Shelby Trust Wins Right To Produce Eleanor Mustangs
The Shelby Trust has just won a decade-long legal battle against Denice Halicki, the surviving spouse of H.B. “Toby” Halicki, who claimed that her late husband’s films effectively created a standalone copyrightable character known as Eleanor that others had illegally copied.
As reported by Business Wire, Mrs. Halicki felt that the films her husband had shot with cars named Eleanor had created a character that only she had the legal rights to, claiming that this meant that the Shelby Trust and other companies could not build, sell, or auction Mustang Shelby GT500s in Eleanor guise. To gain an understanding of why she feels this way, we must provide a quick history lesson.