To have a new car in a Bond movie has been always a promotion that each car manufacturer lusted for. When the 3rd. Bond movie Goldfinger was scheduled, Ford had a problem. The first scenes were already filmed from 20.-24th. of January 1964 in Miami at the hotel pool, where Gert Froebe (Goldfinger) and Shirley Eaton (as Jill Masterson) played false. Still at this time doubles were used, while the close-up shots of the actors were done later in the studio.
Fort Knox was rebuilt in the Pinewood studios in England in March 1964 - without any detailed plans, just according to Ken Adams visionary film set designs - which was very close to the real thing - as officials later confirmed. Flying over Fort Knox several times with running film cameras and no approval would be definitely a no-go today, but was initiated by Director Guy Hamilton back then. These scenes were even used in the final movie.
The 3 million dollar budget apparently allowed some freaky cars. The most famous movie car in the world (as of today) is certainly the special DB5. It could have been the golden Mustang Fastback as described on this website, but Ford was late. Spending big money on the Bentley of Goldfinger plus the crashed new black Lincoln - a scandal at that time, took its toll on the car park budget. BTW note, that if looking close, you can see that the engine in the Lincoln was missing, so they saved some money, which was probably left for hiring the most beautiful car in this movie for the female Bond counterpart in Europe - Tilly Mastersen - played by english star model Tania Mallet.
Ken Adams, the production designer is known for his sports car interest, probably he decided that a new Mustang had just to be in there despite that Ford could not manage to get the special Mustang built in time and of course he was the man, who had the idea for the special equipment of the Aston Martin DB5. So we can be pretty sure that it was him who requested a Mustang to be in there by all means.
Back to the schedule the Golf Course scenes were filmed at Stoge Poges in May 1964 as well as the famous chase scene in the night at Black Park, both locations being close to the Pinewood Studios in England.
Aside from the Miami shots and some scenes being filmed in Washington, only the other chase scene with the Mustang was filmed at the Furka pass in Switzerland around May/June 1964.
they were approached via Walter Hayes, the big PR boss of Ford then in Europe. The Movie production had asked him for some help on the stunt scenes and requested a Mustang convertible for a female actress as well. As Allan recalls, "he had a convertible around" and at least it was easy to locate it for the movie.
Well, must have been still hard to get an 64 1/2 convertible in May/June in my view. But if Walter Hayes was in the background, it was for sure no problem to get it from somewhere.
The white (or some still say phoenecian yellow) 64 1/2 convertible was the first appearance of a Mustang in Bond movies.
Alan Mann was in Monte Carlo at the time of the filming and could plan ahead for the support indeed. Some suspension modifications were done to make it race-ready for the small curves and steep tiny roads at the Furka pass.
I don't have yet the VIN, but it won't take too long with help of my nice colleagues of the Mustang european network or some Bond fanatics out there. Alan Mann did not remember the VIN nor what happened to the car later. He thinks it might be scrapped, but we all know, movie cars apparently pop up here and there. In the end Alan Mann confirmed that he will be able to verify any car by specific changes they made, so attempts to produce fakes will not really be successful.
John Grant (ex-Allan Mann mechanic) told me it featured a regular 289 engine, not a HiPo.
Note the big UK licence plate MLO973B clearly indicating that this car was brought over from England and probably by the Alan Mann Racing team.
There are rumours out there that the car is today in a museum, however no proof yet available.
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