Popular YouTube car builder, Chris Steinbacher of ‘B is for Build’s latest project – a 1967 Eleanor Mustang - has reportedly been seized by the Gone in 60 Seconds production company for violations of trademarkings and copyright.
Eleanor and its Chip Foose-designed likeness - as it appears in the 2000 movie remake - is a copyrighted and trademarked ‘character’, with rights held by the widow of the late H.B. Halicki – the creator of the original 1974 Gone in 60 Seconds film.
Steinbacher states: "because of that, you can’t go build an ‘Eleanor’ without first getting a licence for the Eleanor name and look and image, as she appears in the Gone in 60 Seconds movie".
Seems like a whole lot of greedy BS by the movie makers widow and her lawyers to me...
Overall IMHO seizing some poor builder's uncompleted ride, when a simple "cease and desist" letter would probably have worked is just being nasty. Was he marketing a line of cars using the name? NO. Or merchandising using the name? NO. So just the leave the guy alone, hes not even making a true 67 car, its a YouTube frankencar project, nothing more.
But from the story below, it seems shes making her living off the legacy of her late husbands work...
ozbilt wrote:That would open the doors to Bullitt and Batmobiles, just to name a couple that come to mind.
The car isn't named Bullitt in the movie and my guess is it's not trademarked as such. Not sure about the Batmobile.
s
Quite correct and there have been dozens of replicas made over the years without a squeek from the McQueen family. I doubt Chad would be such a tosser to do that anyway. His Dad was famous for being a petrol head, who enjoyed the respect of the car building / racing crowd, and was known for his coolness as anything else. And IMHO doing that kind of thing to a little guy, is most definitely not cool. People who build Bullitt tributes are making a homage to his Dad and my guess from watching and listening to Chad, is that he gets a kick out of that.
Last edited by mungus on Tue Jun 16, 2020 8:49 pm, edited 4 times in total.
ozbilt wrote:That would open the doors to Bullitt and Batmobiles, just to name a couple that come to mind.
The car isn't named Bullitt in the movie and my guess is it's not trademarked as such. Not sure about the Batmobile.
s
Quite correct and there have been dozens of replicas made over the years without a squeek from the McQueen family. I doubt Chad would be such a tosser to do that anyway. His Dad was famous for being a petrol head, who enjoyed the respect of the car building / racing crowd, and was known for his coolness as anything else. And IMHO doing that kind of thing to a little guy, is most definitely not cool. People who build Bullitt tributes are making a homage to his Dad and my guess from watching and listening to Chad, is that he gets a kick out of that.
