Compiling a bucket list of great movies featuring Ford Motor Company products is more about deciding which ones to leave out than cherry-picking the celluloid masterpieces that deserve at least a co-starring credit.
It seems as though Fords have always had a place in movies! Just as the fledgling Ford South Africa production line was cranking up to full speed in Port Elizabeth 100 years ago, Laurel and Hardy were gaining traction in Hollywood with a string of hits that often featured a Model T Ford.
With 15 million examples of the Ford Model T already built by the late 1920s, the American people’s car was tailor-made for the mishap-strewn adventures that saw the tough-as-teak Ford pounded by irate homeowners, offended housewives, speeding steam engines, and justice-seeking policemen.
And when the smoke clouds settled, just like in real life, the Model T always seemed to dust itself off and be game for whatever madcap scheme was next on the script list.
Speaking of madness, but in a more serious tone, a notable movie car that enjoyed devoted acceptance similar to the Model T was the Ford Cortina, featured in the 2003 big-budget action drama, Stander. Directed by Bronwen Hughes and set in 1980s South Africa, the film portrayed the tragic life of policeman-turned-bank robber Andre Stander. One of the youngest police captains ever appointed in the South African Police, Stander and his gang embarked on a spree of over 100 bank robberies between 1977 and 1983, often using a powerful Cortina XR6 as their getaway car of choice.
The XR6, a home-grown South African Cortina model, lent a touch of gritty local authenticity to this world-wide-release movie about one of our country’s most notorious criminals. Stander’s stunt double in the getaway driving scenes was none other than WesBank V8 racing champion Gary Formato, who coincidentally won his South African title driving a Ford Mustang.
However, if there’s one Ford that’s made for the movies, it’s the Mustang. Launched in America in April 1964, it didn’t take movie directors long to realize its silver screen value. One of its earliest appearances was in the James Bond classic Goldfinger, shot between April and July 1964, coinciding with the Mustang’s global debut. Bond is memorably driven in a chase scene over twisting Swiss mountain roads in a ’64-and-a-half Mustang convertible.
Another early appearance of a Ford Mustang was in the 1966 motor racing epic, Grand Prix. The film’s star, played by rugged James Garner, drove a 1965 Shelby Mustang GT350 through the winding roads above Monte Carlo after the opening racing sequence. It was just the sort of classic limited-edition race-oriented car that a 1960s F1 star would own, and using the ultra-rare Shelby Mustang was yet another example of film director John Frankenheimer’s attention to detail.
Perhaps the most famous movie Ford of all is the 1967 Ford Mustang 390 GT Fastback model, driven by Steve McQueen in the 1968 movie Bullitt. In an epic car chase sequence through the undulating streets of San Francisco, the Highland Green model spawned a Mustang Bullitt tribute car, available in limited numbers in South Africa in 2019.
Adding to the Ford legacy in popular culture is the iconic Ford Anglia 105E, which gained newfound fame thanks to the imagination of author J.K. Rowling in the Harry Potter novels. In the movie adaptation of the second book, “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets,” the Anglia takes on a magical persona, capable of flying and turning invisible. Rowling drew inspiration from her own experiences, as the first car owned by one of her friends in her early teens was a blue and white Anglia. Thus, the Anglia became an object of wonder for younger audiences worldwide, imbued with powers that owners in the 1960s might have believed it possessed.
But Ford’s filmography doesn’t end there. One of the most iconic Ford appearances in movies is the Ford Falcon driven by the archetypal avenging outlaw of the movie world, Mad Max. Popularized by American star Mel Gibson, the Mad Max movies created an apocalyptic but strangely compelling view of life in the Australian outback. The ratty-looking matte black Ford XB Falcon GT 351 movie car will always be remembered for its howling supercharger that Max activated to great effect when in hot pursuit of an assortment of bizarre motorcycle thugs and off-road-orientated anarchists.
Ford South Africa had two separate flirtations with the Falcon nameplate. The first was in 1960 when the “compact” American Ford was introduced here for a couple of years, and later the Falcon name resurfaced in the late 1990s as a popular South African large sedan model with a strong Australian heritage.
In fact, one of the most popular large cars here in the early 1970s was a Ford Fairmont. This was, in fact, an Australian-designed Falcon, which Ford South Africa decided to assemble locally, badged as a Fairmont. Today, South African-built Fairmont GTs are highly collectable, particularly in Australia, and sadly many of them have been exported, depleting our rich classic car heritage.
The question may well be asked: what about car-cult movies of the future? Perhaps in a world suffering from depleted fossil fuels, the streets will be ruled by electric-powered vehicles. New iconic cars, like possible successors to the Mustang Mach-E, will take center stage: high school kids will hang out near charging stations to discuss the latest gossip, car tuners will talk about battery optimization, and following a suspect from a distance can be done in complete, secretive silence!
Source: Ford
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