Hooniverse Asks: How much will the original Bullitt Mustang fetch at auction?

Jeff Glucker

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Comments

When you send a desirable muscle car to auction, it attracts attention. Make it an iconic machine from a film with a much lauded chase scene, and more eyes cast their gaze. Attach Steve McQueen’s name to the car, and the sky is now the limit with respect to pre-auction estimates.

In the film Bullitt, there were two Highland Green ’68 Fastback Mustangs tapped to play the vehicular star role of the film. One of the hero cars has survived. It made a surprise splash on the world stage when Ford used it to unveil its latest modern Bullitt model.

Now that car will head to the auction block. It’s being shown off in Monterey in anticipation of a date with the gavel in Florida. The Mecum Kissimmee event in January of 2020 is where it will all unfold.

How much do you think this patina-clad McQueen-related Mustang will fetch? My guess is that this will most certainly be a seven-figure car. Back in 2014, a McQueen-owned Ferrari 275 sold for GTB sold for over $10MM. Granted, that’s a vintage Ferrari, but I’d argue that this Mustang is more intrinsically intertwined with the mystique of McQueen. I don’t expect it to touch eight figures, but I do expect it to far outperform other muscle cars, pony cars, and Mustangs that have recently traded hands.

McQueen’s watches have gone for strong six-figure sums. I wouldn’t be shocked if this Mustang sells for five million bucks. And I also wouldn’t be surprised if it goes for more than that…

What do you think?

About

Jeff Glucker

Jeff Glucker

Jeff Glucker is the co-founder and Executive Editor of Hooniverse.com. He’s often seen getting passed as he hustles a 1991 Mitsubishi Montero up the 405 Freeway. IG: @HooniverseJeff

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20 responses to “Hooniverse Asks: How much will the original Bullitt Mustang fetch at auction?”

  1. Michael Stoops Avatar
    Michael Stoops

    With the stock market taking such a big hit yesterday and many financial indicators saying we’re headed for a recession perhaps late in Q4 or early 2020, it might have been smarter to sell the car in Monterey this week rather than wait until Kissimmee in January. Time will tell, but if the 911S McQueen drove in the opening sequence of “LeMans” realized $1.375 million, I would expect this car to fetch at least triple that, if not more. Heck, the Batmobile brought $4million!! With two enthusiastic bidders chasing it, and the global financial market holding (fingers crossed), the hammer price could be a real “Whaaaaaaat????” moment.

    Reply
    1. outback_ute Avatar
      outback_ute

      But is anyone who would put a million or three into a toy going be that worried? Especially when the chance it will ever be for sale again is low.

      Reply
      1. Sjalabais Avatar
        Sjalabais

        I mean we don’t usually talk politics, but the runaway wealth of the 1%ers over the last decade or so has been mindboggling. The next downturn will be interesting in that sense: It will certainly hurt most people, but the super wealthy? Maybe they really are cushioned enough to emulate a new aristocracy.

        Reply
        1. Michael Stoops Avatar
          Michael Stoops

          Even the super wealthy will become very cautious about acquiring automobiles when things turn south. It’s this sort of global economic flux that takes a Ferrari 250 (GT SWB, GTO, TdF, Lusso, etc) skyward in price for 5 years in a row and then sees the price drop noticeably. They’ll still back down on spending money, just like the rest of us will. It’s just the numbers they’re playing with are much greater – win and lose.

          Reply
  2. 0A5599 Avatar
    0A5599

    I think the market for pony/muscle cars is cooling. Petty’s Superbird didn’t make reserve, and a number of blue chip race cars from that same auction sold for prices significantly lower than what they could have fetched in the past.

    Also, keep in mind that even if McQueen had a few days of seat time in it (recall he wanted to do his own driving, but early on it was determined he needed to be replaced with a trained stuntman), it wasn’t his property (I assume), and it wasn’t all that special to begin with (like a Shelby or a Boss). So it’s an upper-middle range Mustang that held McQueen’s butt for 10 hours, not a rare Ferrari that he personally selected for getting groceries in style.

    On the other hand, stock market crashes tend to drive spare money places other than the stock market.

    I predict high bid around a quarter million. If the auction has a reserve, it will be set higher than that, so no-sale.

    Reply
    1. outback_ute Avatar
      outback_ute

      It was owned by his film company, and I think the guy had a letter from him seeking to buy it back.

      Reply
    2. Batshitbox Avatar
      Batshitbox

      As the Baby Boomers move into fixed income retirement years the muscle car market will continue to go the way of the pre-war car market in the 21st century.

