How Many 1967 Ford Mustang Eleanors Were Made And How Much Do They Cost Now?

A 1967 Ford Mustang named Eleanor was one of the cars featured prominently in the 2000 action film remake "Gone in 60 Seconds." The movie starred  Nicholas Cage as Memphis Raines, the leader of a car theft ring that tries to boost several dozen highly desirable vehicles in a short period of time. While the supporting cast of Angelina Jolie, Robert Duvall, Giovanni Ribisi, and Timothy Olyphant is excellent, the real star of the movie is Eleanor, a special version of Ford's late '60s pony car that was stylistically similar to the high-performance Mustang Shelby GT500. A total of 11 Mustang Eleanors were made for the film, but only one of the three working versions was still intact by the time production had wrapped. In the film, The '67 Mustang was named Eleanor by Raines and his crew, who assigned women's names to each car to keep their plans a mystery to police while communicating via two-way radio.

The 11 Mustang Eleanors used in the film were built by Cinema Vehicle Services (CVS) in North Hollywood, California. The CVS team started with 1967 Mustang fastbacks and added body parts designed with help from Chip Foose, who also created the vehicles used in "RoboCop" and "Blade Runner." These custom parts, inspired by but not identical to those used on the Shelby GT500, included rocker panels with side-exit exhaust pipes, wide headlight trim pieces with extra driving lights built in, a new front fascia, and fender flares. A metallic steel gray paint job covered the body, with two wide black stripes running lengthwise down the center to complete the effect. 

Some of the cars used in the film had three-speed manual transmissions, but one of the survivors with a Tremec five-speed manual gearbox was auctioned off in 2013 for $1 million. It was used as a "hero" car for chase and close-up shots featuring Memphis Raines, and thus survived production in excellent condition. The value of a 1967 Ford Mustang Eleanor has clearly been enhanced by its appearance in the film. It's important to point out that none of the Eleanors that appeared in the 2000 remake of "Gone in 60 Seconds" were production-line, first-generation Shelby GT500s, but recreations based on more ordinary early Mustangs. Even so, the astronomical value of the surviving film cars is impressive, with the aforementioned hero car bringing an even $1 million in 2013 and another authentic Mustang Eleanor from "Gone in 60 Seconds" selling for $852,000 in 2020. 

Far more common are replica "Tribute Edition" Eleanor Mustangs, and the price of those cars reflects their lack of film pedigree. Secondhand prices for 119 of those replica Eleanor Mustangs have averaged $221,637 over the past five years, according to classic.com. Only three of those cars changed hands for less than $100,000 in that time, and one sold in 2022 for $550,000. Non-Eleanor 1967-68 Shelby GT500s averaged $182,115 during the same period, again according to classic.com, and all but three of those 119 sales were also for six figures. Very close indeed.

Until recently, the sale of officially-licensed Eleanor Mustangs was tightly controlled by Denice Halicki, widow of "Gone in 60 Seconds" filmmaker Henry Bernard "Toby" Halicki. Toby wrote, directed, and starred in the original film as chief thief Maindrian Pace. "Toby's story is the American dream," Denice said in an interview with Hagerty. "He wanted to make a movie, and he did just that." Under the original arrangement, licensed Eleanor Mustangs were built by Fusion Luxury Motors in Los Angeles and sold for $189,000 and up.

In making the original "Gone in 60 Seconds," Toby Halicki and his crew wrecked an astounding 93 cars in a single 40-minute chase scene. He had a lifelong love of automobiles that began when he hung around his dad's used car lot and towing/repair business as a child, although his legacy of crashing them spectacularly on film betrays that affection a bit. Toby died in 1989 during the filming of "Gone in 60 Seconds II." During the shooting of a sequence where a water tower collapses, a cable snapped and severed a utility pole. One segment of the pole then struck and killed the 48-year old filmmaker, who was standing nearby.

In the original film, Eleanor was a yellow '71 Sportsroof Mustang decked out to pass for a '73 Mach I. In July 2024, a federal appeals court ruled that Eleanor lacked sufficient distinctive identity to qualify as a character in the film and was not subject to copyright protection. The legal battle over the rights to build replica Mustang Eleanors stretches back to the 2000 remake, which made the market for real-world versions red-hot. The 2024 court ruling was in response to a 2008 judgment that awarded the copyright for Eleanor Mustangs to Denice Halicki over the Shelby Trust.

After that decision, Shelby retained the rights to the GT500; another effect of this ruling was that anyone could now build a 1967 Ford Mustang Eleanor replica without having to license it from the Halicki estate. To do so, you still have to hunt down a rare and rather expensive first-generation Mustang and have access to some very talented fabricators. Even so, you'll probably be able sell it for well into six figures and come out ahead of the game when all is said and done.