A big THANK YOU to old bear!! My "Bullitt" rig...

[les.b]

About two weeks ago, someone posted a thread regarding the "Nevada Leather Company". I took a look at their site, and saw a holster there that looked a little like the one Steve McQueen wore in the movie "Bullitt". I commented on it, saying that I might get one for my Colt Diamondback. Right away, "old bear" PMed me that he had just what I was looking for! Just PM him my address, and he would donate his rig to the project!! To make a long story short, here are a few pictures...

First, probably most of you know that Steve McQueen's character was based on a real life SFPD "Inspector", ("Detective" to most of us) named Dave Toschi, who, among other assignments, was in charge of the "Zodiac" murder cases back in the 60s. Here he is:



Here is one of the movie posters associated with the film...but there has been some airbrushing done, so it's hard to identify the gun or holster:



McQueen had interviewed Inspector Toschi (another movie was later made about him, based on his most famous case), and supposedly had his holster copied, more or less after the Inspector's. There are lots of photo stills of McQueen wearing his rig. He also carried a Colt 2 1/2" Diamondback fitted with what appear to be Detective Special stocks. Here is a screen shot from the movie with the holster and gun perched on a stair railing:



Here is my Diamondback with the issue stocks:



Here is a shot of the Diamondback fitted with a spare set of Detective Special stocks I had laying around:



And here's a shot of it wearing its new jacket!! By the way, although the Diamondback is built on the same frame as the Detective Special, Cobra, and Agent, they will slide out of this holster. The Diamondback stays in, I believe, because of the target sights, which are just large enough to fit it correctly.



Anyway, THANKS, OLD BEAR!!! That was a mighty fine gift, which, by the way, came just about right on my birthday!!!


Now, if anyone has a mint 1968 Ford Mustang 390 GT that they aren't using, I will be happy to add to my Bullitt collection!!

Best Regards, Les

 

[k22fan]

Take that .38 to a gunsmith and see if he can get the cylinder to go around the correct way! Seriously, Its bluing looks great. A long time ago I briefly owned a 4".38 Diamondback. After he fired it a friend who I'd foolishly let get my 1917 S&W .45 in a trade said he'd finally let me have my 1917 back -- for the Diamondback.

Look at the leather hanging from the off side of Inspector Toschi's shoulder holster. It looks like an improvised pouch for a Buck 110 with a belt cartridge loop piece sewed on. Almost everybody had to have a Buck 110 or a copy of one back then.

Does handling your new holster make you want Mustang?

 

[Lee's Landing Billy]

This is what happens when 2 good people come together!!!!!

 

[hannstv]

I was wondering what was carried on the opposite side from the revolver, I thought it might be cuffs. Don't know much about the holster but I sure owned a lot of those Sansabelt slacks about 35 years ago.

 

[les.b]

Take that .38 to a gunsmith and see if he can get the cylinder to go around the correct way! Seriously, Its bluing looks great. A long time ago I briefly owned a 4".38 Diamondback. After he fired it a friend who I'd foolishly let get my 1917 S&W .45 in a trade said he'd finally let me have my 1917 back -- for the Diamondback.

Look at the leather hanging from the off side of Inspector Toschi's shoulder holster. It looks like an improvised pouch for a Buck 110 with a belt cartridge loop piece sewed on. Almost everybody had to have a Buck 110 or a copy of one back then.

Does handling your new holster make you want Mustang?

Oh, Yeah!!! For any of you youngsters who haven't seen that movie, (well, and for some of us older guys too)... here's a little of the car chase scene:

[ame]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0vNvc9n1ikI[/ame]

I understand that they pretty much destroyed two sets of cars in the filming, and that Steve did a lot of his own stunt driving, as he was an amature racing driver, and loved that kind of thing (see the excerpt from Wikapedia below).....

