DETROIT — Sean Kiernan is a paint salesman who lived on a horse farm outside Nashville with a dream. And somehow that dream came true — but it is also just beginning.
This is the story of how a rusty ’68 Ford Mustang ended up being the biggest attraction at the 2018 Detroit auto show after a family kept the famous muscle car hidden for 40 years. Estimated to be worth at least $4 million now, the Highland green car is famous for being driven by Steve McQueen in the classic film “Bullitt.” It forever established a Hollywood standard for high-action car chase scenes. One Mustang used in the film went to a junk heap. The other Mustang seemed to disappear.
Now, Kiernan’s 1968 Mustang GT Fastback is going on a world tour that will include a week being shown off under glass at the National Mall in Washington and perhaps eventual display at The Henry Ford, among other classic artifacts of Americana.
“It’s not often in life when you run into a Mona Lisa lost in a garage somewhere. That’s what this is. It’s a Mona Lisa car,” said McKeel Hagerty, CEO of the world’s largest insurer of classic cars and founder of the Historic Vehicle Association.
These days, TV news crews from throughout the U.S., France, Japan, China, Norway, Italy and Mexico have rushed to capture images of the iconic vehicle on display at the Cobo Center in the heart of the Motor City.
Crowds at the North American International Auto Show can see the global attraction until Jan. 28, and then it tours the U.S., and likely Europe and Asia over the next 12 months.
In April, the famous ’68 Mustang Bullitt will be enclosed in a glass box and featured as part of Cars at the Capital, an Historic Vehicle Association exhibition that attracts some 500,000 visitors to the National Mall. The site, tucked between the U.S. Air and Space Museum and the National Gallery of Art, will be lit up at night.
“This is the most significant unveiling of a lost car in most people’s modern memory. This one has just truly always been out there in people’s minds,” Hagerty said. “And this was a mission for a man who loved his father. ”
Sean Kiernan, 36, has always been a quiet man who focused on going to work, being a good husband and providing for his family. He rarely allowed his picture taken. Until now, the only images captured have been selfies snapped by Samantha Kiernan, 28, an eye-care technician who met her husband while working at Sam’s Sports Bar in Hendersonville, Tenn.
When they recently packed their bags for Detroit, no one knew they were part of a Ford Motor Co. celebration of the 50th anniversary of the film “Bullitt” and the public unveiling of the collector car, along with introduction of a new Mustang that pays homage to the original.
“My dad thought Sean was getting an award for selling the most paint for LKQ Corporation,” said a smiling Samantha Kiernan, who grew up in Dearborn with a father, uncle and aunt who worked at Ford.
As store manager, Sean Kiernan had worked for the automotive paint company for a decade.
And their kids, did they know? “They thought Daddy was traveling because he was getting a promotion.”
Sean’s mother, Robbie, was part of the plan. She drove that Mustang back in the day to St. Vincent’s Parish to teach third grade. Her husband, Robert, who had bought the car, took the train from their home in Madison, N.J., to work in New York City.
“The car didn’t impress me much back then. I was just 8 and it was old and uncomfortable,” said Sean’s sister, Kelly Cotton, 47, a preschool teacher who lives in Union, Ky. “We carpooled and Mom would pick us up from Girl Scouts. You heard that car before you saw it. And there were holes in the floorboard on the passenger side where the camera mount was used for the movie. I could watch down at the road as we drove along.”
Later, the car would end up retired to the garage, first at the family’s home in New Jersey. Then later, when the family moved to a Kentucky farm outside Cincinnati.
“One day, I was in the bookstore and I noticed a book about Mustangs,” Cotton said. “I wouldn’t be my father’s daughter if I didn’t open a book about Mustangs, and there, at the bottom of a photo, it said no one knew where the ’68 Mustang Bullitt is. I thought, ‘Dear God.’ And the book said it might be in Kentucky. And I thought, ‘It is.'”
That Mustang, purchased through a classified ad in an October 1974 issue of Road & Track magazine for somewhere between $3,000 and $6,000, was left parked next to a 1975 Porsche in the family garage. The Mustang today has 65,000 miles on the odometer.
“Those two cars spent a lot of time next to each other,” Sean Kiernan said. “Nobody paid much attention to the Mustang.”
He kept the pony car covered with old bed comforters and blankets. If anyone asked, the family said it was a Camaro. They didn’t intend to keep a secret, really. Sean and his father had hoped to refurbish the car together. But Parkinson’s disease took the life of the former insurance executive. And Robbie Kiernan knew that after her husband died, Sean wanted to do something special.
He approached Ford Motor Co. with the idea for a unique unveiling. And then Sean reached out to classic car experts, who helped document the origin of the vehicle and create a paper trail.
“When Sean first contacted me about a year ago, he had already started mapping out how he wanted to reveal the car,” Hagerty said. “He was new to this world of unique, very rare special cars. This car was in original condition. We needed to get this absolutely validated that this is the car, so no one can take the car from you. The car world does strange things. People claim they have a different car or maybe there were three ‘Bullitt’ movie cars and not two.”
Hagerty, who is based in Traverse City, helped Kiernan document everything through historical automotive records and processes to protect the father of two who simply wanted to hold on to his dad’s beloved car.
On Jan. 14, as Kiernan prepared to drive his car out for the international media debut on the eve of auto show press week, he said he worried tears would stream down his cheeks. His mom watched on a livestream and texted her son minutes before the event began.
“We did this for Dad,” Samantha Kiernan said, placing her hand gently on her husband’s knee.
Sean said, “My dad, he was the best of everything. Not only was he one of the smartest people I’ve ever met in my life, but he made sure we were all taken care of. He was corporate during the day and a horse farmer at night. He was into cars and horses and down to earth and funny. This car is part of the family. That’s what it means to me. That’s why I could never sell it.”
