imusa76,
Mustang Monthly is incorrect: I happen to have been very well acquainted with Toby "HB" Halicki, and know the story of that movie very well.
A little background: As a teenager, I saw the origianal "Gone..." when it first came out in 1974. Of course I was interested because I had (still have!) a 71' mach 1 and was quite excited that my car was now a "star" in a real Hollywood movie. I loved that movie, and when Toby was at the theater with the "real" Eleaenor to sign autographs, you can bet I was there to get that, and grill him about the car and the movie. This was in Houston, Texas in the summer of '74. ( I even remember the movie theater: "Lowes Triple" [3 screens...wow!] on West Belt drive in "Town and Country Village". The theater is long gone, and West Belt is now "Beltway 8")
Years later (1989) I had been a manager a Ford dealership in North Tonawanda, New York and the owner comes to me and says that he just made a tentative phone deal to sell 50 used cars off our "remote" lot to some guy from Hollywood who was making a movie. The remote lot was really where we put our junkiest used cars that needed a lot of repair work to be saleable, or those cars that were just too bad to be sold retail at all. I was told to go out there and meet him, and at the appointed time the following week, I was there.
Lo and behold, it turns out to be Toby. I was floored to say the least! I could not get over the fact that the guy who's movie I had idolized for years was here trying to buy a lot full of junkers from me (or the dealership, anyway).
So, after about 10 minutes of being star-struck, I got over it and walked the lot with him. He and his two assistants picked out 44 cars he wanted.
Over the next week, the deal was struck and we started getting the cars driveable (barely!), but certainly nowhere near road-worthy. Just good enough for Hollywood, I guess.
About 2 months later, in June we started delivering cars to thier "set", which was in Dunkirk, about 45 minutes from the dealership. Dunkirk was also Toby's hometown, and I think that is why he wanted to film there. Toby introduced me to his brand-new wife Denice and we spent many haours just chatting away about "Gone...", "the Junkman" (his favorite) and this new movie, and a whole bunch of nothing else in particular. Even though this was called "Gone in 60 seconds II", it was not related to the first movie in any way storywise. I think the title was used to secure some financing for the filming of the movie.
About a week later, one of the stunts being filmed was close by, a few minutes from the dealership so me and my wife, and a bunch of our friends other people from the dealership went to watch. Toby was in the middle of a big parking lot with a megaphone, barking directions to everyone about what was going to happen.
The stunt involved a water tower that was supposed to fall during the stunt. The legs of the tower had been partially sawed through, and cables were subtly placed to hold it in place until it was time to let it fall. As each cable was placed, the leg on that section would be sawed, and then on to the next. A tow truck was used to pull the cable taught while it was being attached to telephone poles mounted just for this stunt.
Without warning, one of the poles cracked and snapped, and the tension flung it across the parking lot. The cable whipped and hit Toby, nearly slicing him in two, killing him instantly. Astoundingly, not one other person was even hit or anything.
It happened so fast that most of the people there did not really know he had been hit right away. It took several seconds before someone saw what had happened and then it was nothing but pure pandemonium.
A very sad event for everyone, for sure.
Ironically, the movie was patched together from unfinished footage and released as "The Slicer", a little disturbing considering how Toby died. Pretty crappy movie overall...not a grerat legacy to go out on.
When I grilled him about Eleanor in the original "Gone..." (and I certainly did) he told me there were 2 1971 351-4V Mustangs (one a Mach 1 and the other a sportsroof with a flat hood) that he bought used that were completely de-skinned and had a hand-made full-perimiter roll cage installed (which he made himself), and then all bodywork replaced and repainted to look stock. He said he used schoolbus yellow because it was cheap and photographed well. No decals or complicated stripes...just yellow and black paint. Simple and fast. He told me there were many, many quick-and-dirty repairs done to the cars over the course of about a YEAR of filming! Apparently he would run out of money and wait until he had more to resume filming. He said he did near all the work himself. One of the two stunt cars was a 4-speed with no engine (or maybe a bad engine, can't remember) when he bought it, but he installed an engine and converted it to an automatic for filming.
He also had another 71 Mach 1, a 351 2V that was painted to look the same, but was not used as a stunt car. It was the car at the end of the movie in the car wash. He sold that car at the end of filming.
He self-finaced the movie, so any tactic to save on the budget was used. The flat hoods were plentiful and cheap in junkyards so he used those. Ram air hoods were too expensive at as new parts and not quickly available, and scrap yards sold them quick.
By the time he had collected enough cars, cameras, film and friends to begin shooting the car scenes the 73's had debuted, so he "rewrote" the film to feature the "Last of the Mustangs..." and simply installed 73 mach 1 grills in them. This also would seem to make the movie more current to viewers. He never even hooked up the grill parking lamps, but left the 71 stockers below the bumper. Easy to see in several scenes. It is also easy to see the 71-72 style taillights on the cars in several scenes, as well as the 71-72 style rear bumpers (without the 73 style bumper extensions) He also custom installed some "booster" leaf springs on the front suspension to help in the hard landings when the car jumped off curbs and such, and at the end. Not sure how well that could ever have worked, but if you look really closely, you can see them in a couple of shots.
The jump car was totally destroyed and went to the crusher. That jump nearly crippled Toby, (crushed some discs in his back)who never installed any kind of protective seat or anything...he just did the jump!The remaining beat-to-crap Eleanor was painted with all kinds of garish "Gone..." advertisements (a piece of history, ruined!!!)and went on tour around the country and that is the very car I saw back in 1974 out front of a Houston movie theater when Toby was there to sign autographs. The movie was not released across the country all on the same day. Rather, it would be released exclusively in local markets, and Toby and the car would be there to make an appearance and drum up business. The two of them and the movie worked thier way around to every major market in the US during 74 and 75.
The Ford Mustang has been an important of my life from the time I was 10 years old. It was my first car and I still have that car today. I have had several others over the years too. I have been very lucky and fortunate to witness first-hand some important events in Mustang history, and to have met many people involved with the production of the Mustang over the years.
I could go on and on, for this is one of my favorite subjects!
I have met Buz Bundy, Joie Chitwood, Jacques Passino, and many other Mustang luminaries over the years and have enjoyed getting to know and to talk to each of them about thier involvment. But those are stories for another time...
Sorry to go on for so long.
