H. B. Halicki was a used car salesman who wanted to make a movie. With a little money, one big idea, and a 1971 Mustang Mach 1, he made Gone in 60 Seconds. And in that particular way that movies, especially '70s movies, can be, it wasn't all that good, but it was awesome. Fast forward to Michael Bay's remake in 2000, and the Mach 1 was replaced by a 1967 Shelby GT500. When we got a call offering us the actual car from that movie for the weekend, we felt obliged to say yes... and then drive it like we stole it. The verdict: Eleanor is the hottest piece of car we've spent a weekend with in quite some time.
What's the price of fame? When the subject turns towards famous movie cars, a vehicle's presence on the silver screen invariably adds some intrinsic value to the vehicle's worth, and there are few movie cars in recent memory more recognizable as Eleanor, the 1967 Ford Mustang fastback from Gone in 60 Seconds. According to the studio, a total of eleven Eleanors were created for the flick, and only three of those machines made it through filming unscathed. The car you see here is one of those machines, used for close-ups with Nicholas Cage. In this case, the car's sundry list of components isn't all that important, but for those that care, there's a 351 cubic-inch Ford V8 underhood, mated to an automatic transmission. The gavel fell, fees were tallied and the car's new owner was exactly $216,700 poorer after Saturday night's bidding was finished.
Top Gear Australia put together a shortlist of what it considers the three best movie car chase scenes ever: Ronin, Gone in 60 Seconds, and The Matrix Reloaded. Out of those three entrants, we'd probably give Ronin the nod as well, even though DeNiro looks scared and/or sick through most of it, which might be explained by the fact that he's meant to chase down a BMW M5 in a Peugeot 406. Gone in 60 Seconds isn't bad, but the Eleanor and Angelina Jolie are cooler than the actual chase. The Matrix Reloaded is, as far as we're concerned, undeniably cool, but more for the special effects than the lane changing. We wouldn't mind knowing what happened to some of the other choices, classics like Bullitt or The Italian Job or The French Connection to start. And speaking of the French, even though it has only one car that you never saw, our money is still on Claude Lelouche's film Rendezvous for the best car "chase" ever.
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Honestly, who among us hasn't talked to his car and pretended, just for a moment, that he was Nicholas Cage taking to Eleanor in the 2000 remake of Gone in 60 Seconds? Well, you can stop talking to your Camry, because now you can order your very own licensed Eleanor Mustang... if you've got the six figures to drop on it, that is.
Although the lawsuit presented over two years ago by the film's producer Denice Halicki against Unique Motorcars was ultimately rejected by the courts, Halicki's studio has licensed Classic Recreations to build these special-edition Eleanor Mustangs. Buyers can choose the fuel-injected version with 535hp for $139,900, or the bonkers 770hp supercharged and fuel-injected (SFI) version for $189,900. Built on a "classic muscle-car frame" – which includes available Ford-authorized '67 Mustang underpinnings, but not a Smart ForTwo – Eleanor gets a 410-cubic-inch Keith Craft Racing engine with sequential fuel injection, riding on a coil-over suspension with slotted and cross-drilled Baer brakes and a Tremec TKO manual or (perish the thought) automatic gearbox. Classic Recreations also throws keyless entry, in-dash DVD, Simpson five-point racing harnesses and custom leather interior into the mix, complete with special badging and even a go-baby-go button on the shifter. Delivery takes four months (considerably longer than the advertised sixty seconds) during which time the deposit is put into escrow. Buyers can try to outrun the cops, but will only get away with it if Angelina Jolie is riding shotgun. No exceptions.
