According to people on the set, after the mishap when a driver missed a mark and caused "Eleanor" to hit a real light post at 85 mph, the first thing that H.B. Halicki said when he regained consciousness was, "Did we get coverage?"
This 97-minute movie contains 93 car crashes.
The final "big jump" went 30 feet high and cleared 128 feet; Halicki suffered a compressed spine in the landing.
With the exception of a few extras, the bulk of the bystanders/members of the public in the movie are real people just going about their business who had no idea that a film was being made. This caused several incidents where people assumed a real police pursuit was in progress, with many trying to help the accident "victims". In the scene at the Carson Street off-ramp where the two cars collide after Maindrian drives against traffic, a pedestrian can be seen in the background shouting angrily at the passing police cars for not stopping to help the occupants.
The scene where Eleanor brakes hard to exit the freeway and spins into a light standard was a real accident. Star/director H.B. Halicki was accidentally tagged by a Cadillac driven by a member of the crew who failed to brake in time, causing the Mustang to spin into the pole. Halicki was moderately injured, and recovered enough to film the completion of the scene the following week. Incidentally, the exit ramp in this case is the Carson Street off-ramp from the northbound 110 Freeway in Carson, CA (which has been reconfigured since filming in 1974).