Cars From the Vault: Green Hornet's Black Beauty

• April 2, 2014
• Story By
  Kristin Cline

Anyone growing up in the 60s remembers the Green Hornet (and thanks to the current movie blockbuster younger folks are in the know too). Britt Reid and Kato made up the Green Hornet crime-fighting team, but they wouldn’t have been complete with their car the Black Beauty. Originating as a radio show in 30s, Green Hornet launched as a weekly TV series in 1966 to complement the wildly-successful Batman show. Van Williams took the role of Britt with Bruce Lee filling the shoes of Kato, and this Dean Jeffries modified 1966 Chrysler Imperial was the Black Beauty. Jeffries, a regular go-to for movie cars in those days, took great care to make fully functional cars. In the Black Beauty’s case, it means that mechanical apparatus’ are all over the car – from the rotating headlights in the front (white to green) to the pop-up radar and lowering brooms in the rear…to sweep away tire tracks of course! Jeffries is said to be the first guy the studio approached for the famous Batmobile build, but due to the studios demanding too-quick a turn around time, Jeffries turned down the project stating he couldn’t do quality work in that short of time – as we all know, George Barris took up that task. However when it came to the car for Green Hornet, the studio sought out Dean Jeffries again - wanting a car that was more realistic, and also needing it to be fully functional (remember, this was before computerized visual effects were available). Getting to not just look at the Black Beauty, but also see its many moving parts was a treat indeed! A few needed coaxing, but the ingenuity and creativeness in engineering and customizing this car became even more evident as each new secret unveiled itself. Operated by a working switch panel from the back seat, check out the video below to see some of them in action. A car phone, hidden gun storage, pop-out windows to shoot from, protruding rockets from both the front and rear bumpers, a rotating license plate to go incognito, extending tire-track brooms, radar light rising from the trunk, and of course the rotating headlights are all fully functional and working. In addition to the super hero secrets, the car has some interesting custom features as well. Wanting the car to look sinister, it of course got cloaked in black while all chrome trim was removed. Jeffries created the allusion of length, without any major modification, by extending the roof out beyond the c-pillar. If you take a view of the back you’ll see the extra 8 inches or so of roof length. Then of course the front got a full overhaul by Jeffries with the lengthened middle portion, bumper deletion, metal bar grill, modified headlights, and extended front corners. Jeffries created two of the Black Beauty cars, the one pictured here was the fully-functional one used for the TV show. The second, as Jeffries notes, was mostly used for car shows and promotion. This is the only current one restored, done so by Jeffries himself in 1993. It was purchased by the Petersen Automotive Museum just after Jeffries restored it and currently resides down in the Vault – a section underneath the normal museum accessible by guided-tour only. To see more of it, as well as their other magnificent and historical cars, take a visit to the Petersen or peruse DrivingLine’s entire Cars From the Vault series. Words: Kristin Cline | Photography: Tim Sutton