I lucky enough to see the Green Hornet on its second run, as with Batman in reruns. I am sure I watched it intially, but I was 6 and just dont remember. But I loved the part when The Black Beauty appeared in the garage,

Here is a new shot, I have not shown before of the model set of britts patio and the Black Beauty Model, used for the revolving scene in the next column

coming from under the ground and ready for action. What a car. When I saw the Car at cars of the Stars, it looked more like it does today, then in the earlier shot, however my only concern then was it was roped off and I could not sit in the sit Bruce Lee sat in. As it turns out that was the 2nd car built by Dean Jeffries and not sure Bruce ever sat in that car, so nothing missed there, but I was destined to sit in that car. I was only 15 at the time, it would come some 17 years later.....

Ok so now I owned one of the most precious Green Hornet collectibles you could get your hands on. What next? As I said Dean wanted to look at the car to give me an estimate and he would be ready in a month or so, I did the wheels. The body was bad, so me being the every resourceful, I call a friend of mine who has a body shop, maybe I can get some of the work done and then the bill wont be so bad with Dean, so I get the car over to his shop and he starts to work on the body.

I dont want to bore you with alot of body shop photos, so here is only one. I picked the Beauty up in about 3 weeks

Here she is, ready for paint, straight as an arrow. Looking great, but was I wrong. So I call my friend back the owner of the body shop and said, "hey I want to see what the Beauty is going to look like with Black Paint? He tells me dont do it, it isn't completly ready, but I insisted. Read on

Wheels on looking good, Black coat of piant. I was riding around think I was really cool. I of course drove her home again and now the neighbors came out and said, what is that? Believe it or not some of them said is that the Batmobile??? So I call Dean Jeffries and he says, yea bring it over. So on her way she was. I got to Deans shop with the Black Beauty on a flatbed. He says leave it with me for about 1 week and I will give you the estimate, with all the T's crossed and the I's dotted. I had told him about the body work and he said, he all has to come off, the body is not straight. Boy was I disapointed, I thought it looked great, but I guess I was worng. The wheels for fine, so that was relief. So a couple of weeks go by and Dean calls me up to go over the estimate. I get there, and we sit donw in Deans office and he starts by go over each item, 1 by 1. Dean is very through, and then we get to the last page, where the total is. $37,600. Ok, no problem, no of course it was a problem, there was no way I was going to spend 37,600 on her, right now. I just did not have the kind of money. I spent the intial 5,000. Then the service. Next was the $600 to refurbish the rims, another $500 in tires and almost $2,000 in body work and paint that was now not needed. So add it up, I was already invested about $8500.00. I said, what will you do for $10,000 for now, Dean looked at me and smoke came out of his ears, he said you can take this piece of shit out of here and never bring it back. What do you think I am running a charity ?, lets make a deal ? This was his second outburst with me and I should have had a clue we would have another problem, but I just dont do business like that, I really assume others dont either. I was wrong, but I will get to that. So I said, ok calm down, how long will it take? About 6 to 12 months. Ok I can work with that, I will bring you $5,000 tomorrow and bring you payments up until the Beauty is done if that is ok with you? I will sign the estimate and shake on it. He said fine. So the restoration begins.

Here is the front grille area, gutted. You see some of the spots of rust and if you look to the right of the passenger headlight and left og the drivers headlight you will see the bar I spoke of, which made the lights swing down

 

Here is after Deans handy work, everything is cleaned up, piated and the motor to make the lights move was installed and working

Here , Deans coworker is assembling and repairing the rear gas gun mechanism

Here is another angle and you see the rear rocket doors, which were welded shut, are now opened

So I try and stay out of Deans way, but I am usually here about once a week. I am hoping by participating in the restoration I will get a break. I ask all the time if there is anything I can do. Dean says yes. He asks me to buy some rockets for the front and rear. He ask me to locate some new front headlights for the green lights. He asks me for my ideas on a gas tank, because the orignal tank has to be remove to make some of things work, not sure why it was removed before, but I am all ears. So I provide Dean with a gas tank after he provides me with the drawing. I get the rockets and I thought Dean knew to cut off the backs and insert them in the tubes, instead Dean uses the whole rocket and puts them over the tubes which was incorrect, but I was not about to argue He was doing great other then that.

 

Here is an actual drawing I have, Dean gave me to order the gas tank. The tank was a marine/boat gas tank and Dean now using the same company for many of his projects because he was inpressed with thier work

Here is the actual color photo on Dean Jeffries letterhead explaining how the rocket door motor was to work and he needed me to find the motors, which I did.

Here is 2 pictures on 1 piece of paper, dean has shown me the switches for the rear control panel and the labels I need to buy. Also I had suggested for a plaque to be made and put on the car. Dean said write it up and I said, I would rather you do it and sign it, so it is real. It was done and reproduced exactly as it is seen here and resides with the Beauty forever.

 

This note is telling me what he needs, the Gas Tank, the batteries, and some rubber molding. Again a drawing by Dean, that I still have.