owning a part of my past
Tom Cuni, Ohio USA 2019 Bullitt
It was the autumn of 1968 when I saw the movie Bullitt with Steve McQueen in the starring role. The car chase scenes on the early morning streets of San Francisco were then, and in my opinion still are, some of the very best in movie history. By definition, Steve McQueen was the very essence of cool and the car he drove had to be cool. I was a twenty-one year old college student with no money and pretty much certain that the Draft Board of Logan County, West Virginia would be calling up my young ass when I graduated in May. It seemed that my imagination would have to be a substitute for actually owning a fastback Mustang for the then foreseeable future. Reality, not the fantasy of owning a Mustang, was my future. The Army, Law School on the GI Bill, building a law practice, and raising a family didn’t leave room for buying the kind of car that would match that long ago image of me behind the wheel of Steve McQueen’s car.
Forty years after seeing the movie, I opened the Sunday paper and saw a picture of Ford’s new Mustang Bullitt. I had been toying with the idea of buying a performance car and taking it directly from the dealership to a detail shop to have all the chrome doodads and other extraneous stuff removed. The Bullitt made a trip to the detail shop unnecessary. It was the cleanest design that I had ever seen. I ordered the car on Monday. I understood that dark green was the more authentic color, but I have always favored black cars so that is what I purchased. That first Bullitt lasted four months until I was rammed by another car as its driver accelerated out of the emergency lane into the high speed lane of I-71 in morning rush hour traffic. Most of the metal on the driver’s side got taken off by the grill of the other car, the two driver’s side tires were blown, and when I slide backwards into the emergency lane the metal on the passenger side of the car was peeled off when I slid along the concrete barrier. To this day, I am not sure if it was my driving ability or just physics that resulted in me looking over the hood of my new car and watching the driver who hit me back up and pull into traffic to leave the scene. Her front bumper was a departing gift but it had no VIN or plate on it so it was a clean getaway. Both doors were jammed shut, but I was able to get the engine restarted and then lowered the passenger side window. I managed to save most of what was left of my coffee but I can’t say that I looked very dignified as crawled thorough the car window wearing my gray suit and a fairly large portion of my coffee plus a pumpkin spice latte that I have purchased for our practice manager. The young police officer who was dispatched remarked to me that I seemed to be pretty calm (I was channeling Steve McQueen) about the whole mess. I ask him how many times he had been able to have a conversation with a driver who was standing up after a seventy mile an hour crash. He told me it hadn’t happened to him until that day. I pointed to my car and said that I could buy another Bullitt but I doubted that I would be able to locate another sixty something body to walk around in if I had been injured badly. He laughed and gave me a ride to a nearby car rental business.
It was the autumn of 1968 when I saw the movie Bullitt with Steve McQueen in the starring role. The car chase scenes on the early morning streets of San Francisco were then, and in my opinion still are, some of the very best in movie history. By definition, Steve McQueen was the very essence of cool and the car he drove had to be cool. I was a twenty-one year old college student with no money and pretty much certain that the Draft Board of Logan County, West Virginia would be calling up my young ass when I graduated in May. It seemed that my imagination would have to be a substitute for actually owning a fastback Mustang for the then foreseeable future. Reality, not the fantasy of owning a Mustang, was my future. The Army, Law School on the GI Bill, building a law practice, and raising a family didn’t leave room for buying the kind of car that would match that long ago image of me behind the wheel of Steve McQueen’s car.
Forty years after seeing the movie, I opened the Sunday paper and saw a picture of Ford’s new Mustang Bullitt. I had been toying with the idea of buying a performance car and taking it directly from the dealership to a detail shop to have all the chrome doodads and other extraneous stuff removed. The Bullitt made a trip to the detail shop unnecessary. It was the cleanest design that I had ever seen. I ordered the car on Monday. I understood that dark green was the more authentic color, but I have always favored black cars so that is what I purchased. That first Bullitt lasted four months until I was rammed by another car as its driver accelerated out of the emergency lane into the high speed lane of I-71 in morning rush hour traffic. Most of the metal on the driver’s side got taken off by the grill of the other car, the two driver’s side tires were blown, and when I slide backwards into the emergency lane the metal on the passenger side of the car was peeled off when I slid along the concrete barrier. To this day, I am not sure if it was my driving ability or just physics that resulted in me looking over the hood of my new car and watching the driver who hit me back up and pull into traffic to leave the scene. Her front bumper was a departing gift but it had no VIN or plate on it so it was a clean getaway. Both doors were jammed shut, but I was able to get the engine restarted and then lowered the passenger side window. I managed to save most of what was left of my coffee but I can’t say that I looked very dignified as crawled thorough the car window wearing my gray suit and a fairly large portion of my coffee plus a pumpkin spice latte that I have purchased for our practice manager. The young police officer who was dispatched remarked to me that I seemed to be pretty calm (I was channeling Steve McQueen) about the whole mess. I ask him how many times he had been able to have a conversation with a driver who was standing up after a seventy mile an hour crash. He told me it hadn’t happened to him until that day. I pointed to my car and said that I could buy another Bullitt but I doubted that I would be able to locate another sixty something body to walk around in if I had been injured badly. He laughed and gave me a ride to a nearby car rental business.
I ask him how many times he had been able to have a conversation with a driver who was standing up after a seventy mile an hour crash. He told me it hadn’t happened to him until that day.
