Your 'Eleanor' ?

[lasersailor184]

IF everything works out, I'll have her by the end of the summer.  IF.

[Major Biggles]

yes barnes, it was a very modified version of a '67 GT500

if only the did a factory run of them. man those things would sell like hot cakes

[Mark Luper]

I've always liked the E type Jag. But my Eleanor is the Mark II.

Mark

[john9001]

i worked for a jaguar dealer during the E-type era, they were great cars when they were running,.....when they were running.

[Mark Luper]

Originally posted by john9001
i worked for a jaguar dealer during the E-type era, they were great cars when they were running,.....when they were running.

Hehe, yeah, I worked on em too. Though not at at Jag dealership...

Mark

[Masherbrum]

Originally posted by Major Biggles
yes barnes, it was a very modified version of a '67 GT500

if only the did a factory run of them. man those things would sell like hot cakes

I wish I had that GT500KR Biggles.   I can only dream.  

The movie Eleanor was designed by Foose.   But built by Classic Recreations LLC.    I didn't like it.   I'm one who thinks that if you use a 1967 or 1968 Fastback (Eleanor was a 1967), restore it to Factory Spec.   But Foose did a decent job, he modeled the wheels after the GT40 wheels, but in Magnesium, IIRC.   All 13 Eleanors built for the film.   Bruckheimer's "Eleanor" has an original 428, but it is not a Shelby, none of them were.   Leave the gay 18" wheels off of it.   I despise Boyd Coddington for this very reason and have met the salamander in person.  

I was invited to the Mother's Car Show in Columbus, OH last summer.   It is an "invitation only" event.   My buddy had an invitation because another friend canceled at the last minute.    He has a perfectly restored 1966 Ford Fairlane GT with the original numbers matching 390.   He had alot of help from Dearborn Classics in Washington on obtaining new chrome and emblems.  They actually went so far as to retool a machine a tad to get him some new chrome trim pieces.  

So, here I am with my buddy at his Fairlane, and up walks Boyd Coddington.   Right away, he says, "Nice car, this emblem is wrong, this is wrong, and this is wrong."    I say "No wonder Chip Foose left you, you haven't a clue of what you are talking about."    "This Fairlane isn't even mine (my buddy was allowing some stranger to sit in his ride) and this is a 100% frame off restoration with about 60% of the original parts (which is amazing for a Michigan car).    This car is as good as it can possibly look.  The emblems ARE right, the trim IS right, as well as the Exhaust exits.    He left grumbling.  

About 2 hours later Chip Foose walks up to my buddy and myself.   Right away, he's asking my buddy "Can I get in this GT, because I always liked these as a kid."   My buddy's jaw dropped.     After 45 minutes of talking to Chip, I mentioned that "******* had already been here and was trying to rip on the ride."   He stayed for another hour simply talking about anything and everything.    I asked Chip "Why was Eleanor so modern?"   He told me "The plan wasn't to have too modern, but sometimes they don't properly translate what you draw."

One last piece of trivia for Gone in 60 Seconds.   The ORIGINAL idea for the remake, was to use a GT40 as "Eleanor".    But since a few GT40's would have been more expensive, they used the GT500 clones.

[FiLtH]

Originally posted by Mini D
'66 Chevy Chevelle.

  Yup

[Xargos]

1970 Toronado

[Slash27]

Originally posted by Bronk
1973 XB GT Ford Falcon

Bad bellybutton car Bronk.

[nirvana]

Frickin awesome car, Bronk.  Mine'd be a 64 ½ Mustang that I restored myself, if I ever had the time.

[Wolf14]

My first love would be a '69 Dodge Daytona with the 426 Hemi. After that I'd want the '68 GT500 with the 428 SOHC. Course I do have a soft spot for a '41 Willy's coupe with a 500ci blown keith black hemi. but thast just me.

[Nilsen]

Porsche 912

[rpm]

1966 Plymouth Sport Fury Super Commando

[Leslie]

I AM come of a race noted for vigor of fancy and ardor of passion. Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence–whether much that is glorious–whether all that is profound–does not spring from disease of thought–from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect. They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. In their gray visions they obtain glimpses of eternity, and thrill, in awakening, to find that they have been upon the verge of the great secret. In snatches, they learn something of the wisdom which is of good, and more of the mere knowledge which is of evil. They penetrate, however, rudderless or compassless into the vast ocean of the "light ineffable," and again, like the adventures of the Nubian geographer, "agressi sunt mare tenebrarum, quid in eo esset exploraturi."

We will say, then, that I am mad. I grant, at least, that there are two distinct conditions of my mental existence–the condition of a lucid reason, not to be disputed, and belonging to the memory of events forming the first epoch of my life–and a condition of shadow and doubt, appertaining to the present, and to the recollection of what constitutes the second great era of my being. Therefore, what I shall tell of the earlier period, believe; and to what I may relate of the later time, give only such credit as may seem due, or doubt it altogether, or, if doubt it ye cannot, then play unto its riddle the Oedipus.

She whom I loved in youth, and of whom I now pen calmly and distinctly these remembrances, was the sole daughter of the only sister of my mother long departed. Eleonora was the name of my cousin. We had always dwelled together, beneath a tropical sun, in the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass. No unguided footstep ever came upon that vale; for it lay away up among a range of giant hills that hung beetling around about it, shutting out the sunlight from its sweetest recesses. No path was trodden in its vicinity; and, to reach our happy home, there was need of putting back, with force, the foliage of many thousands of forest trees, and of crushing to death the glories of many millions of fragrant flowers. Thus it was that we lived all alone, knowing nothing of the world without the valley–I, and my cousin, and her mother.