Best Regards, Les

 

[les.b]

Not to make this Thank You to Fred about the movie, but it is one of my favorites...For anyone who is interested in one of the greatest, and one of the earliest car chase scenes, part of which is seen above, here is an excerpt from Wikipedia:

There is no way anyone could get away with doing this nowadays, and remember, there were no digital special effects back then (1968), everything you see actually happened:

"The total time of the scene is 10 minutes and 53 seconds, beginning in the Fisherman's Wharf area of San Francisco, at Columbus and Chestnut (although Bullitt first notices the hitmen following his car while driving west on Army, now Cesar Chavez, just after passing under Highway 101), followed by Midtown shooting on Hyde and Laguna Streets, with shots of Coit Tower and locations around and on Filbert and University Streets. The scene ends outside the city at the Guadalupe Canyon Parkway in Brisbane.[21] The route is geographically impossible if it is assumed to take place in real time.[22]

Two 1968 390 V8 Ford Mustang GT fastbacks (325 hp) with four-speed manual transmissions were used for the chase scene, both lent by the Ford Motor Company to Warner Bros. as part of a promotional agreement. The Mustangs' engines, brakes and suspensions were heavily modified for the chase by veteran car racer Max Balchowsky. Ford also originally lent two Galaxie sedans for the chase scenes, but the producers found the cars too heavy for the jumps over the hills of San Francisco. They were replaced with two 1968 375 hp 440 Magnum V8-powered Dodge Chargers. The engines in both Chargers were left largely unmodified, but the suspensions were mildly upgraded to cope with the demands of the stunt work.[citation needed]

The director called for maximum speeds of about 75–80 miles per hour (121–129 km/h), but the cars (including the chase cars filming) at times reached speeds of over 110 miles per hour (180 km/h). Driver's point-of-view shots were used to give the audience a participant's feel of the chase. Filming took three weeks, resulting in nine minutes and 42 seconds of pursuit. Multiple takes were spliced into a single end product resulting in discontinuity: heavy damage on the passenger side of Bullitt's car can be seen much earlier than the incident producing it, and the Charger appears to lose five wheel covers, with different ones missing in different shots. Shooting from multiple angles simultaneously and creating a montage from the footage to give the illusion of different streets also resulted in the speeding cars passing the same vehicles at several different times, including, widely noted, a green Volkswagen Beetle.[23] At one point the Charger crashes into the camera in one scene and the damaged front fender is noticeable in later scenes. Local authorities did not allow the car chase to be filmed on the Golden Gate Bridge, but did permit it in Midtown locations including Bernal Heights and the Mission District, and on the outskirts of neighboring Brisbane.[24]

McQueen, an accomplished driver, drove in the close-up scenes, while stunt coordinator Carey Loftin, stuntman and motorcycle racer Bud Ekins, and McQueen's usual stunt driver, Loren Janes, drove for the high-speed part of the chase and performed other dangerous stunts.[25] Ekins, who doubled for McQueen in the The Great Escape sequence where McQueen's character jumps over a barbed wire fence on a motorcycle, lays one down in front of a skidding truck during the Bullitt chase. The Mustang’s interior rear view mirror goes up and down depending on who is driving: when the mirror is up, McQueen is visible behind the wheel, when it is down, a stunt man is driving.

The black Dodge Charger was driven by veteran stunt driver Bill Hickman, who played one of the hitmen and helped with the chase scene choreography. The other hitman was played by Paul Genge, who played a character who had ridden a Dodge off the road to his death in an episode of Perry Mason ("The Case of the Sausalito Sunrise") two years earlier. In a magazine article many years later, one of the drivers involved in the chase sequence remarked that the stock Dodge 440s were so much faster than the Mustang that the drivers had to keep backing off the accelerator to prevent the Dodge from easily pulling away from the Mustang.[24]

One of the two Mustangs was scrapped after filming because of damage and liability concerns, while the other was sold to an employee of Warner Bros.[26] The car changed hands several times, with McQueen at one point making an unsuccessful attempt to buy it in late 1977. The current state and location of the surviving Mustang is largely unknown, but it is rumored that the Mustang is kept in a barn somewhere in the Ohio River Valley by an unknown owner"

Best Regards, Les

 

[Texas Star]

What an excellent topic, well photographed! And involving two of my favorite members of the board!


I think the real cop had handcuffs in the pouch with the ammo loops.


