Maindrian Pace is a respectable insurance investigator who runs an automobile chop shop in Long Beach, California.

Pace meets a South American drug lord who offers $200,000 up front, with an additional $200,000 upon completion of delivery, in exchange for the theft of 48 specific vehicles to be delivered to the Long Beach docks within five days.

The list ranges from limousines and semi-trailer trucks to vintage cars and exotics, rendering the order difficult to fill within the time limit.

The first Eleanor Pace comes across is occupied by its driver, so he steals it from the owner's house after dark and discovers it is owned by Harold Dwight Smith, a corrupt senior manager for a large insurance corporation.

After pleas from fiancée Pumpkin Chase, Pace agrees to return it, but only because he is aware of a third Eleanor at the International Towers in Long Beach.

As a result of the tip-off, two detectives, Butch Stockton and Phil Woods, corner Pace as he exits the International Towers.

A lengthy and destructive car chase ensues, covering six California cities from Long Beach to Carson involving local, county, and state law enforcement.

The police, spotting the wrecked Mustang, quickly descend upon the scene to arrest the real car wash manager (who happens to match Pace's description), as Pace safely clears a police checkpoint in the fourth Eleanor when the cops let him go once they learn the dragnet is cancelled as they caught the suspect.

In a contemporary context, the portions of the film preceding the chase sequences are generally seen as on par with a period B-film.

Halicki employed family and friends (instead of professional actors) to play parts in his film to keep the budget low.

The fire trucks seen on the Vincent Thomas Bridge during the main chase were real Long Beach FD units on their way to an actual emergency call.

In the DVD audio commentary, he described the script for the construction site scenes of the main pursuit as a piece of cardboard with a circle on it.

The pursuit is the longest car chase (40 minutes) in film history and takes Pace through five cities as he attempts to lose police.

The intact "Eleanor" used for beauty shots and the white 1968 Ford Custom used by Pace and Stanley can be seen parked in a few Long Beach sequences.

The scene where "Eleanor" is rear-ended by a Cadillac Eldorado on the northbound Harbor Freeway (then-signed as California State Highway 11 and later as Interstate 110) at the Carson Street exit, and spins into a light pole at 100 mph, was a real accident.

The Ford Country Squire station wagon that flips during the earlier night-time chase in Torrance was overturned by six men lifting it up from one side.

According to the commentary track on the DVD, the film company owned the first two Cadillacs in the row; the remainder belonged to the dealer.

Much of the crowd at the gas station, where Harold Smith is pulled over after the nighttime Torrance chase, were part of a real biker gang who verbally abused the police officers "arresting" the actor and demanded they leave him alone.

Ronald Halicki, the director's real-life brother who played Corlis Pace in the film, operated the crane that lifted "Jill", the red Challenger, to its fate in the car-crusher at the junkyard.

In 1977, a follow-up of sorts, titled Double Nickels, was released featuring most of the cast and crew from Gone in 60 Seconds including Jack Vacek, Ed Abrams, George Cole, and Mick Brennan, who would work for Halicki in his next two films, The Junkman and Deadline Auto Theft.

The sequel would not have the same storyline of 1974 film; Toby Halicki wanted a bigger story about a professional international thief.

When a cable attached to the tower snapped unexpectedly, it sheared off a telephone pole, which fell on Halicki, killing him instantly.

In 1995, Denice Shakarian Halicki licensed the property which was remade as Gone in 60 Seconds (2000) with Disney (under their Touchstone Pictures banner) and Jerry Bruckheimer.

[5][6][7][8] These lawsuits sparked controversy among many in the car community,[9][10] but in a 2022 follow-up suit filed by the Shelby Trust, the United States District Court for the Central District of California invalidated these claims, ruling that the assertion that Eleanor was a distinctive character was "an invention of overzealous advocacy", and that the car was "not entitled to standalone copyright protection as a matter of law".