In the history of sweet rides from TV shows and movies, few can really compete with the ’68 Ford Mustang fastback from the Steve McQueen movie Bullitt. Oh sure, the DeLorean from Back To The Future probably has more pop-culture significance these days, but only nerds are going to think you’re a badass if they see you driving it down the street. The Mustang from Bullitt, on the other hand, will always be rad as hell.
That’s why people in the car world were pretty surprised when one of the actual Mustangs from Bullitt turned up in a junkyard in Mexico recently. As Jalopnik explains, two cars were supposedly used for filming on the movie, and though one was bought by a crew member, the other—which had suffered extensive damage—was lost to history. Until now.
According to a Fox News story, the car’s rusted and rotting corpse was found by a man named Hugo Sanchez, who took it to a custom car shop in hopes of turning it into a replica of the car from Gone In 60 Seconds. When they looked up the car’s history from the VIN number, though, they discovered that it was actually the lost Bullitt car. The plan now is to do a full restoration, and though nobody involved has said if they’re going to sell it at some point, it’s worth noting that the 50th anniversary of Bullitt is coming next year. That means nostalgia-loving rich people might be more inclined to throw down a few more extra millions of dollars to own a very cool car from a movie.
[Note: Jalopnik, like The A.V. Club, is owned by Univision Communications.]