I had a brand new 2009 Bullitt less than two weeks later and I proceeded to try to drive the wheels off that car for the next ten years. Within the first three or four years of owning my new Bullitt I was rear ended twice, in both cases by young women drivers. A theory emerged in my mind for the somewhat remarkable number of wrecks occasioned by young women. It occurred to me that perhaps those young women saw the really cool car and assumed that a young, really cool guy must be driving it. When they saw that a guy with a lot of gray hair was behind the wheel, it probably momentarily disoriented them. Despite the wrecks which were mostly broken plastic and bent metal, the car never had any significant automotive issues in the ten years that I owned it. Ford seemed to have really gotten the hang of the concept of reliability. There was one automotive issue. I got a remarkable number of speeding tickets during those ten years. I blame Ford and the car.
Earlier this year I purchased a 2019 Mustang Bullitt. I like it even more than my previous Bullitt. The six speed transmission and the more powerful V-8 seem to be just what a seventy-two year man needs. A few weeks after buying it, I had a chance to take it on a road trip. I cancelled a diving trip that I had planned in March because of an injured knee. I couldn’t stand the thought of some twenty something assistant dive master having to help hoist me back onto the dive boat. Pride is a bitch sometimes. As it turned out, the road trip that I took in lieu of the diving trip was a great experience. I packed a few clothes, got in the car, drove to the end of my street, and made the decision to drive to my home state, West Virginia. I called people that I had not seen in decades as I made my way east and then south. Having breakfasts, lunches, and dinners with old friends was very enjoyable. However, I have to say that driving on mostly blue line roads through West Virginia, the western part of Virginia, and North and South Carolina was more fun than my diving trip could possibly have been.
I drank a lot of bad gas station coffee and ate too many Mike & Ikes along the way. Since I was alone, I could listen to Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band at near deafening volume sing about my youth. I drove fifteen hundred miles and got only one speeding ticket. The odometer registered 1038 when the Virginia State Trooper pulled me over for driving way past 80 MPH on I-77. I should have stayed on the secondary roads. The trooper fortunately had a good sense of humor. When he asked me why I was going so fast, I told him that there were two reasons. First, I got impatient behind the trucks going too slowly in the mountains. Second, that it really was the car’s fault and not mine. He told me that he thought that he could work with me. When he returned from his cruiser after writing my ticket, he told me that he cited me for 78 MPH rather than my actual speed of close to 90 MPH. In Virginia, anything over 80 MPH is reckless operation and it would have required me to return to Virginia for a court hearing. It didn’t bother me at all to pay the $140.00 ticket.
Serious car people can recite dozens of specifications for their cars. I know a few specs but only enough to get through a short conversation with someone who also doesn’t know much about cars. For me, the design of the car and the performance when I am driving it is all that is important. Well, there is one more thing about the Mustang Bullitt. At a certain speed, my gray hair starts to look blond and I imagine that I look just like Steve McQueen when I smile at the fun I am having while breaking the speeding laws of every state that I drive through. The Bullitt is a time machine that lets me own part of my past.
Earlier this year I purchased a 2019 Mustang Bullitt. I like it even more than my previous Bullitt. The six speed transmission and the more powerful V-8 seem to be just what a seventy-two year man needs. A few weeks after buying it, I had a chance to take it on a road trip. I cancelled a diving trip that I had planned in March because of an injured knee. I couldn’t stand the thought of some twenty something assistant dive master having to help hoist me back onto the dive boat. Pride is a bitch sometimes. As it turned out, the road trip that I took in lieu of the diving trip was a great experience. I packed a few clothes, got in the car, drove to the end of my street, and made the decision to drive to my home state, West Virginia. I called people that I had not seen in decades as I made my way east and then south. Having breakfasts, lunches, and dinners with old friends was very enjoyable. However, I have to say that driving on mostly blue line roads through West Virginia, the western part of Virginia, and North and South Carolina was more fun than my diving trip could possibly have been.
I drank a lot of bad gas station coffee and ate too many Mike & Ikes along the way. Since I was alone, I could listen to Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band at near deafening volume sing about my youth. I drove fifteen hundred miles and got only one speeding ticket. The odometer registered 1038 when the Virginia State Trooper pulled me over for driving way past 80 MPH on I-77. I should have stayed on the secondary roads. The trooper fortunately had a good sense of humor. When he asked me why I was going so fast, I told him that there were two reasons. First, I got impatient behind the trucks going too slowly in the mountains. Second, that it really was the car’s fault and not mine. He told me that he thought that he could work with me. When he returned from his cruiser after writing my ticket, he told me that he cited me for 78 MPH rather than my actual speed of close to 90 MPH. In Virginia, anything over 80 MPH is reckless operation and it would have required me to return to Virginia for a court hearing. It didn’t bother me at all to pay the $140.00 ticket.
Serious car people can recite dozens of specifications for their cars. I know a few specs but only enough to get through a short conversation with someone who also doesn’t know much about cars. For me, the design of the car and the performance when I am driving it is all that is important. Well, there is one more thing about the Mustang Bullitt. At a certain speed, my gray hair starts to look blond and I imagine that I look just like Steve McQueen when I smile at the fun I am having while breaking the speeding laws of every state that I drive through. The Bullitt is a time machine that lets me own part of my past.