2008 Ford Mustang Bullitt Review

By Keith Buglewicz
Photo credit: Oliver Bentley

What We Drove

Technically, the Bullitt is a $27,765 Mustang GT (including the $745 destination charge) with a $3,310 option package added. The appearance package is most obvious, with the car stripped of most of its badges and available in black or in our tester’s Highland Green, the same color as McQueen’s movie car. The package also includes a handful of engine enhancements and suspension tweaks, delivering at least a little on the exterior’s promise. Our test car included Ford’s $1,995 navigation system, a $325 anti-theft system, $525 high-intensity headlights and an ambient lighting system and iPod integration (but not Sync) for $295 apiece.

The Bullitt Package

In addition to the green paint and lack of badges, the 2008 Bullitt Mustang adds Ford Racing’s exhaust and cold-air intake to the Bullitt Mustang’s 4.6-liter V-8. The resulting 315 horsepower and 325 lb.-ft of torque is 15 hp and 5 lb.-ft. more than the GT. The Bullitt also gets a recalibrated throttle for crisper response; retuned cams for better high-end power, higher redline and a meatier torque curve; a shorter final-drive ratio for quicker launches; and a solid-shifting five-speed manual transmission. Shocks and struts are unique to the Bullitt, as are the rear springs, which lower the car an almost imperceptible 6 mm.

Performance

Ford claims the Ford Racing engine enhancements’ beefier torque curve and shorter final drive make for harder launches and a better top end. While we didn’t have a standard Mustang GT to compare it against, the Bullitt has no problem pulling hard from a dead stop with a glorious V-8 roar, and we noticed no letup in power deliver as the engine approached redline. The five-speed shifter is solid, maybe a little too stiff, but with a smooth and progressive clutch. It’s the kind of powertrain that brings out your inner delinquent, and it’s hard to resist the urge to turn rubber to smoke at every opportunity.

Handling

The Mustang Bullitt’s suspension enhancements don’t include an independent rear end, and despite the better shocks and springs there’s no escaping that big heavy axle in back. The Bullitt stays composed in hard corners as long as the road is smooth, but hit a bump or pothole and the rear end dances nervously. The steering is very precise, and the body motions are well controlled for such a heavy car, but curvy roads are not this car’s strong suit. Surprisingly, the Bullitt has a comfortable ride. It’s controlled, but only lumpy or harsh on seriously broken pavement.

Visibility

Considering this is a sporty coupe and not a family hauler, visibility is pretty good. The back glass is large and the rearmost pillars are thin. The small triangular side windows improve visibility, and even though the B pillars are thick, they’re largely obscured by the head restraints and don’t pose a problem. Oddly, the view out over the hood is one of the most constrained. The Mustang’s large hood bulge looks cool from the outside, but from the driver’s seat it gives the illusion of the nose pointing skyward.

Fun to Drive

There’s little about the driving experience of the Bullitt that isn’t geared toward fun. The roar of the exhaust inspires you to just rev the engine at stoplights. The strong acceleration and V-8 torque are available at any opportunity. Shut off the traction control and you can slide the tail with ease. Fine, it’s not a canyon carver, but this modern muscle car does fine without that ability. However, we should warn you that even if you wear a tweed sportcoat and black turtleneck while driving it, you’ll still never be as cool as Steve McQueen.

Front Comfort

Sporty front seats are required in this kind of car, and these fit the bill very well. Comfortable and supportive, they also have good side bolstering for when you decide to McQueen it up on the streets of San Francisco, although some of us felt the shoulder support was too tight. With power fore-aft, up-down and lumbar and a manual seatback angle adjustment, it was easy to find a sweet spot. While the steering wheel adjusts only for height and not reach, it wasn’t really an issue. The shifter’s big aluminum knob is placed ahead of the cupholders, meaning you have to reach around your morning coffee to make shifts.

Rear Comfort

The best part of the Mustang Bullitt’s rear seats is getting out of them. Despite the deep butt pockets, the lack of head, leg, foot and shoulder room makes them little more than leather-covered package shelves. Use them like that and the deep dugouts work well for holding a gallon jug of milk. But human beings? No.

Interior Noise

This is no luxury car, so there’s plenty of noise to keep your ears occupied. Foremost among the sounds is, of course, the engine. This is a good thing, so good that at least one of us found himself revving the engine at stoplights just to listen to the tuned Ford Racing exhaust. At speed it reduces to a background burble, largely obscured by tire and wind noise, and just a hint of transmission whine. The big tires and heavy rear axle thump loudly over large expansion joints or other large bumps. It’s a good sporty-coupe soundtrack, but it could also get annoying during a long commute.

Loading Cargo

The Mustang has a smallish trunk, only 13.1 cu. ft. Part of the problem is the large hump to accommodate the rear axle, which cuts into the trunk space and makes for an oddly shaped floor. The short rear end also contributes. Ford has equipped the Mustang with fold-down rear seatbacks, but you must fold them from the interior; there is no secondary release in the trunk itself. Liftover is on the high side thanks to the ‘Stang’s high rear haunches.

