why I never believe it when car sellers say my car always gets a thumbs up. In all my years of driving my cars I have only gotten a thumbs up four times. Twice from people in a similar car (Cougar & Polara) who saw me as I saw them. The other two were for the F100 which came from total strangers. As for these two they were headed to a car show at the Orinda Country Club that morning.
Thanks for chiming in! I didn’t mean to say the photo was staged, but I bet the car owners knew each other at least.
Imagine how popular rides around San Francisco would be using those cars!
I have gotten more than a few…had a 1979 F350 (with a Cummins 5.9 swap) that got plenty of thumbs-up. Got a surprising number in my 1995 Caprice wagons (I had two).
Had one idiot nearly run me off the road trying to take a pic of the truck with his damn phone!
Back in the early 90’s there was a Mustang gathering in San Francisco. Can’t remember where although I do have some photos. From there all the cars, approximately 200, then drove the route in the movie that was possible to access in the City out to Marina Blvd. Not every scene was shot in the City as some gravitated south to Daly City onto Guadalupe Parkway.
By the way, being a the carrier fan I am, can anyone spot the carrier shot here during the movie? You can see it’s classic silhouette and it was there for updating in 1968. Someone I know, who was a young engineer at the time, was on the ship doing his first real job there after college. What class carrier since unless you were there you wouldn’t know the ship’s name.
Looks like a Midway Class carrier. There remains one of three, the USS Midway, now a museum ship in San Diego. She underwent overhaul and a major reconstruction at Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco between 1966 and 1970, so this is probably the Midway.
Yes, she is the Midway. I got to tour her with a flashlight in 2002 while she was berth in Oakland for cleanup by the USS Hornet’s Chief Engineer at the time. Free reign about the ship and try not to kill one’s self.
Just been watching it on late night TV here in the UK. I’m a keen warship modeller.. I bought the old Revell Midway class Franklin D Roosevelt on a US trip, at a hobby shop in Bremerton, Wa., having had one as a kid in the late 50s. I’d just been looking that day(in 1997) at a very big carrier in the Navy yard, and a red drop head Mustang at a gas station, and thought of Bullitt, and, of course, the incomparable Jacqueline Bisset and my longtime hero Mr McQueen. I’m into sports cars (MGF 1.8 VVC, 1995) and bikes (modern Triumph Bonneville 2004) ….. Both British!! Although I’ve had many Japanese bikes…..
Wow, that’s a once in a lifetime pic – have to wonder if Lalo Schifrin’s “Shifting Gears” is playing in the background…
Too good not to share even now…