Ford Mustang Bullitt (2007) CAR review

Mr Bullitt, we’ve been expecting you

It was inevitable. You can’t build a retro version of America’s favourite sporty car and then ignore the fortieth anniversary of its starring appearance in arguably the greatest car chase film of all time, could you? Well Ford’s Mutsang team couldn’t, and we don’t blame them. The result is this limited production Bullitt Mustang, a mildly reworked GT model complete with Highland green paint, albeit a slightly darker shade than the stuff covering Steve McQueen’s ’68 390 GT. This isn’t the first time Ford has cashed in on the Mustang’s McQueen connection: in 2001 Ford did a similar job on the previous shape Mustang, eventually shifting over 5000 copies. And of course it worked some CGI magic to put him behind the wheel of the Puma in TV adverts.

So green paint aside, what do you get?

It’s more about what you don’t get. Like the film car, this one is fairly stripped of ornamentation. There’s no galloping pony in the grille, no graphics down the side and just a Bullitt logo on the rear panel-mounted fake gas cap and a set of 18in Torq Thrust rip-off rims to give the game away. The result is a tastefully understated car, possibly too understated for some and it sits far too high, particularly at the rear. Inside, while flat vinyl perches were enough for Frank Bullitt, modern buyers get sportier seats from the supercharged Shelby GT500, a leather-wrapped wheel, aluminium shift knob and a special engine-turned dash panel. The retro dash looks okay but the centre console is disappointingly bland and the cabin plastics are a couple of generations behind everything else in the world. You just know that if the Mustang was in Honda or Nissan’s back catalogue rather than Ford’s, they’d do the job so much better. Incidentally, if green isn’t for you, you can order your Bullitt in black, the only other hue available. But wouldn’t that be missing the point?