Shelby sued over Eleanor

I agree it is somewhat amusing, but given the fact that the original Eleanor was a yellow mustang fastback and not a shelby at all, and given the fact that in the remake it was supposedly a Shelby, couldn't Mr. Shelby counter sue because they used his intellectual property ( the Shelby name) to further promote the remake movie. Which was more succesful, at least by box office measurements?
Gord

i think the problem here is the fact that shelby used the name eleanor when he marketed the cars. he can in fact shape his cars in any manor he chooses, and no one can touch him over that. in a similar trademark case many years ago in florida, there was a kit car manufacturer that used 73-77 monte carlos to build rolls-royce look alikes, right down to a similar flying lady as a hood ornimant. rolls-royce sued, and forced the florida manufacturer to stop using the flying lady hood ornimant, but couldnt stop them from building the body to look like a rolls. ferrari allso tried this aproach in the 80's and 90's but was unsuccessful in forcing kit car makers to stop building ferrari look alikes. they cannot use any trademarked insignia's though, as well as using a trademarked name. if the name eleanor is trademarked on the car desing in question, thenshelby cannot use the eleanor name on the car.

I guess that would be the case if he didn't trademark the name Eleanor prior to producing the cars...

http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=2t4u8a.2.27