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This ‘Eleanor’ Build Was Gone In 60 Seconds

If you’ve ever seen the classic car enthusiast movie Gone In 60 Seconds, the name Eleanor probably means something to you. In the movie, Eleanor is the star of the show, so much that it is like a character all in itself. Eleanor isn’t an actress however, it’s actually a car, a Ford Mustang. This …

If you’ve ever seen the classic car enthusiast movie Gone In 60 Seconds, the name Eleanor probably means something to you. In the movie, Eleanor is the star of the show, so much that it is like a character all in itself. Eleanor isn’t an actress however, it’s actually a car, a Ford Mustang. This isn’t your typical Mustang though, because Eleanor is a 1967 Shelby Mustang GT500 powerhouse with the iconic styling to match.

The private Eleanor build

Earlier this year a private team under the YouTube channel name B is for Build set out to do their own customized Eleanor-inspired mustang build, and from the videos, they produced along the way we had high hopes for the final reveal though. The final reveal never happened, and all of the videos of the process have sadly been deleted.

That doesn’t make us forget about the build itself though, as it had some pretty radical and fun ideas. The build wasn’t just a 1967 Shelby Mustang GT500, it was so much more. The team for B is for Build took a 2015 Ford Mustang GT and did a complete body delete. This left the engine and chassis

Eleanor Mustang from the Gone in 60 Seconds Movie Remake with Nicolas Cage (2000)
1967 Ford Shelby Mustang GT500 known as Eleanor from the movie Gone in 60 Seconds that debuted in 2000. | Photo by Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images

The body was replaced with a 1967 Ford Mustang fastback body to make it look like the Eleanor car, which took an extensive amount of modification and custom fabrication to make it work.

Fiberglass worked paired with adjustments to the body and new glass were all required to make the build work. They had to reroute a part of the gas tank so that the cap on the car’s surface lined up where it would authentically be on the 1967 fastback.

Here’s where things went wrong

What made this build special was that it improved upon the 1967 GT500 in several ways, and by taking just the body of the fastback and molding it to a 2015 GT you got a newer engine and drivetrain. That wasn’t the only thing that was new for Eleanor either.

Because this was based on a 2015 model, it became equipped with air conditioning, heat, power windows, reverse camera with back-up sensors, not what you’d typically find in an average 1967 GT500. For all of the effort that the team put forth in this build, and not to mention all of the money likely spent along the way, it was all in vain.

1967 Ford Shelby Mustang GT500 know as Eleanor from the movie or Hero Car in, Gone in 60 Seconds during the 25th edition of InterClassics Maastricht | Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images

Unfortunately for the B is for Build team, they realized too late into the build that the Eleanor car was is copyrighted and trademarked by the franchise and became the legal property of Gone In 60 Seconds. All of the videos have since been removed from the channel and the car was confiscated from the team. All that remains is our memories and the final video explaining how it all went down.

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