ORIGINAL: MBDiagMan

It sounds as if some of you have never heard of something called "a script." If the script had called for the Mustang keeping up with the charger you can bet that this is what you would have seen.

If someone wants to research it, I remember reading an article about the actual movie cars in Road & Track, circa 1968. As I remember, the charger was indeed stock, but both were modified to withstand jumping the hills at the intersections. The article also reported that in spite of studio propaganda, Steve McQueen did NOT do all of the driving. He did everything EXCEPT for the hill jumps. They were too dangerous and the studio would not risk a high dollar box office attraction like McQueen on them.

The Mustang was cammed up a little and that was about it. The base 390 engines of the day had pretty low flowing heads. As far as I'm concerned, handling wise, the FE engines made a pig out of the late sixties Mustangs due to increased nose weight in a car that was already too nose heavy, and for very little gain because a warmed over 302 with the right gears would keep up with a 390 unless decent heads were added.

ORIGINAL: 05gtdriver

Ummmm yes and no, there's definitely a chase scene(where the Mustang "pursues" the Charger).....but did you ever notice the sequence where the two cars are coming around at tight left hand radius-ed brick wall? The Charger bumps up against the curb (and loses one of it's seemingly endless supply of hubcaps!) and continues as the road straightens......both cars now going down the slight grade of the street, running a stop sign in the process! Well the Charger and Mustang both nail it and the Charger pulls a good 6-8 car lengths in a matter of seconds(the screen view has the camera inside of McQueen's Mustang looking from driver's perspective). If this doesn't prove that the cars weren't equal in a straight line than I don't know what else there is to say.(regardless of script)