The Third Owner Was A Real-Life Detective
In the movie, Steve McQueen played Lt. Frank Bullitt, a San Francisco detective. Life is sometimes stranger than fiction, so the third owner of the Bullitt Mustang was a real-life detective who even used the car as his daily driver in the late ’70s. Back then, people were still yet to be aware of how potentially valuable this Fastback was (via Road and Track).

As mentioned, the second owner was a studio employee who sold the car after a few years to a buyer on the East Coast. They in turn sold it to Detective Frank Marranca in 1970. The late Robert Kiernan of Madison, New Jersey, bought the car for a hefty sum of $6000 after seeing the Road & Track Magazine ad in 1974. He and his family drove it daily until 1980 when the car suffered a clutch failure. Even though it wasn’t a major mechanical problem, the car went into the barn with just 65,000 miles on the clock and visible signs of daily use.