2013 Bullitt Nationals Panama City Beach, FL July 25-28
It is on!! Come on down to Panama City Beach for the 2013 Bullitt Nationals “Bullitts by the Beach” July 25-28! A great time awaits with some great friends.
2013 Bullitt Nationals – Mustangs – roll into Fountain for lunch on Friday, some 30 cars, drivers and passengers, some cars dating back to 1968 stopped by for lunch at Autin’s Smokin Butt Hut in Fountain, on Hwy 231. The rally was en-route for Panama City Beach.
Friday
Morning cruise along the coast to a location TBD lunch 6 PM drag racing http://www.panamacitydragway.com/home.html
Saturday 9AM to 1 PM Car show at Camp Helen State Park Awards presentation 6 PM Shrimp boil 7 PM to 8 PM Ford ask the Engineer 9 PM – ? Bullitt on the beach movie event
Steve McQueen, An American Rebel Steve McQueen’s ‘Bullitt’; Committment to Reality
Bullitt
http://bullittevents.com/bullitts-on-the-beach-panama-city-fl-june-2013/
2001 Mustang Bullitt History
Team Mustang
Mustang was a group of Ford employees tasked with everything Mustang. From future designs to limited editions, this team was responsible from concept to production. Ford assembled a very talented group to take on this task. This is a short history of one of those vehicles, the 2001
Mustang GT Bullitt.
The Feature Vehicle Ford had decided that every year Team Mustang would come up with a feature vehicle. It started with the 35th anniversary and Bullitt was the second in the series. The idea had come up that they were not just going to stick a bunch of appearance stuff on this car like the 35th anniversary. They wanted a complete package.
The first sketch came out of the need for a car for the Special Equipment Marketing Association Sean looked at the picture and realized, “that’s the car”. Using a 99 Mustang body as a template, he began sketching the concept. He lowered the car and put the torque thrust wheels on it, trying to get the feeling of Steve McQueen’s 68.
The Wheels Would Make All the Difference
Ford had been working with representatives from wheels to create new optional wheels. At the time they only had three designs to choose from. Using some drawings that one of the team had made, they refined the design of the concept car wheels. The concept car wheels were made of billet aluminum and were a one off, or a one of a kind wheel.
The wheel was slated to be an optional wheel on the production car, so the team essentially took the optional 15” wheel design and made it into an 18″ wheel. They tweaked the sections on it and then had the show car wheels manufactured from there. The wheel was already set to go into production because of its very strong “heritage”, which was very identifiable to hot rodders and gear heads. It was something new, being different from the smooth flat look of recent wheels.
This design had some depth, different textures and color, so it was very unique and special. That theme was essential to the wheels, the color of the vehicle, as well as to everything else in the overall vehicle design.
What ended up as the GT Premium, “Bullitt”, rims were not made specifically for the Bullitt, but the design came from the Bullitt show car. Tooling alone would have been prohibitive for producing only 5000 sets of wheels. In the end a part must pay for itself to be marketable.
What made the original 1968 “Bullitt” unique was its understated color/markings and its aftermarket wheels, which wasn’t something that was done as much then as it is now given fewer wheel choices. But the biggest spotlight was, here’s this car in this big time movie, in one of the first modern car chase scenes, and not only does it look good, but he really puts the spurs to this thing. (Whether it’s Steve driving or not). You really got to see this car in action as compared to most other movies where you don’t see that.
At some point something happened within Ford and the car was taken out of the The Ford Division President and others did not have a chance to see the show car before it left for. When they got to Los Angeles, a crowd of people were standing around the display. They never expected the car to be so well received as it was, and they came back resolved to “do this car.” The reception of the car at the Los Angeles Auto Show allowed the designers to do more than the appearance mods on the concept.