The Bullitt Page

The Interview with Lee Brown - David Kunz/L.A. May 2015

© David Kunz  2015

  updated May 2015

Lee Brown was the owner of Precision Auto Body in Hollywood during the 1960s, and famously customized and painted many of Steve McQueen’s personal cars, notably his Ferraris.

When McQueen’s Solar Productions and Warner Brothers were getting ready to shoot Bullitt, Lee got the assignment to customize the Mustangs a bit. While Max Balchowski did the mechanical modifications, it was actually Lee’s handiwork which gave that Highland Green fastback the right “look,” to become the most famous Mustang in the world.

We spoke with Mr. Brown – still quite spry and knowledgeable in his later years – at a classic car show in Beverly Hills, California. He was gracious enough to answer a few burning questions about the real Bullitt cars.

Lee begins the story recalling the first encounter with the new Mustangs, delivered to the Warner Brothers backlot one day in early 1968:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


The left front fender damage is visible in many of the chase car scenes throughout the movie. The second cars rear fender damage matches the impact from this car.
Daily Mail/Barry Feinstein picture



Late in the afternoon, we were expecting the carrier to come in. We all just sat around, and Steve was really excited to see the car. He was like a kid with those things. They dropped the cars off, and first thing he did was got in, fired one up, and just smoked the tires all the way down the driveway. And a couple of the big guys financing all this (the movie) said, “You know, we’re going to have to keep him away from these cars.” They could see the problem coming!

As they appeared when they came off the trailer, did the Mustangs have stripes on the sides?

No, I don’t think they did. I know the stripes you’re talking about, but I don’t believe these cars had them.

What about the wheels? Do you recall those?

If I’m not mistaken, they had a steel wheel with the trim ring and the hubcap.

Talk about the work you did, and how it all came about.

There were two cars, in order to have a back-up car, and they later delivered them to my shop. And so the first day I had them, I was just staring at them to get ideas. In the meetings we’d had at the studio, they described the character that Steve was playing, and they were leaving it up to me to do whatever I wanted to do to the cars. And Steve had their blessing, so they just turned me loose. And I just stood and stared at these cars and thought, “What would I do with these things?” They were brand-new cars, all shiny and everything.

At the time I was in my 30s, and my shop was kind of a gathering place. And a bunch of guys were showing up to go out to dinner one night, and we were all looking at the car and talking about what to do with it. So we popped a couple of beers and discussed what to do. So, the car was sort of done by committee. And I said to the guys, “Okay, this guy (Lt. Frank Bullitt) is supposed to be a reckless wacko when he drives a car.” So we decided that obviously he’s damaged it to some degree. And while he had a penchant for a sort of custom look, he just wasn’t that good at keeping up his car. Particular about the car in one way, but he just didn’t keep it up. He beat the (expletive) out of his car.

So I parked the car in the back of the shop, and I got maybe five or six car lengths away from it with the other car, and just drove right into it! And if I’m not mistaken, the first hit was the left front fender into the right quarter. I’d have to look at the film, but one car should have some damage to the right quarter, and the other to the left front fender.

And then I thought, “Well, he lives in San Francisco, and there are a lot of parking meters in San Francisco.” So I had this thing called a ‘cheater pipe’ that you’d use to bend metal. I opened the hood and I just nailed the front edge of it, to simulate a parking meter hit. And then I went around the car with a pick-hammer, up and down both sides, and put a bunch of door dents in it. I also put chips in the edges of the doors. Then, we Bon-Ami’d the car to take all the gloss off it. We knocked it down so it wouldn’t be shiny. [Editor’s note: Bon-Ami is a powdered household scouring cleanser.]

Clearly visible in the Cotati Raceway pics already, you can spot the parking meter notches in the hoods front edge.

You took all the badges off the car, the grill pieces and the fog lights?

Yes, because it was supposed to be a bit of a custom car, so we took all that off. On the gas cap, we just took everything off, like the GT emblem, and just painted the center black.

What about painting over the various chrome pieces on the car?

The studio did that after it left my shop.

And the stock wheels came off, obviously.

I put some new Shelby 10-spokes on it, but when it got to San Francisco they had put these wheels on it. [Editor’s note: He’s referring to the American Racing Torq Thrusts on the replica he’s standing in front of.]But when the cars came back, they had the 10-spokes on them. In fact, I hadn’t even realized the wheels had been changed until I saw the actual movie.

Can you talk about the Shelby steering wheel? Do you remember where it came from?

When doing things with Steve, there were always a couple of sources. There was an assistant he had named Betsy, like a runner. Steve would say, “Get me a six-legged squirrel,” and she would take off and come back with it. She was amazing, and she got the steering wheel from somewhere.

And Tony Nancy covered the wheel rim with padding and leather?

No, it wasn’t Tony. That was done at Thomas Top, a small upholstery shop on Cahuenga in Hollywood.

Do you remember about the antenna, removing it?

No, I don’t. But I can tell you that Steve didn’t like antennas on any of his cars, and I did remove and relocate antennas from many of his cars from the front to the back.

Did you remove the stock mirror? The car is seen in the movie with either no mirror or a non-stock one.

They probably did that after the car got onto the location in San Francisco. I never did that.

There’s a common misconception that the taillight panel was painted black, because it can appear that way on home video due to shadows. Can you confirm that you never did paint the back of the car flat black?

No, we never changed that.

You knew Max Balchowski, who did the mechanical work on the car. Did he do his work after yours?

You know, I can’t remember if Carey (Loftin, the stunt coordinator) picked the cars up or I took them over to Max’s shop. It was right over off Hollywood Boulevard, only about five or six blocks from mine. He had to brace the cars so they’d hold up when they’d crash them and stuff. I know he also had the Dodges at his shop for a bit.

Max and I were great friends, in fact he stood up for me at my wedding! That guy knew a LOT about everything.

Speaking of the Dodge Chargers, did you paint those too? They may have been other colors initially.

I never saw those cars in any color but black, right from the start. If they had been other colors, they might have been painted before they left the dealer.

What about the real surviving Mustang? You’ve no doubt heard about it over the years.

Every time I think about that car it brings tears to my eyes. When the movie was finished, I had gone out to lunch one day and came back and the cars were sitting in my shop. And I thought, “Oh my God, what are THESE doing here?” And I walked around the cars and they were just thrashed. On one, the front cross-member underneath was all torn out. The cars were terrible! Back then, I would only think about making things as they should be, in order to either use it or sell it. There was no value to a car that had just been hammered through a movie. To me, they were absolutely worthless. The mindset at the time was “You can’t make them back into a usable car again.”

The property department called me up and wondered what I’d give them for it, you know, anything. And I said I really didn’t want it, and it was taking up space in my shop, which was pretty small. I told them to come and get it. And I probably called them no less than half a dozen times and said “Get it off my lot, you gotta get these cars out of here.” The last phone call I remember telling the guy, “I tell you what. If you don’t get it by tomorrow afternoon, I’m going to push it out onto Hollywood Boulevard and just leave it there, and the cops will come and snap it up for plugging traffic, and then you can go get it out of impound!”

And the guy said, “Just give me ANYTHING, any amount I can put on this line next to the cars to show that I’ve disposed of them.”  And I just said, “Tomorrow…” That got some action, as they came and picked them up.  But that hero car, I know that’s worth a fortune now. I guess I should have kept them!

Thank you for the interview.
 

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