McQueen liked driving, within the phrases of Harvey Keitel’s The Wolf, “actual f***ing quick.” He was a talented off-road motorbike racer, and famously confirmed off his using experience in “The Nice Escape” (although it was his stunt double Bud Ekins who carried out the legendary soar over the barbed-wire barrier). He was equally adept behind the wheel of a automobile, falling 21.1 seconds brief (in a Porsche 908/02) of Mario Andretti (pushing a Ferrari 512S) within the 1970 Home of Sebring endurance race.
McQueen totally understood the joys of piloting a souped-up automobile round tight corners whereas navigating steep metropolis streets. Should you take an incline at a excessive price of velocity in a Ford Mustang GT Fastback, you’ll catch an abundance of air. Because the star advised Pat Hustis, who constructed the fleet digital camera automobile used within the “Bullitt” chase, “”I need the viewers to know what it is like to do that.”
As to who initially conceived of the chase, all of it relies on who’s telling the story. Screenwriter Alan R. Trustman, who’d beforehand labored with McQueen on “The Thomas Crown Affair,” advised Motor Pattern he was impressed by his personal vehicular experimentation.
“‘I advised them that, in case you drive a lightweight automobile like a Ford Mustang downhill quick it should take off on the intersections and fly by way of the air.’ Trustman says he tried the stunt himself throughout a 1954 summer time break from Harvard regulation college, launching a brand new Ford Fairlane off the streets.”
