Judge Kills ‘Eleanor' Mustang Copyright Appeal. All Replicas Are Legal

The Drive

2 days ago

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The grey restomod Shelby GT500 Mustang known as 'Eleanor' from Gone in 60 Seconds is iconic and immediately recognizable to car nerds. It is not, however, distinctive enough to have its likeness protected by copyright, at least according to the appeals court that has finally settled a case around this issue.
As of May 27, 2025, an appeals court has upheld a previous ruling that stripped the original Gone in 60 Seconds director's estate of the rights to restrict independent outfits from building replicas of the GT500 that has appeared in four films. Yep, that's right, four . In addition to the original, there's Nicolas Cage Gone in 60 Seconds remake, along with a meta-film starring the original film's director ( The Junkman ), and a George-Lucas-esque re-imagining of the original dubbed Deadline Auto Theft . One might say that writer-director H. B. Halicki and his estate have been milking poor ole Ellie for all she's worth since day one, but an appellate court ruling out of Pasadena, Calif., looks like it'll put this old cow out to pasture for good.
If this sounds familiar, you're not crazy. The suit brought by the Shelby Trust against Halicki's surviving wife, Denice (who owns the copyrights to the first three films, in addition to the merchandising rights to Eleanor as it appears in the remake film) was originally ruled on nearly three years ago. Previously, Shelby and Halicki had settled a suit relating to design details being mimicked by Shelby in a 'GT500E' replica it sold that looked conspicuously similar (virtually identical, one might say) to the car used in the 2000 remake of Gone in 60 Seconds .
Not long after that suit was settled, Shelby and Classic Recreations came right back with the GT500-CR (pictured up top there). Unsurprisingly, Halicki went after both Shelby and CR for violating their settlement agreement, and has since gone after other builders who have ventured into the same space. The Shelby Trust ended up suing in retaliation. Again, Halicki's lawyers contended that Eleanor was a character and thus protected intellectual property, which would make it illegal for Shelby to build and sell unlicensed replicas. The estate lost the suit, then appealed. That brings us to the most recent ruling and something called the Towle Test. Official Fusion Motors 'Eleanor' replica. www.thedrive.com
Named for a copyright case (DC Comics v. Mark Towle) involving unlicensed reproductions of the Adam West-era Batmobile, this is a standard applied to determine whether something constitutes a 'character.' All it has to do is check three boxes (cited here directly from the ruling): The character must have 'physical as well as conceptual qualities,'
The character must be 'sufficiently delineated to be recognizable as the same character whenever it appears' and display 'consistent, identifiable character traits and attributes,' and
The character must be 'especially distinctive' and contain 'some unique elements of expression.'
According to the court, Eleanor misses all three qualifications.
What hurts Halicki's case the most is Eleanor's inconsistent on-screen portrayal and lack of any anthropomorphizing qualities. In other words, Eleanor doesn't say or do anything distinctive, nor act in any inherently characteristic way. Courts don't necessarily expect a non-human character to take on K.I.T.T. levels of sentience, but a degree of agency (even if only implied through interaction with actual human or human-esque characters) goes a long way toward making the case that something is a character rather than a prop. And that's effectively what the court is calling Eleanor—just another prop car.
This is the sort of rational take we expect from those who are fluent in legalese, and while we're all for opening up the taps to allow replica builders to produce cool stuff, we can't help but feel a bit let down. Call me a romantic if you must, but I find it hard to imagine just any old car getting Mephis Raines over that wreck on the Vincent Thomas Bridge. That was no mere prop. That was Eleanor .
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