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When it comes to popular culture, Ford Mustangs are for the ages. Partly because they’ve been around for ages. From a plethora of possibilities, here are The Good Oil’s faves from the multimedia world of movies, TV and music for each of the first four decades of its life.
Will you agree? Probably not. That’s the beauty of this idea and the glorious consequence of so many Mustang possibilities.
It’s hard to argue with the Highland Green Mustang GT fastback used in the Steve McQueen movie Bullitt to represent the 1960s. It features in one of the most famous movie car chases of all time (with some, not all, driving done by the man himself) and is arguably one of the most famous movie cars of all time.
We know it’s iconic because Ford keeps making homage models: in 2001, 2008 and 2018. One of the original (and very tired) Bullitt movie cars sold for a record US$3.74m in 2020.
For the 1970s – well, this might be the best Mustang movie you’ve never seen. Gone in 60 Seconds (1974) inspired a dreadful remake in 2000 but the low-budget original, where a professional car thief has endless trouble fulfilling an order for a yellow Ford Mustang (aka “Eleanor”, pictured top of page) is a time-capsule delight.
It has no real actors (producer/director/lead/stuntman H.B. Halicki roped in many of his friends), lots of real crashes (not all planned) and the longest movie car chase ever put on film: 40 minutes.
The 1980s award goes to a cameo in Back to the Future II (1989), when Marty McFly visits the distant future of 2015 and we get a glimpse of what’s to come for Mustang – which looks a lot like a 1980s Fox-bodied model with flush wheel covers and a massive spoiler.
Speaking of Fox-bodied Fords, the coolest Mustang of the 1990s is absolutely the white 5.0 convertible that features in the Vanilla Ice music video for Ice Ice Baby (registration “GO ICE”, which carries a different message today).
It represents everything that’s glorious and ghastly about the decade and it’s heartening to know that the great man still owns this vehicle.
It also got a second 15 minutes of fame when Ken Block gifted an homage 1990 model to his daughter Lia to learn to drift in. Vanilla himself was roped in via a video clip for the birthday surprise (which she hates apparently).
Keyword: The Good Oil: Best pop culture Ford Mustangs through the decades