      Reply
  3. Zentropy Avatar
    Zentropy

    I love cars, but this one isn’t worth ten grand to me. I have never understood why items associated with certain people are considered valuable. Who cares if Steve McQueen drove it? You could build a far better Bullitt clone for a fraction of the cost, and not regret driving the hell out of it.

    Reply
    1. Troggy Avatar
      Troggy

      Yup totally agree.

      And what do you do with it if you do care that McQueen drove it?

      It doesn’t seem to be in very good condition from what I can see, so not much good as a show car. If it looked the exact way it looked when driven off the movie set, then I might understand, but it doesn’t.

      Restoring or even respraying it would be like claiming that you own Lincoln’s original axe (I’ve replace the handle three times and the head twice!), it wouldn’t be as original any more.

      And I wouldn’t want to drive it. The mileage isn’t mentioned, but putting miles on it would be inadvisable if it’s purchased as an investment, and any damage would strip it of the value of being the ‘original’ (refer to previous paragraph).

      The only logical conclusion is to build a replica and drive it however you wanted to.

      Reply
  4. Batshitbox Avatar
    Batshitbox

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/93ef7a0d33edad76e582af8d6eff2ac27d0a58054bb4c9280a18a27437e1d7db.jpg

    Heh-heh… “Me-cum Kissi-mmee”, heh-heh!

    Reply
  5. Lokki Avatar
    Lokki

    The fundamental problem is that Steve McQueen died in 1980, nearly 40 years ago, and the film Bullitt was released in 1967. That is a long, long time ago. The car therefore probably has only 10 to 15 years of serious desirability left before everyone who has an emotional attachment to it through the McQueen connection dies off starting selling off their car collections. I think it is safe to say that for 90 percent of Americans under 60 ‘Bullitt’ is just another old movie. In fact I propose that in 15 years a car from the original ‘Fast and Furious’ movie will bring as much as this car. Objectively, the car itself isn’t particularly special; it would be very easy to build its twin for less than $100K and be able to have fun in it.

    Here’s a link to the car of a hero of a previous generation -Babe Ruth’s 1948 Lincoln.
    https://www.oldcarsweekly.com/news/editors-picks/babe-ruths-ride-hits-homerun-with-owner

    How much extra would you be willing to pay for a car because Babe Ruth drove it?

    Reply
    1. crank_case Avatar
      crank_case

      Maybe they can stick an RB26 in it in a few years…

      Reply
    2. crank_case Avatar
      crank_case

      Maybe they can stick an RB26 in it in a few years…

      Reply
    3. Maymar Avatar
      Maymar

      Anecdotal, but I’m in my 30’s, and I like Bullitt plenty (first watched it in high school based on the notoriety of the car chase), and it seems to have enough resonance for Ford to have done three different modern Bullitt Mustangs (plus, Jalopnik was once enamored enough with McQueen to share a picture of his dong, and that’s a relatively young reader base). It also helps that it’s a fairly iconic actor, in one of his most iconic roles, in one of the most iconic car chases of all time (certainly a fairly influential one for the sake of the practical effects).

      I do think you’ve got a point that whatever overpriced point this car sells for will probably be its peak, and someone’s going to overpay if they have any illusions it’ll sell for more down the line. No way I’d pay that much, though.

      Reply
  6. crank_case Avatar
    crank_case

    Yeah, but the real question is how much is Steve McQueens Puma worth.. 😉

    Reply
    1. Sjalabais Avatar
      Sjalabais

      It would probably have been more appropriate for him to hunt down a Cougar anyway…
      https://d1ix0byejyn2u7.cloudfront.net/drive/images/made/drive/images/remote/https_f2.caranddriving.com/images/used/big/fordcougar02_750_500_70.jpg

      Reply
      1. crank_case Avatar
        crank_case

        baddum..tsh! 😀

        Reply
  7. HycoSpeed Avatar
    HycoSpeed

    I tried to make this comment a couple of days ago, but I guess I haven’t commented enough lately and it got marked as spam. Apparently the number of external links you can have to try to make a well reasoned argument is exactly 1. That, and now that the weekend auctions in Monterrey are done, culminated by the “built by Porsche” race car, sales prices is being reported as low, so maybe my argument is being invalided by real events. But I’ll stick with it!

