1968 Product placement in 2008?

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What -- yet another Mustang story? Believe it or not, this one takes its cue from 40 years ago, and the question: Can you really sell a car based on a movie from 1968? Ford Motor Co. thinks so.

Of course, Ford’s present Mustang body is a modern take on the iconic ’67–’68 model. People ask me whether the folks in Dearborn, Mich., can keep squeezing blood from a stone, offering still more variants of the Mustang. Well, in this case, I think the answer is yes. Because, unlike almost all of the other versions, this one is about understatement, not overstatement -- that is a whole different buyer. It’s image, it’s the cool factor, and it’s McQueen.

This is not an unprecedented marketing trick. When the Alfa Romeo Spider was on about its 20th year, the Italian automaker renamed it ‘The Graduate’ after the classic film in which Dustin Hoffman famously drove one up the California coast. It worked, and Alfa got a few extra years out of it. This isn’t the first time Ford pulled this particular rabbit out of its hat either. The company made a 2001 Bullitt Mustang edition, just not as good.

This is the 2008 Bullitt edition Mustang. You can buy faster Mustangs. The Bullitt is not about that, though I think the package is very well screwed together with slightly more horsepower and suspension and exhaust tweaks. There’s only one badge on the exterior of the car -- nothing on the front of the car, not one Ford emblem, not one running horse. I’ve got to applaud the designers for this bit of understatement. The interior is equally subtle, with upgraded, bolstered seats and a Shelby steering wheel wearing the Bullitt badge. Again, that’s the only emblem inside the car, except for the door sills.

But that’s not what this car is about. This car is about the fantasy of Steve McQueen as Frank Bullitt, the hard-nosed detective. McQueen was elegantly tough -- a great actor, and a real car guy and racer. Often called ‘The King of Cool,’ he personified both the rebel and the movie star. McQueen had a passion for cars and bikes that came through on the screen seemingly effortlessly.

This car personifies what I love about movies selling cars. When ‘Smokey and the Bandit’ came out, Firebird sales skyrocketed. People were buying Burt Reynolds’ outlaw image, and the car reflected that. That’s what they are buying with the Bullitt Mustang.

Somehow, Mustang people keep connecting with their past. That said, I am not sure they could handle an electric-blue screaming Mach 1 in large numbers -- that might end the variants.

-- Josh Hancock