Corrected entry: When Memphis has the Mustang 500, he is driving backwards through traffic and a parking garage trying to elude the police. It's been established that the Mustang is a stick shift. Tell me anyone could drive that fast backwards with a stick shift. The reverse gear in manual transmissions is geared VERY short. You would get 10 miles an hour, maximum - with the characteristic gear whine that goes with it. (01:29:54)
Corrected entry: When Nick Cage breaks the mirror off the Shelby Mustang, it remains hanging by it's wires. The problem with this is that Ford wasn't putting power mirrors on cars in 1969.
Correction: The wires are probably the cable used to manually adjust the mirrors. Even in the 60's some cars had a manual adjustment on the door panel that used a cable for adjusting mirrors from inside.
So a car that has been heavily modified, and has a very small percentage of original Ford components left, and it's the mirror that couldn't have possibly been changed out somewhere along the way?
Corrected entry: In the scene where Kessellbeck is staking the crew out after he receives the tip about the Mercedes keys getting picked up, he's looking through his binoculars and the list of cars on the blackboard is in the background. Later after the attempted bust, he goes back searching with black lights to find clues and only discovers the list at that time.
Correction: The door was only opened for a few seconds while two people entered. It's highly unlikely Kessellbeck was interested in the surroundings, more that he was noting the people who were present. He wouldn't notice the list of cars.
Kessellbeck was looking through the door at Otto's shop where they had their list, but the list he found using black lights was the warehouse used by Kip and his crew prior to getting busted.
Corrected entry: Regarding the theft of the 3 Mercedes, a huge issue is made of the fact that the cars cannot be stolen without the proper keys, which have to come from Germany. So how did the Caan kid get the dealership to order, have shipped and receive the keys within a couple of days? Even with a rush delivery, shipping would be at least overnight, and the keys would need time to be manufactured.
Correction: The keys don't necessarily have to come from Germany. There is likely a warehouse in the US with spare keys already available. It's not likely that Daimler-Benz would only make one key for each car they build. They would have some repetition of codes and keys as there is a limited number of codes available. Besides which, it is possible once you have the proper key to recode it manually. I've done this myself with my Pontiac Grand Prix, and information from the owner's manual. If these guys are as professional as shown, they would only need the proper transponder key, and would likely recode it themselves. Recoding my Grand Prix key took all of about 60 seconds.
They do specifically mention that the keys have to come from Hamburg, which in itself seems bizarre. Even if there weren't keys being stored by Daimler-Benz (at the time the company had a very solid deal with Chrysler), the keys would surely come from the Mercedes Benz HQ in Stuttgart (Southern Germany), not from Hamburg (Northern Germany) where Mercedes only presence is in dealerships.
Corrected entry: When the group enters the Ferrari warehouse, all of the cars they need to steal are lined up in a single row and they are right in front of the garage door. Likely? Not really.
Correction: When they first get to the warehouse the cars are not all lined up in a single row and right in front of the door. Once they jump started the cars, they moved them there to wait for the garage door to open, so they could all get out together as quickly as possible.
Another possibility is that when Memphis was talking to the dealer, he arranged to have the specific cars shown to him the next day (he specifically asks what all is int he warehouse). The dealer could have taken the time later int he day to get them ready for showing, all lined up and ready to go.
Corrected entry: Mirrorman asks why all the cars have girl's names, and Memphis replies by saying, "If you name them girls names, nobody listening on the wire is the wiser." Still, Detective Castlebeck asks Memphis, "Did Eleanor teach you that?", during the chat outside the cafe. If the police are that well informed, would it not be an idea to change the codes?
Correction: Castlebeck would have known about Eleanor because he'd had trouble with Memphis stealing that car before. This does not mean that he knows they use women's names for all the cars. Castlebeck tells Memphis outside the Diner that he regrets not taking him in when he had the chance, therefore implying that he knew about a previous boost. Also, not all of the police knew about Eleanor, proven by Castlebeck's partner not knowing who Eleanor was; therefore the police weren't that well informed about the female name codes.
Even if the police knew that Memphis and team used female code names, it really doesn't do them any good. The idea is that they can use the codes to talk about specific cars without the police knowing which car they are talking about. Saying "I'm picking Daisy" means very little to the cops, as opposed to "I'm picking up the 1982 Cadillac Eldorado." The only one that the police specifically know about is Eleanor being the Shelby GT 500, because they keep using the same name for that specific car (which would be a character mistake, not a movie error).
Correction: It is true that reverse gear in manual transmissions is short but not shorter than 1st gear. If my regular Civic can hit 50km/h in reverse, I am sure a GT500 (which is much more powerful, therefore with a longer reverse gear and final gear ratio) can hit way more than 10 mph.
30-40 mph is very achievable in reverse in any performance-oriented car.