If that’s a confusing sentence to read, a little context is in order. Yes, the Eleanor name and likeness is actually trademarked by the widow of the late H.B. Halicki, who created the original 1974 film and died in an accident while filming the aborted sequel of sorts in 1989. U.S. law holds that trademarks must be enforced and defended by the owner in court to stay current, and Denice Shakarian Halicki has made no secret of her willingness to do so over the last two decades via her company Eleanor Licensing LLC.
Halicki went after none other than Carroll Shelby—who built the 2000’s film hero car, which doesn’t look like the 1971 Mustang fastback in the original at all—in the mid-2000’s after he tried to copyright and license customer builds of his version of Eleanor. In the end, courts ruled that Halicki holds the rights to any Mustang named Eleanor or purportedly tied to the Gone in 60 Seconds franchise. “It doesn’t matter if it was a bus called Eleanor,” her lawyer said at the time. “The magic was the name, and that was the thing [Shelby] tried to get.”
Which is how we wind up here, watching Chris Steinbacher of B is for Build explaining to viewers that his project has been canceled, scrubbed from his YouTube channel, and physically seized as part of the settlement with Halicki.
