First of all let me set something straight. You can pour all the credentials you want out at me, but they do not mean a thing.
Who posted any credentials? I simply claimed I knew more about the Bullitt than anyone here. I think previous posts of mine have clearly displayed that. Though if you would like to discuss credentials, post your email address and we can discuss them via email to your heart's content. I can give you all the credentials you could ever want.
Secondly, I will be very careful when I put my badges on to let people know that my car is a Contour. I know that the four doors are easy to miss sometimes and that my car resembles that of a Mustang. Wouldn't want anybody thinking I have a Bullitt edition Mustang or a Mustang Cobra. So I will be careful.
Lastly, I do not mock or take the hard work put in by Ford as a joke,
This part of your post clearly indicates your mockery of the car and subsequently the work put into it.
These responses prove my point that we assign so much power to words and symbols that we have actually put cars like the Bullitt Mustang up on a pedestal and started treating them with honor and precedence and made them into a god for no other reason than the label.
How do we identify things? By labels. "Bullitt" in the context of automobiles refers to (2) 1968 Mustang Fastbacks that were painted Dark Highland Green and housed 390 CI V8 engines, and to the 2001 MY Mustang GT Bullitt Feature car. No more, no less. The new Bullitt Mustang is no "god" in the performance dept, nor is it claimed to be; but it is a special car, it is not some run-of-the-mill GT Mustang, as evidenced by its limited production and serialized production #'s.
It is ok to retro fit a fuel door (with a mustang on the inside of it) off of a Bullitt Mustang, or maybe even the rims too if a 5 lug pattern were adapted to the Contour. It is ok to swap out SE bumpers and side skirts for SVT bumpers and side skirts, but the moment you put three letters on (referring to SVT) people will jump all over you like there is no tomorrow. I say let the car speak for the owner and their tastes.
Parts are fine, a single part does not reflect an entire car. However, when the LABEL is applied, whether it is "Cobra" or "Bullitt" or "SVT" or "M3, M5" or "Saleen" or "Type R" the entire car is proclaimed as such. The label is applied to identify that particular car, and when it is used on a different car, it mocks the original car (faithful reproductions excepted) and the effort behind it.
What I am doing is not deception- any idiot can tell that my car is not a real Cobra or a real Bullitt edition, and if they can't- well, I probably don't want to be talking to them anyways.
A badge does not make the car, it describes it and when you describe the car wrong intentionally, that is deception.
If Ford really felt that the labels Bullitt and SVT and the Cobra emblem had so much power that they did not belong on any other car but the real deal, and that any other use would defame them, why do they offer it to ANY customer who walks through their door? They restrict the color changing paint, so I think it is in their hands to do this with the special edition emblems too.
An effort was made to restrict access to the Bullitt badge, but it is considered to be a replacement part and it legally has to be offered through service. The Bullitt serial # Holographic labels are restricted and in fact will never be offered again, even to original owners. There are two of them on each car, one on the driver's side strut tower, and the other is in a non-disclosed hidden location on the vehicle's structure, so that true Bullitt Mustangs can be distinguished from fakes in the future.