Les, I'm sure that you noticed that the Safariland holster is marked for an S&W gun, probably a 2.5-inch M-19. Your Colt is smaller, so slides out if a Detective Spcl. The Diamondback has a thicker topstrap as well as the adj. sight.


"Blue Bloods" had an episode where a fraud was tried to sell a Mustang that was claimed to be the one in the Bullitt chase. One of their better episodes. I saw a re-run of it last week. Saw the film in a theater in 1968, too. I was a college freshman then. But I knew guns well, and recognized the Diamondback. I later had one with four-inch barrel.

 

[les.b]

Texas:

Thanks... I agree about Dave Toschi's rig. I think that when I blow up the picture, that I can identify the top section of a set of handcuffs showing at the top. The weight of the cuffs and six rounds of 38 specials would help to balance the weight of his gun on the other side.

On "Bullitt's" rig, he has a simple cartridge slide on the off side. But I think that he had done his homework in emulating Toschi, who, although mostly forgotten today, was a pretty high profile public figure in the police world back then.

Yes, I did notice that the holster was marked S&W... I tried my 2" M&P in, and it fit perfectly. Like I said, the little Colt Detective Special, Agentnand Cobra slid out, but as you noted, the thicker top strap and target sights held the Diamondback in... Eventually I will add a cartridge slide on the off side, just o complete the project.

Best Regards, Les

 

[mic214]

I have the Safariland rig for my Diamondback too:

 

[les.b]

Very cool, and yours is marked for the Colt too. I can't help noticing that's some fantastic view you have there, mic214!!!

BestbRegards,mLes

 

[SPEEDGUNNER]

Bullitt, a movie I never get tired of reading about, hearing about, talking about or watching.

Chalmers (Robert Vaughn) just died a few weeks ago.

 

[Rustyt1953]

What a nice thread.

Kudos to you both.

 

[les.b]

I meant to mention in the first post that Inspector Toschi also served as the model for the original "Dirty Harry" character played by .... As if you guys don't know ... Clint Eastwood. One of the original "Dirty Harry" movies included a villain similar to the real life serial killer that Toschi was trying to capture. Dirty Harry's villain was called "Scorpio"... It seems to me because of the similarity between "Zodiac", and "Scorpio"....

Best Regards, Les

 

[mic214]

Very cool, and yours is marked for the Colt too. I can't help noticing that's some fantastic view you have there, mic214!!!

BestbRegards,mLes

Thanks!

I have had that Colt and the shoulder rig for many years. I also have one for a 'K" frame S&W 2-1/2" revolver as well. Back when I was a LEO, we were issued the 2-1/2" Model 66's when I worked as a plainclothes detective. I had two Model 66's at one time. Now my daughter has one and my son has the other one……

We do have some beautiful views up here in the mountains of New Mexico!

 

[g-dad]

Way to go Fred! Thanks for this thread Les. I still remember sitting in the theater in '68 watching this movie. The best chase scene ever. Every time the cars were airborne I felt like I was coming out of my set and could feel the landings. Did I say it was a great movie?

 

[TexasRaider]

Dang it, I love threads like this....

 

[k22fan]

[...] I think the real cop had handcuffs in the pouch with the ammo loops. [...]

What do I know? I acquired my expertise on police work from watching Get Smart, Men In Black and a few in between including Bullitt. I guess a homicide detective would be more concerned with cuffing suspects than cleaning fish.

 

[Old TexMex]

Les, have a look at the painting I did of McQueen a few years ago. Sorry, but I'm not ready to turn it loose just yet

 

[les.b]

TexMex, that is a really great painting!!! I guess I'm not the only fan of his left out here. I don't think any of my students have ever heard of him. I have mentioned the car chase scene in classes before, and no one has ever heard of the movie.

When I talk about cop stuff in class, I have to remember that most of my students were born after the OJ Simpson trial, and have never heard of him. To me it seems like it happened yesterday. I try to tell them that WW I happened before I was born, but I've heard of it!!

Best Regards, Les

 

[old bear]

Les, I'm glad that I could help out in a small way, with your tribute to a good movie and a great actor.
A small side bar, if I may, I spent many a happy hour in Enricos (sp) Cafe where Bullitt met his informant.