Build Quality

We’ve never been impressed with the Mustang’s build quality, and sadly, things haven’t changed much in the past few years even in this special edition. Interior panel fits were a mixed bag, there were numerous points where mold lines were visible or easily felt by fingertip, and there was a constant rattle coming from the passenger’s side of the dash. Exterior panel fits were better, but still not befitting this car’s price tag.

Materials Quality

This is where the Bullitt’s nearly $35,000 price tag starts to look ridiculous. Yes, you get a lot of performance, but there’s no excuse for the poor-quality plastics used in this car. The door panels are hard and cheap, the dash is hard and sounds hollow, the headliner is cheap mousefur, and the pillar covers are poorly grained hard plastic. The Bullitt’s interior “upgrades” are a mixed bag: we like the aluminum shift handle, but the pretend aluminum plastic trim panels on the dash look cheap. There’s an updated Mustang on the way, and we hope that the interior gets a thorough upgrade worthy of this car’s price.

Styling

We’ve been subjected to literally dozens of special edition Mustangs since the car’s introduction, and this is far and away the best looking of them all. The simple exterior is devoid of most badges, save for the “Bullitt” badge on the fake gas cap on the rear and horsie badges on the center caps of the awesome looking movie-car knockoff wheels. The mesh grille deletes the grille-mounted foglights of the standard GT, and to good effect. The interior looks good, but the retro gauges are hard to read, and while the “Bullitt” door sill plates are fine, the “Bullitt” steering wheel hub is overkill...we get it already.

Storage

Considering that the Mustang is a pretty sizable car, interior storage is pretty sorry. Door pockets are tiny, there are two cupholders on the center console that partially block the shifter, and the glovebox is so small that it’s almost unusable. The center console bin is the largest storage, but it’s still small. An option on our Bullitt was a color-changing light scheme for the footwells and cupholder; pick purple or blue or pink or a number of other colors. Couldn’t the company instead have engineered a little more knickknack space into the vast plastic dash?

Infotainment Controls

Our Bullitt’s price was partially inflated by the navigation system. It’s Ford’s standard unit, and is one of the better ones out there despite the slightly small screen. The buttons are all clearly labeled and easy to figure out, including the touch-screen instructions. Our only complaints were that there were no redundant audio controls on the steering wheel – a very common feature these days even on econoboxes – and considering the nearly $2,000 price tag for the navi, we think Ford’s excellent Sync system should be standard.

Climate Controls

No automatic climate control here, surprising considering the car’s price tag. However, the air conditioning controls are as standard as they can be. Three knobs, one each for temperature, fan speed and vent position, and three buttons for A/C on and off, recirculate and the rear defroster. There were two knockouts on the button panel, which experience in other Ford models tells us house the heated seat buttons. Again, at this price point, we feel heated seats should be part of the package.

Secondary Controls

While the layout is logical and easy to understand, the switchgear itself is a mixed bag that we’re unfortunately used to from current Fords. Some buttons – such as the window controls, mirror adjustments and steering-wheel mounted cruise control – feel fine to the touch. Others, like the trip computer buttons on the center stack, feel chintzy and well below this car’s price point.

Competition

For now, the Bullitt and the rest of the Mustang line is in a class by itself, but that will change soon as the Dodge Challenger and Chevrolet Camaro go into production. In the meantime, the Mustang is an image car, the Bullitt doubly so, and has no direct V-8 rear drive competitor. The closest is the Dodge Charger, especially the R/T and SRT8 versions, however that car’s four-door design may turn off sporty coupe buyers. Another option at roughly the same price point is the Nissan 350Z, a car that matches or exceeds many of the Mustang’s performance benchmarks.

2ND Opinion – Beamesderfer

Forty years after the film “Bullitt,” Ford has brought out another Mustang that shares the name of the Steve McQueen cop thriller. It’s dark green, has some retro touches inside, like the late-’60s gauges, and a slightly souped-up version of the modern GT’s 4.6-liter V-8, along with suspension upgrades. Compared with the ’68 350 GT, it’s 10 horsepower light and about 650 pounds heavy. Specs aside, the modern version has better tires, suspension, brakes and steering, so we’ll let the power “shortage” go.

2ND Opinion – Thom Blackett

Just this past weekend I was having a conversation about getting older, and how there seems to be more to do with less time in which to get it all done. Some would argue that life’s stressful obligations can get a stranglehold of us. As a result, we look for moments when we can slow down, tune out, and get comfortable with our food, homes, and cars. Call it the Olive Garden/tract home/Toyota Camry syndrome.

But you – yes, you – can change things. It’s not too late. 

By Thom Blackett
MyRide Senior Road Test Editor