In the picture of him standing in the car, it looks like two cars have been grafted together just aft of the shock towers. It looks like a weld goes all the way around.
It looks like a front clip/shock tower replacement that only went up to the rear aprons, or preliminary reinforcement.
Either that...or the stories about Halicki's business were less fiction than truth, and he's replaced the entire front clip in order to change the shock tower VIN numbers in the process! Was Eleanor made out of a real stolen car? Or was it just another exercise by Halicki to piss off the authorities?
Notice that the forward aprons and both shock towers don't have the same uniform surface rust and dust as the rest of the shell.*
Makes you wonder.
All things considered, it wouldn't surprise me at all if someone were to tell me that he DID steal the Mustangs for the film. That front clip replacement reeks of an illegal VIN swap to me - regardless of how long ago it happened. Think about it. If someone were to post photos tomorrow of an identical "repair" on a potential '71-73 purchase, we'd all be screaming "stolen car with shock tower swap."
I call shenanigans here.
*Speaking of which, isn't that steering wheel down to a frame? Between that and the odd surface rust, I'm beginning to wonder if Halicki bought that unibody as a salvage car from a fire.
Toby accidentally hit a telephone pole and mangled the front fender and drivers suspension while exiting the Hollywood freeway during filming. The car was severely damaged and undriveable. The other car was brought in immediately on the spot and beat by hand with various sledgehammers and such to replicate the damage shown on the first car, and filming resumed almost immediately.
The first damaged car was used in the drive up to the car wash, and was repaired enough to film the jump. It eventually went to the junk yard.
NOTE: I have significantly edited my comment below (as of 5/2) due to a re-watch of the film.
Kit, I do not buy Halicki's story for one minute. Consider the logical flow of events as follows:
- In exactly ONE scene, both cars are seen at the car wash in their polar opposite forms. One mint, one wrecked.
- The wrecked car in said scene has the requisite LH fender damage from its encounter with the telephone pole.
- To have one car wrecked in that manner would have required the telephone pole encounter (and every other crash) to have already happened.
- Given #4, it would have been impossible for Halicki to wreck the second car for the telephone pole crash and resume filming immediately, unless he shot the car wash scenes beforehand.
- Yet, there is no way he shot the car wash scenes beforehand, because the wrecked Eleanor shows ALL of the damage it received from the pole and the film. Unless this guy was clairvoyant, it is impossible.
Additionally, the front end and LH quarter damage on the car that spins out on the highway is a virtually perfect match for the car that drives away from the pole.
However, the one shot of the car from the left (just after hitting the pole) does show more RH quarter damage than it had when it spun out - but the rest of the car appears the same.
The following sounds more probable:
- The car hitting the pole is the same as the one leaving.
- Some additional scenes were shot with this car (after repairing it) before the crew returned to the off-ramp to capture the remaining, post-crash insert shots.
- ^ Hence the additional RH quarter damage.
Even though I don't quite trust anything from a Halicki anymore, Mustang Monthly's interview with Denice Halicki and Michael Leone correlates this theory:
Michael: When he hit the telephone pole' date=' he had to load Eleanor on a truck and take the pole too because they needed it for the next frame. They came back the next Sunday, dropped the pole off in its spot, and started filming again. They had to take the pole because if they didn't, the city would pick it up and they wouldn't be able to shoot the next scene.[/quote']
Given the time needed to film - and Halicki's penchant for using Sundays as a method to close off large roadways to himself without permits, this version of the story isn't too far fetched - and it doesn't have the issue of temporal paradox.
Oh well...I like the original movie much better. Too bad the new "improved" and remastered DVD replaced the ENTIRE soundtrack with all new effects, including the car and all engine sounds. Luckily I have the original DVD also.
From what I've heard, Phillip Kachaturian's original master for the "Gone in 60 Seconds" instrumental track was missing; hence the entire music replacement. Others say that Halicki's brother had a hand in writing some of the tracks and won't release the rights, etc, etc...
As with most stuff Halicki, the truth is lost somewhere between fact, fiction, and a bit of both on the side.
Any decent LA movie soundtrack company could have executed an accurate recreation/cover using period microphones to make up for the loss of the original. Makes you wonder why they didn't.
-Kurt
P.S.: The Deluxe-interior car started out as a manual-trans car. Watch as Halicki floors it to bash through the "ROAD CLOSED" barriers. Deluxe floor mat, narrow brake pedal, and a big void where the clutch pedal once was. Amusing, to say the least.
I noticed the they left the manual transmission brake pedal too. I figured both cars were automatics
Ron
