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EXTRA: Eleanor's One Hot 27-Year-Old
HOLLYWOOD - Nevermind Angelina Jolie. The biggest scene-stealer in "Gone in 60 Seconds" may well be Eleanor, the revving classic Mustang that Nicolas Cage is so bent to get his hands on in the car-chase flick. But despite its cool look and tough muscles, the 1967 Shelby Mustang GT 500 is still no match to its same-named predecessor, the 1973 Mach 1 Mustang in the original "Gone in 60 Seconds" -- the 1974 B-type flick that's more familiar to drive-ins than mutliplexes.
Written, directed and produced on a shoe-string budget by H.B. ("Toby") Halicki (who also played the lead), the original flick was a true do-it-yourself effort in that the whole production -- a production featuring 93 cars (and 100 wrecks) -- was solely financed by the writer-director-producer. The chases and clashes -- which prominently figured in the plot about a car burglar alternately running from his employers and cops -- climaxed into a 40-minutes car chase scene that propelled the entire 98-minute film to cult status.
And doing the bad deeds in the film with Halicki was no Angelina Jolie-type, but his Eleanor -- the yellow muscle car with a running black stripe down the middle that experienced as many high-impact crashes as Halicki did during the course of the film.
And unlike the remake which had a dozen stand-ins for the car and countless more stunt doubles for the actors, Halicki and his partner in crime ride did every single one of their own stunts, including a 128-foot jump which left the driver with a spine injury, Denice Halicki, H.B.'s widow tells Hollywood.com (H.B. Halicki was killed in 1989 in an accident on the set of the botched "Gone in 60 Seconds 2.")
With 27 years on its engine and every single dent intact, the original Eleanor's still got what it takes to turn heads at car shows, and she had even visit the set of the new remake last summer.
And fans of the original (film and car) shouldn't feel that their beloved will be upstaged by the new version, for the remake was conceived as much of a homage as anything else.
"After Toby's death, my fire just kept burning and all I wanted was to finish what he had set out to do," says Denice Halicki, who serves as an executive producer on the remake. "And with complete determination, we've come up with this great remake."
"The whole idea was that it has to be a Mustang, and that her name has to be Eleanor. For me, each car is like a kid and they're both great."
The original Eleanor will be on displayed at the Peterson Automobile Museum in Los Angeles beginning June 15.