From the dim regions beyond the mountains at the upper end of our encircled domain, there crept out a narrow and deep river, brighter than all save the eyes of Eleonora; and, winding stealthily about in mazy courses, it passed away, at length, through a shadowy gorge, among hills still dimmer than those whence it had issued. We called it the "River of Silence"; for there seemed to be a hushing influence in its flow. No murmur arose from its bed, and so gently it wandered along, that the pearly pebbles upon which we loved to gaze, far down within its bosom, stirred not at all, but lay in a motionless content, each in its own old station, shining on gloriously forever.

The margin of the river, and of the many dazzling rivulets that glided through devious ways into its channel, as well as the spaces that extended from the margins away down into the depths of the streams until they reached the bed of pebbles at the bottom,–these spots, not less than the whole surface of the valley, from the river to the mountains that girdled it in, were carpeted all by a soft green grass, thick, short, perfectly even, and vanilla-perfumed, but so besprinkled throughout with the yellow buttercup, the white daisy, the purple violet, and the ruby-red asphodel, that its exceeding beauty spoke to our hearts in loud tones, of the love and of the glory of God.

And, here and there, in groves about this grass, like wildernesses of dreams, sprang up fantastic trees, whose tall slender stems stood not upright, but slanted gracefully toward the light that peered at noon-day into the centre of the valley. Their mark was speckled with the vivid alternate splendor of ebony and silver, and was smoother than all save the cheeks of Eleonora; so that, but for the brilliant green of the huge leaves that spread from their summits in long, tremulous lines, dallying with the Zephyrs, one might have fancied them giant serpents of Syria doing homage to their sovereign the Sun.

[Leslie]

Hand in hand about this valley, for fifteen years, roamed I with Eleonora before Love entered within our hearts. It was one evening at the close of the third lustrum of her life, and of the fourth of my own, that we sat, locked in each other's embrace, beneath the serpent-like trees, and looked down within the water of the River of Silence at our images therein. We spoke no words during the rest of that sweet day, and our words even upon the morrow were tremulous and few. We had drawn the God Eros from that wave, and now we felt that he had enkindled within us the fiery souls of our forefathers. The passions which had for centuries distinguished our race, came thronging with the fancies for which they had been equally noted, and together breathed a delirious bliss over the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass. A change fell upon all things. Strange, brilliant flowers, star-shaped, burn out upon the trees where no flowers had been known before. The tints of the green carpet deepened; and when, one by one, the white daisies shrank away, there sprang up in place of them, ten by ten of the ruby-red asphodel. And life arose in our paths; for the tall flamingo, hitherto unseen, with all gay glowing birds, flaunted his scarlet plumage before us. The golden and silver fish haunted the river, out of the bosom of which issued, little by little, a murmur that swelled, at length, into a lulling melody more divine than that of the harp of Aeolus-sweeter than all save the voice of Eleonora. And now, too, a voluminous cloud, which we had long watched in the regions of Hesper, floated out thence, all gorgeous in crimson and gold, and settling in peace above us, sank, day by day, lower and lower, until its edges rested upon the tops of the mountains, turning all their dimness into magnificence, and shutting us up, as if forever, within a magic prison-house of grandeur and of glory.

The loveliness of Eleonora was that of the Seraphim; but she was a maiden artless and innocent as the brief life she had led among the flowers. No guile disguised the fervor of love which animated her heart, and she examined with me its inmost recesses as we walked together in the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass, and discoursed of the mighty changes which had lately taken place therein.

At length, having spoken one day, in tears, of the last sad change which must befall Humanity, she thenceforward dwelt only upon this one sorrowful theme, interweaving it into all our converse, as, in the songs of the bard of Schiraz, the same images are found occurring, again and again, in every impressive variation of phrase.

She had seen that the finger of Death was upon her bosom–that, like the ephemeron, she had been made perfect in loveliness only to die; but the terrors of the grave to her lay solely in a consideration which she revealed to me, one evening at twilight, by the banks of the River of Silence. She grieved to think that, having entombed her in the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass, I would quit forever its happy recesses, transferring the love which now was so passionately her own to some maiden of the outer and everyday world. And, then and there, I threw myself hurriedly at the feet of Eleonora, and offered up a vow, to herself and to Heaven, that I would never bind myself in marriage to any daughter of Earth–that I would in no manner prove recreant to her dear memory, or to the memory of the devout affection with which she had blessed me. And I called the Mighty Ruler of the Universe to witness the pious solemnity of my vow. And the curse which I invoked of Him and of her, a saint in Helusion should I prove traitorous to that promise, involved a penalty the exceeding great horror of which will not permit me to make record of it here. And the bright eyes of Eleonora grew brighter at my words; and she sighed as if a deadly burthen had been taken from her breast; and she trembled and very bitterly wept; but she made acceptance of the vow, (for what was she but a child?) and it made easy to her the bed of her death. And she said to me, not many days afterward, tranquilly dying, that, because of what I had done for the comfort of her spirit she would watch over me in that spirit when departed, and, if so it were permitted her return to me visibly in the watches of the night; but, if this thing were, indeed, beyond the power of the souls in Paradise, that she would, at least, give me frequent indications of her presence, sighing upon me in the evening winds, or filling the air which I breathed with perfume from the censers of the angels. And, with these words upon her lips, she yielded up her innocent life, putting an end to the first epoch of my own.