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3a6708b43167d7e156252fac546fc520cff2e02e71e2233921c1525782780184.jpg

    Count me on team “All of the Money$”. My guestimate is lower than Jeff, I am picking $2.3 million, plus or minus a few point millions, because what’s another $100,000 or so between friends. But I also will not be surprised if I end up low balling.

    My take is that this is probably the prime time to be selling. I think the target audience, which I would say isn’t just Boomers, it’s the little cousins of the Boomers, whatever you call the immediate generation following that, the ones that were just kids when their college age cousins would have been watching Bullitt. The ones trying ever since to live up to the level of cool of their seniors ever since.* That group is hitting peak spending money time, and there will be at least 3 bidders in for the long game that will drive this up.

    Couple that with the fact that the kind of vintage cool that McQueen appeared to exude is nice and fashionable now, and likely by the time this goes up for sale the auction will be enough of a ‘thing’ to help drive bidding excitement. In addition to the previously mentioned fanboy-ing over at [redacted], highlighted by that picture, there are things like “<a href="https://www.thegentlemansjournal.com/style-icon-dress-like-steve-mcqueen/&quot;How to Dress Like Steve McQueen“, the recent McQueen biography American Icon, etc.

    The other big thing for me, that makes this auction different, is that this isn’t just a movie car, or a car owned/driven by someone famous, or a desirable/collectible model–it’s like, all these things, man. And while there is certainly always the fickleness of the crowd in all of those categories (illustrated nicely by Lokki with the Babe Ruth car example), this car is different in an important way.

    The Mustang in Bullitt is quietly a star in the movie in it’s own right. It is perfectly integrated into the film. I don’t really know how exactly to articulate it, but there are cars in The Fast and the Furious, something we could try to compare as another generation’s Bullitt. But they are just cars, they come and go, Vin Diesel is scared of one then drives it at the end. But they could be any set of cars and the movie would still go along–they proved it by making so many, the cars keep changing and we all keep watching. Bullitt is different. The Mustang is as much of a part of the essence of the movie as McQueen is, and it is associated with the same attitude, the same personality of coolness that McQueen is.

    To paraphrase another car film that tried to make their hero Mustang rise to this level, the driver of a Bullitt Mustang is not a self-indulgent wiener, but a connoisseur. That’s why Ford was able to bring back the Bullitt model, it stands out in a definitive way that makes the driver feel like they are classy unlike those other ‘regular’ Mustang drivers. And this is the real thing, the one that started it all.

    *In my estimation every generation has this, especially the tweeners that don’t fit with a ‘named’ generation. Myself, I was too late for Gen X, too early to be a Millennial, but the 80’s nostalgia kick is largely driven by folks like me, who were alive in the 80’s, but didn’t live through the 80’s. Instead we have a image of the 80’s that is based on how cool the older relatives and family friends were during that time. Now this group is trying to capture some of that awesome, since we don’t feel like we got an awesome. Just like those on the backside of the Boomers, chasing the McQueen cool.

    Reply
  8. HycoSpeed Avatar
    HycoSpeed

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3a6708b43167d7e156252fac546fc520cff2e02e71e2233921c1525782780184.jpg

    Count me on team “All of the Money$”. My guestimate is lower than Jeff, I am picking $2.3 million, plus or minus a few point millions, because what’s another $100,000 or so between friends. But I also will not be surprised if I end up low balling.

    My take is that this is probably the prime time to be selling. I think the target audience, which I would say isn’t just Boomers, it’s the little cousins of the Boomers, whatever you call the immediate generation following that, the ones that were just kids when their college age cousins would have been watching Bullitt. The ones trying ever since to live up to the level of cool of their seniors ever since.* That group is hitting peak spending money time, and there will be at least 3 bidders in for the long game that will drive this up.

    Couple that with the fact that the kind of vintage cool that McQueen appeared to exude is nice and fashionable now, and likely by the time this goes up for sale it will be enough of a ‘thing’ to help drive the auction excitement. In addition to the previously mentioned fanboy-ing over at [redacted], highlighted by that picture, there are things like “How to Dress Like Steve McQueen”, the recent McQueen biography American Icon, etc.

    The other big thing for me, that makes this auction different, is that this isn’t just a movie car, or a car owned/driven by someone famous, or a desirable/collectible model–it’s like, all these things, man. And while there is certainly always the fickleness of the crowd in all of those categories (illustrated nicely by Lokki with the Babe Ruth car example), this car is different in an important way.

