Eleanor from Gone in Sixty Seconds for sale
One of three ‘hero’ cars up for sale through Coys
By Shahzad Sheikh
Want to invest in a piece of motoring and cinematic history? Want to plant your backside in the seat previously occupied by car-movie superstar, Nicolas Cage? Then pay attention.
You don’t have to steal it, but Eleanor is up for grabs. Yes that’s the ‘Unicorn’ – the actual car from the movie, Gone in Sixty Seconds. Well one of them anyway.
The 2000 remake of the original 1974 movie, actually used 12 cars for the now iconic climatic chase sequence at the end of the movie when Cage’s Memphis Raines tries to get away from Delroy Lindo’s Det Roland Castlebeck in, I think, a BMW M5.
Five of the Mustangs used in the movie, were stunt cars and were destroyed during filming, the rest survived, but there were three ‘hero’ cars which were used in scenes with the actors themselves. This particular car up for sale is ‘number 7’ and would have been used for driving shots, exterior and interior, with mounted cameras.
It’s being touted as one of the most famous movie cars in the world by Coys, the international car auctioneers, which will be selling it at the Autosport International Show in Birmingham in the UK, on Saturday 4th January, with an estimated selling price of GBP100,000 (over $150,000).
Famed Hot Rod illustrator, Steve Stanford, was enlisted to create the remake’s ‘Eleanor’ (in the original movie it was a then-new 1973 Ford Mustang Mach 1). The newer movie’s car was a 1967 Mustang GT500, and Boyd Coddington designer, Chip Foose, turned Stanford’s vision into real cars for Gone in Sixty Seconds. It got new wider wheel arches, a bonnet bulge, deep front valance and side skirts with a spoiler incorporated into the boot lid. Schmidt 17×8-inch wheels finished it off, whilst inside there was a standard Shelby interior with a monster tachometer and a roll hoop.
The Mustang due to go under the hammer has a 351 cubic inch Ford Racing crate motor with a ‘big’ camshaft and a 700cfm Holley 4-barrel carburettor. Suspension was lowered with coil-over front suspension and Willwood disk brakes all round with 6 piston callipers on the front. Interestingly whilst the side exhausts were not actually functional during filming, they’ve since been made real.
According to the auctioneers this Eleanor is one of just two original cars in private hands.
