Q: Was the car a real Shelby Mustang GT 500?
A: Yes and No, an original 1967 GT 500 was used for the motor sound affects, but not as a model for the movie car. The actual cars used were just 67 Mustangs, all customized to look like Eleanor in this movie. Most of the cars were 289 Mustangs with automatic transmissions. Originally the production designer, Jeff Mann who is also a professed car fanatic, proposed this car be a GT 40 then when that didn't fly he suggested a Shelby Series I Cobra. Eventually they settled on a 67 GT 500. According to SAAC, the 11 Mustangs were each chosen for specific duty. Some had highly modified suspensions for the high speed slides. Some were cosmetic models used for close ups and PR shots. Others, the ones crashed and crushed didn't even have engines. In Shelby American issue #70, the latest copy, the article explains that the car used for the close-ups of Cage actually had two steering wheels. Someone else was driving the car allowing Cage to focus "acting" rather than driving. The car used to record the sound affects is a 500 horsepower 428 1967 GT 500 with a great lumpy cam sound. The car is Brittany blue with white LeMans stripes. Corvette side exhaust pipes were temporarily added for taping the sounds of the car. The movie car had side pipes and side pipes produce a different sound than rear exhaust. George Watters, a long time SAAC member and top sound editor for Hollywood, obtained the GT 500 and took it to Willow Springs. He and his sound people spent six hours doing different things with the car, recording the sound of it for the movie soundtrack. So the only original GT 500 used in the movie produced the sounds you hear.