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Savvy marketing and cool characters have turned plenty of inanimate objects into cinema icons, but few have ever become as fabled as the Ford Mustang, one of the most recognisable cars in the world.
Four years after first entering production, it became the ultimate status symbol and the embodiment of style, largely thanks to Steve McQueen. He was already one of the coolest actors on the planet, and putting him behind the wheel of a Mustang in Bullitt elevated the automobile into a class of its own.
It’s publicity that Ford couldn’t manufacture, no matter how hard it tried. Take one of the biggest and most effortlessly charismatic stars in Hollywood, hand them a car, and position it as the focal point of a high-octane thrill ride of a movie that features one of the greatest car chases ever committed to film, and it immediately became the car that everybody wanted to have.
Since then, the Mustang hasn’t come down from its position as one of Tinseltown’s most iconic modes of transport, with the original Gone in 60 Seconds and Nicolas Cage’s remake, Keanu Reeves’ John Wick, Paul Verhoeven’s Basic Instinct, and Robert Zemeckis’ Back to the Future Part II just some of the movies to continue cinema’s long and illustrious association with the car.
Ask 100 people to name the most iconic Mustang in movie history, and at least 99 of them will answer with McQueen’s preferred mode of transport in Bullitt, even if it did end up spending decades in a scrapyard after being lost to the sands of time. However, ask them to name the first, and a lot fewer people are going to know the answer.
It might have been the highest-grossing domestic box office release of the year and spawned five sequels, but another slice of history carved out by French comedy The Troops of St. Tropez is that actor Geneviève Grad’s Nicole Cruchot became the first character to drive a Ford Mustang on the silver screen when the film arrived in September 1964, stealing the record away from a much more famous character.
Nine days after The Troops of St Tropez landed in French multiplexes, the Mustang got a much bigger platform when Sean Connery’s James Bond encounters Tania Mallet’s Tilly Masterson behind the wheel of one in Goldfinger.
Beaten to the punch by less than a week and a half, the second entry in the 007 series was the first Hollywood picture to include a Mustang, with Ford’s Ted Ryan revealing to Variety that “the Broccoli family requested the Mustang because they’ve heard about the buzz on the car,” after the team behind the spy saga realised early on that the model was going to be a big deal.
Bond might have spent the last six decades inextricably linked with the Aston Martin, but after Connery drove a Sunbeam Alpine in Dr No and a Bentley in From Russia with Love, it’s undeniably fascinating that Goldfinger was both the first time the suave secret agent careened around in a DB5 and the first major production to feature a Mustang.
But how many James Bond movies feature a Ford Mustang?
As mentioned, the Aston Martin DB5 is Bond’s signature car, appearing in Goldfinger, Thunderball, GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, Casino Royale, Skyfall, Spectre, and No Time to Die, never mind the other models that have appeared in the franchise’s many instalments.
However, 007 did have a brief flirtation with the Ford Mustang, which petered out completely once Connery vacated the role. After making its Hollywood debut in Goldfinger, the very next entry in the globetrotting spy series saw Luciana Paluzzi’s Fiona Volpe drive a convertible version when she takes Bond for a spin in the Bahamas.
Connery’s official swansong in Diamonds Are Forever was also the last time a Mustang factored into a Bond flick in a major capacity, with the Mach 1 serving as the getaway vehicle as the superspy escapes from the cops after leading them on a high-speed chase through Las Vegas.
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