STEVE M C QUEEN EFFECT
Steve Mcqueen, the uber-cool Hollywood star of the ’60s and ’70s, was such a powerful brand that almost anything he drove also became uber-cool. The
Bullitt Mustang is a case in point. It would seem that both the cars used in that film have now been found. One of those is doing the motor-show circuit and no doubt earning its owner a very good living. Apparently, he has no intention of selling it, and one can only imagine what it would sell for if it were to be put up for sale. A well-restored 1967 Mustang Fastback 390 GT, the model featured in the film, will sell for anywhere from $100K to more than twice that. The car is unrestored and shows the signs of a lifetime of use. The condition only adds to its mystique.
Another ex– Steve Mcqueen vehicle has been sold very recently. A 1945 Willys Jeep MB, which had been in Mcqueen’s vehicle collection, sold for almost NZ$162K. This is about three times the going rate for one that you or I might have owned today, and even that is a lot more than a war-surplus example would have sold for here a few decades ago.
It seems that anything associated with Steve Mcqueen is worth something — even a poster advertising his Le Mans film sold for almost NZ$1K.
In other Mustang news, the oldest known privately owned Mustang is for sale in the US. This coupé has the chassis number 002 (001 is a convertible in Ford’s own museum in Dearborn, Michigan). There is much confusion over the order of the few preproduction Mustangs that still exist, but Ford has officially verified this as the oldest privately owned example. This car, which was sold by a dealer instead of being used as intended as a display car, has a six-cylinder engine, three-speed manual transmission, and some of the body panels are ‘straight’ rather than ‘ formed’ as they were on the production cars. The car has been traded a number of times in its life and was passed in at US$300K two years ago when it failed to reach its reserve.
Two other interesting recent auction prices are NZ$12K for a Ferrari Daytona toolkit, and NZ$16,500 for that necessity, a set of Ferrari Enzo leather luggage.