Shelby Finally Wins Legal Battle over Eleanor

TGR Staff – 12/08/2022

Denise Halicki, the surviving spouse of H.B. “Toby Halicki, producer of the 1974 “Gone in 60 Seconds” film, as well as other cult classic B-moves like “The Junkman and “Deadline Auto Theft”, has lost her case against Shelby American for the rights to “Eleanor.”After a decades-long battle that ended this week in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

The original Eleanor was a yellow 1971 Mustang sportsroof, the 2000 remake of the film starring Nicholas Cage, featured a  Steve Stanford-designed 1967 Mustang referred to in the film as a Shelby GT 500. While the car shared little with an original Shelby, it was strongly associated with Shelby and the company began selling licensed replicas of the car in the early 2000s. Mrs. Halicki claimed that Eleanor comprised a single copyrightable character belonging to her and that her purported character copyright prohibited the Shelby Trust from licensing other people and companies to manufacture, sell or auction Shelby GT 500s. Mrs. Halicki went so far as to sue and/or threaten to sue GT 500 manufacturers, customers, and auction houses, claiming their cars violated her alleged copyright, her enforcement went as far as taking legal action against YouTube channel B is For Build, for attempting to build his own version of the famous movie car. 

The Shelby Trust, owners of Shelby trademarks, sued to protect its licensees and loyal Shelby GT 500 owners. The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California has decisively ruled that the Eleanor code-named vehicles shown in the Gone in 60 Seconds, The Junkman, and Deadline Auto Theft movies are NOT deserving of any “character” copyright protection. The Court, in a meticulous 41-page opinion, criticized Mrs. Halicki and her counsel for misleading prior courts through their “unfortunate practice of embellishing facts in their briefing” and causing “factual inaccuracies” to make their way into a Ninth Circuit opinion “that likely assumed the facts were true” when they were not.  Based on its independent review of the movies in question, the Court found various of Mrs. Halicki’s and her counsel’s representations about the movies to be “plainly false” or “an embellishment, to say the least.” 

In yet another example of the Court’s criticism of Mrs. Halicki and her counsel, the Court stated that “the Halicki Parties assign anthropomorphic characteristics to the [purported Eleanor] character, such as strength, talent, endurance, and a tendency to always save her leading man. In the Court’s view, these characteristics are an invention of overzealous advocacy.” 

Neil Cummings, Co-Trustee of the Shelby Trust who has overseen the entire process, stated that he is delighted with the Court’s decision and happy for all Shelby customers and the Shelby legacy. “We can finally tell all our important licensees and Shelby GT 500 owners that Mrs. Halicki has absolutely no right to complain about or file a lawsuit based upon the looks of any car licensed by the Shelby Trust. That is exactly why we had to go to the extreme time and expense of pursuing our claims against Mrs. Halicki in court. The true value of all Shelby GT 500s is now secure with this news.”