When Gone In 60 Seconds came out in 2000, I was seventeen years old and driving a Monte Carlo SS around Colorado Springs. I hadn’t seen the 1973 version yet. All I cared at the time was that there was a car movie at the theaters. I saw it six times within a week, without shame. There was once on a date night with my girlfriend, one time each with my two friends, and the other four…just because. Screaming motors, tire smoke, and above all else, Eleanor. Yes, she was a modified Shelby, but did you really care? You just saw sideways driving and heard beautiful music from the side pipes. That car alone was the reason I was ripping around the city late at night with Apollo 440 blasting out of the t-tops.
The modified 1965 G.T. 350 you are seeing here isn’t Eleanor. This is the car put together in 1999 so that Nicolas Cage and his stunt drivers could become very familiar with how the cars would drive and handle. Fully documented, the “Testbed Terror”, as it has been dubbed, is a 1965 Mustang Fastback that was put together in the late 1990s as a no-expense-spared project. There is full documentation of the car’s history, including letters from Bob Bondurant acknowledging that he personally taught Cage how to drive in the car, and from Total Control Products, the builders of the car. The original 289 is now a 312 stroker that is pushing over 320hp to the rear tires through a Tremec five-speed. This car is a stout build anywhere you take it, and the list of modifications is too long to put here.
A Pro-Touring Mustang Fastback with Shelby touches, celebrity associations and true performance isn’t going to go cheap, that’s for sure. But what it will go for is anyone’s guess, as the car is sitting on eBay right now (click here for the listing.)
Put on your leather jacket, put on your shades, set fire to your wallet and experience the magic.
(thanks to @jpetrovay for the tip!)
I saw the original long before i saw the remake. I had watched the original so many times that when i watched the new one i wasnt that impressed, its just not as raw and out of control. I never like the looks of the “Eleanor” mustang. This mustang would have been cooler