Trivia / Gone in 60 Seconds (1974)

• Blooper: At one point in the chase, the police crash into a garbage truck, causing it to tip over onto a car. In that scene, you can see the wires used to pull it over.
  • It appears they they tried to hide this by putting power lines in the background.
• Fatal Method Acting: A sequel to the film was in the works, up until H.B. Halicki was crushed to death by a telephone pole in the middle of filming it.
• Life Imitates Art: 1-Baker-11 has a camera mounted on the dash, presumably to record the car chase for police files. Police cars would not be equipped with cameras for another decade and a half.
• No Budget: Well, not much anyway. Many of the cars in the film came from Halicki's own scrapyard, including Eleanor herself, pieced together from several Mustangs.
• Throw It In!:
  • During the climactic chase sequence, Eleanor was accidentally clipped from the rear by another car, causing it to spin out of control and collide with a lamp post. The collision was kept in the film for dramatic effect.
  • The derailed train at the very start of the film was a real one, which Halicki happened to come across, so he incorporated it into an Establishing Character Moment scene.
  • The 1973 Cadillac Fleetwood 60 Halicki is driving in the beginning and after arriving at the airport was borrowed from a friend. After driving it at 100 MPH for several stretches, the lifters were loose and hammering. The owner was not happy (most likely the lifters weren't tightened properly to begin with).
  • The dash-mounted camera of 1-Baker-11 mentioned above for Life Imitates Art. The reason why the camera was included in the film was because of the fact that the camera and mount would be clearly seen in the shots during the chase that weren't the back seat POV (such as when 1-Baker-11 pulls up to see Pace pulling out with Eleanor when he car alarm goes off). So, instead of trying to hide it when filming it, Halicki chose to incorporate the camera and mount into the film, even calling to it by having one of the officers saying, "I'm gonna run some film on this", showing him switch on the camera.
  • Another accident included in the film takes place at the Cadillac car dealership in the chase sequence. When the police car crashed into the parked Caddies, originally, it was intended that the first three cars were to be damaged from the crash (as Halicki purchased them during preproduction and water was sprayed under the cars to be able to slide easier). However, when the patrol car crashed into the Cadillacs, they slid right into several cars that were not purchased for the production. As a result, Halicki purchased all of the damaged Caddies and the stunt was still included in the film.
• What Could Have Been: As mentioned above, a sequel was being made in 1989 entitled Gone In 60 Seconds II (though one of Halicki's other films, The Junkman, was named as Gone In 60 Seconds II in some markets), likely to be released in 1989 or 1990, which features a pyramid-shaped six-wheeler vehicle named Slicer. Unfortunately the film was never completed due to Halicki being unfortunately killed on set by a falling telephone pole. After Halicki's death, all schedueled filming was canceled and the movie itself was scrapped.

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