If you?re restoring a Ford Mustang, or pretty much any Ford, the guy you call first is Kevin Marti. He?s the man in blue in the photo above, taken at a Ford dealership in Mexico. Next to him, in the car shirt, is Ralph Garcia, Jr., who has the Mustang they’re posing with?the elusive stunt car from the 1968 movie Bullitt. 
Marti?s company, Marti Auto Works, is situated near the end of a runway at Luke Air Force Base in the desert west of Phoenix. He produces parts that restorers need. Even more important, though, is that Marti has a licensing agreement with Ford through which he can share detailed information about how each car was equipped when it rolled off the assembly line. A Marti Report is considered infallible truth among Ford faithful. So it?s his word that mattered most when determining the truth of the claim that one of two Ford Mustangs used for filming the Steve McQueen movie Bullitt had been found in Mexico. ?I?ve had people order reports for Bullitt-serial-number cars,? Marti said. ?I ask them, ?Do you actually have this car"? Anyone can order a report. What they typically say is, ?I?m wanting to make a clone, and I want to know how the car was originally delivered.? ?
Marti has been at this long enough that he has memorized the serial numbers of certain cars, including Mustangs that raced in the original Trans-Am series and cars that had significant roles in movies. A few weeks ago, he was asked for a report on a serial number he knew by heart. ...