For nearly 40 years, Ray Claridge owned Cinema Vehicle Services, a company he sold in 2016.
During those four decades, CVS built “literally thousands of vehicles, and 99 percent of them were for movies and television,” Claridge says. Such as: The General Lee for The Dukes of Hazzard. He built the cars for the Terminator movies, for the Die Hard series. He even built Herbie the Love Bug for the last incarnation of that character.
Since he sold his company, Claridge has been working on other, non-automotive projects, and he still does a little consulting work. But he describes himself as “semi-retired.”
Until now.
What project would bring Claridge, 76, back to a full-time gig that will last at least a year, maybe 18 months?
Eleanor.
“I can’t think of anything else I’d be interested in,” Claridge says. He and his company built the Eleanor Ford Mustangs used in the Nicholas Cage/Angelina Jolie remake of Gone In 60 Seconds, which was released in June of 2000, 25 years ago this month.
This has been made possible by the ruling a month ago by a three-judge panel for the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. It decreed that Eleanor was not a character in the movie. KITT, the talking Pontiac Firebird in the Knight Rider TV series, was arguably a character, but Eleanor was just a car. As Claridge says, “It’s the difference between an entity and a prop,” and Eleanor was ruled to be a prop. The decision was in regard to a lawsuit filed by Denice Halicki, the widow of H.B. Halicki, who wrote, directed, and starred in the original Gone in 60 Seconds, released in 1974. She hoped to retain the rights to Eleanor, which was played by a 1971 Ford Mustang in the original film.
Claridge “wasn’t even aware the case was still in the courts,” he says. But once the judges handed down their decision, things happened quickly. Randy Wolff, CEO of Cinema Muscle Recreations, the company that’s financing the project, put the wheels in motion that resulted in the reunion of members of the original build team.
And now he has the opportunity to build 25 Eleanors, to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the movie. He has gotten most of his original team back together to build the cars, which have a starting price of $500,000. Check every option box and you’ll be just under $550,000.
Perhaps you’d like to replace the base 480-horsepower Ford Coyote V-8 with a 427-cubic-inch, 550-horsepower Roush V-8? That’ll be $18,000. But maybe you should go ahead and get the 5.2-liter Ford Aluminator V-8, and add a big Whipple supercharger, because 875 horsepower sounds about right. It’s a bargain at $19,500.
But you’ll probably want to upgrade from the five-speed Tremec manual transmission to the six-speed; please add $4500. Eighteen-inch tires and wheels ($7500) are required if you want the six-piston Wilwood front disc brakes ($2000). Leather upholstery instead of vinyl? That’s $7500. Our imaginary car is adding up fast.
Claridge and his team built 11 Eleanor Mustangs for the film; seven survived, and Claridge owned them, eventually selling them to collectors: “I know where every one of them is.”
Getting much of the original team back together, including shop manager Sam Salerno, who led the hands-on team that built the original Eleanors, “was the deciding factor for me,” Claridge says. “They put their heart and soul into those original cars, and we’ll be doing the same with these.”
That said, what Claridge doesn’t want is the thrash that became the build process for the original movie cars. From the time producer Jerry Bruckheimer approved the design for Eleanor, “We had six weeks to build and deliver the cars,” Claridge says. “It was one of the craziest programs I’ve ever worked on.”
For this anniversary build, they’ll have something they didn’t have then: Time to finesse the details. Each car begins with a 1967 Mustang donor car. Claridge figures it will take at least a year to finish those 25 cars, and they’re already well along on the first one, which should be finished in six or eight weeks. “These cars are going to be damn near hand-built,” Claridge says. “I’m not just lending my name to it, I’m in charge of quality control. If a car is not where it needs to be, it’s not going out the door. If I’m putting my name on a car, it has to be what I want it to be.”
Once they finish the anniversary cars, they will likely keep building Eleanors if the demand is there, perhaps 60 total. But only the first 25 will carry the anniversary special-edition designation.
They are taking orders now on their website, EleanorGoneAgain.com. Get ’em while they’re hot.
Pass.
I was 16 when this movie came out, so it made quite an impression on me. If I had the money, I’d take this over any Corvette.
So instead of making faithful reproductions of the movie car, they’re just making a highly customizable ’67 Mustang resto-mod? Is that really an anniversary car?
So for a half million you get vinyl seats, leather is extra? I guess they know their customers.
I wouldn’t pay $500 Grand for a car I liked, let alone one of these…