Here is the rear control panel of the Beauty getting fitted for the closet, Tv screen and controls.

Here is the trunk lid off of my parts car Imperial. The orignal trunk, had so much bondo and the scanner door was welded shut we had to use the backup from the parts car.

Here is the dash as it was. I know it is hard to see in the picture, but if you look close, in the middle opening on the right of the steering wheel where the arrow is pointing, which is really a small red light. It remained there all this time even though the door was gone along with the phone. When I founf this Beauty I remembered a picture in James Van Hise Green Hornet book which shows this same picture with the redlight next to the phone, as soon as I saw this, I knew I had found her.

Here is the dash cleaned up, with the phone Dean installed which looked nothing like the original. I was unable to convince him it wasn't right.

Dean is a very interesting man. Very well educated and regardless to my opinion of him personally,there is nobody who knows his business better. If Dean and George Barris could have ever put thier heads together, we would have been blown away with what would have come from these two. But George being the ever front man, self marketing genius and Dean who does actually work on cars, it would never be. Dean is a perfectionist to a point. I am still glad for the choosing him to do the project, there really was no second choice. How often in life would you get a chance, a regular joe. to first find a treasure as the orignal Black Beauty and then have the one person who put it together orignally, get do put the pieces back together once again. It was bittersweet.

Here is the only shot of Dean and myself which my wife took. Dean was on the 4th of 7 coats of Black he used to paint the Beauty on the restoration. It looked great to me everytime he would finish a coat and Dean would sand it off again and paint and wetsand it a total of 7 times.

Well you would think this story would have a Happy Ending and all would be well in the world. It did not. I have tried to paint Dean Jeffries in a fair light, and point out his best assets. But like every story, there is another side. Some want to worship the man and rightly so. If you take him for what he has done and you have not had to personally deal with the man, it is justified. There has been alot of versions, stories. differant takes posted on the internet regarding my involment with the Beauty and Dean Jeffries. Things written, rumors started about what did or did not happen, Dean has done a little spin himself on the facts. There have even been some who have deleted the true history of the restoration of this very famous car. I see a poster today or has links to sites and the title is the true story of the Black Beauty. How can there truly be a correct history without me? There cant be. I have defended my story and have setup this website for years before anyone else to tell the story, so history will be forever correct. This website is here and one as long as I live and breathe, there will be the true and correct history of the restoration. Remember there was really 2 players in this ordeal, Dean Jeffries and myself. But amazes me how many others have written themselves into this story and had nothing to do with it. let alone were even there.

Enough venting, back to the story. After about 1 1/2 years of Dean "restoring" the Black Beauty, she was still not ready. Intially I was told it would be 3 to 4 months. One day I received a call from Universal Studios inquiring about the Beauty. They were in preproduction of the movie, "The Bruce Lee Story. Van Williams was also in it and there had been written a scene about the Green Hornet TV show. The scene would show Kato blowing up a door to rescue the Green Hornet, taken from and as a nod to a episode from the Tv series and it was a scene which included the Black Beauty. I told the gentleman, I did in fact own the Beauty and was in the process of being completly redone by Dean Jeffries. He stated he knew this and was why he was contacting me. He inquired as to when the Beauty would be ready and I said anyday. He told me to contact him when the Beauty was ready. I told Dean about it, and said if we can just get the car finished enough to shoot this scene. I think the Beauty could be used. He asked how much were they going to pay, I said I did not know , but wanted the Beauty to be in the scene just the same. He said he would try to have her finished. At this point Dean had really starting dragging his feet on the final steps on finishing the Beauty. I still to this day cannot put my finger on exactly why either, I can only speculate. I had given Dean $32,000 up to this point and I was holding the last $5,000 for a couple of reasons, one, I was hoping to motivate him to finish the car. It did not work, and Universal shot the scene, and as we know Kato does blow up a door, but he walks walks in and no explantion on how the door exploded. How cool would that have been to have the Green Hornet, Van Williams working with the Black Beauty again, in a major Hollywood production involving a small Green Hornet scene? Who knows what would have happened from there ?? They might have got alot of play on that scene and been motivated to shoot the so called Green Hornet movie, for which to this day Universal and Miramax have he;d the rights too. But Dean was not motivated. And the Beauty would sit in his shop for another 2 months. As I said Dean was acting very funny towards the end and to this day, I cannot tell you exactly why, only tell you what I observed. On the final week I was to pick up the car, when I knew the car was almost 100% complete, Dean asked that I not come by the shop, until he called me. This was odd, I had not done anything wrong to warrant this. I had a open door policy with Dean to come over whenever I wanted to. I would always drop by unexpectly so I am sure this is what prompted the call. So I did decided to drop by and I snoop around. The garage was covered in Black covers all around, even in front of the Gargage door, you could not see into the shop. I took a peek and Dean was having a photoshoot with the Beauty and did not want me to know about it. He had hired someone to take pictures and to this day, I have never seen them, nor did Dean even give me full details, other then to say I took some pictures. This did not set right with me, and I was really on guard position with Dean from this moment on.

Here is my Green Hornet and Kato which sat in the Beauty in shows and in my wherehouse. More about these guys later.