    The Mustang in Bullitt is quietly a star in the movie in it’s own right. It is perfectly integrated into the film. I don’t really know how exactly to articulate it, but there are cars in The Fast and the Furious, something we could try to compare as another generation’s Bullitt. But they are just cars, they come and go, Vin Diesel is scared of one then drives it at the end. But they could be any set of cars and the movie would still go along–they proved it by making so many, the cars keep changing and we all keep watching. Bullitt is different. The Mustang is as much of a part of the essence of the movie as McQueen is, and it is associated with the same attitude, the same personality of coolness that McQueen is.

    To paraphrase another car film that tried to make their hero Mustang rise to this level, the driver of a Bullitt Mustang is not a self-indulgent wiener, but a connoisseur. That’s why Ford was able to bring back the Bullitt model, it stands out in a definitive way that makes the driver feel like they are classy unlike those other ‘regular’ Mustang drivers. And this is the real thing, the one that started it all.

    *In my estimation every generation has this, especially the tweeners that don’t fit with a ‘named’ generation. Myself, I was too late for Gen X, too early to be a Millennial, but the 80’s nostalgia kick is largely driven by folks like me, who were alive in the 80’s, but didn’t live in the 80’s. Instead we have a image of the 80’s that is based on how cool the older relatives and family friends were during that time. Now this group is trying to capture some of that awesome, since we don’t feel like we got an awesome. Just like those on the backside of the Boomers, chasing the McQueen cool.

    Reply
  9. HycoSpeed Avatar
    HycoSpeed

    I tried to make this comment a couple of days ago, but I guess I haven’t commented enough lately and it got marked as spam. Either that or Discus is getting real judge-y on comment quality. But here goes takes two.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3a6708b43167d7e156252fac546fc520cff2e02e71e2233921c1525782780184.jpg

    Count me on team “All of the Money$”. My guestimate is lower than Jeff, I am picking $2.3 million, plus or minus a few point millions, because what’s another $100,000 or so between friends. But I also will not be surprised if I end up low balling.

    My take is that this is probably the prime time to be selling. I think the target audience, which I would say isn’t just Boomers, it’s the little cousins of the Boomers, whatever you call the immediate generation following that, the ones that were just kids when their college age cousins would have been watching Bullitt. The ones trying ever since to live up to the level of cool of their seniors ever since.* That group is hitting peak spending money time, and there will be at least 3 bidders in for the long game that will drive this up.

    Couple that with the fact that the kind of vintage cool that McQueen appeared to exude is nice and fashionable now, and likely by the time this goes up for sale the auction will be enough of a ‘thing’ to help drive bidding excitement. In addition to the previously mentioned fanboy-ing over at [redacted], highlighted by that picture, there are things like “How to Dress Like Steve McQueen“, the recent McQueen biography American Icon, etc.

    The other big thing for me, that makes this auction different, is that this isn’t just a movie car, or a car owned/driven by someone famous, or a desirable/collectible model–it’s like, all these things, man. And while there is certainly always the fickleness of the crowd in all of those categories (illustrated nicely by Lokki with the Babe Ruth car example), this car is different in an important way.

    The Mustang in Bullitt is quietly a star in the movie in it’s own right. It is perfectly integrated into the film. I don’t really know how exactly to articulate it, but there are cars in The Fast and the Furious, something we could try to compare as another generation’s Bullitt. But they are just cars, they come and go, Vin Diesel is scared of one then drives it at the end. But they could be any set of cars and the movie would still go along–they proved it by making so many, the cars keep changing and we all keep watching. Bullitt is different. The Mustang is as much of a part of the essence of the movie as McQueen is, and it is associated with the same attitude, the same personality of coolness that McQueen is.

    To paraphrase another car film that tried to make their hero Mustang rise to this level, the driver of a Bullitt Mustang is not a self-indulgent wiener, but a connoisseur. That’s why Ford was able to bring back the Bullitt model, it stands out in a definitive way that makes the driver feel like they are classy unlike those other ‘regular’ Mustang drivers. And this is the real thing, the one that started it all.

    *In my estimation every generation has this, especially the tweeners that don’t fit with a ‘named’ generation. Myself, I was too late for Gen X, too early to be a Millennial, but the 80’s nostalgia kick is largely driven by folks like me, who were alive in the 80’s, but didn’t live in the 80’s. Instead we have a image of the 80’s that is based on how cool the older relatives and family friends were during that time. Now this group is trying to capture some of that awesome, since we don’t feel like we got an awesome. Just like those on the backside of the Boomers, chasing the McQueen cool.

    Reply