K&N Filters Sponsors the Green Hornet’s “Black Beauty” Imperials

Photos: K&N Filters

The Green Hornet TV series ran from 1966 through 1967, but this coming January will see the opening of the Sony Pictures movie version. Aside from the masked crime fighter and his high-kicking chauffeur sidekick, one of the other stars of the movie will be their ride – Black Beauty.

The original Black Beauty was built by mid-60’s custom car builder Dean Jeffries. Starting with two new 1966 Chrysler Imperials, Jeffries was given 30 days to complete the job of customization and adding an extensive list of gadgets and weaponry. Although the TV series lasted for just 26 episodes, Black Beauty endured as an often-copied star car, including tributes from George Barris and Jay Ohrberg.

The job of creating a 21st century version of Black Beauty fell to Dennis McCarthy, a Los Angeles mechanical engineer. Now the equivalent of a Casting Director for cars in movies, McCarthy ran a hot rod shop in Burbank, CA, before getting into this.

McCarthy had built a couple of movie cars, but his “big break” came in 2002, when he was hired by Universal Studios to stand-by on the set of Dragonfly. Since then, he has gained many additional movie credits, including Fast and Furious, Frost/Nixon, Death Race, The Kingdom, Redline, Dreamgirls, Fast and the Furious-Tokyo Drift, Jarhead, Meet the Fockers, After Sunset and Bruce Almighty.

For the Green Hornet movie, his version of Black Beauty retains its ties to the past, but shows little of the subtlety in the previous car.

“The weapons include twin Gatling type hood guns, suicide front door-jam machine guns, eight front and rear rocket launchers, a front mounted flame-thrower, front rubber-ball guns, a rear oil slick squirt gizmo and a trunk mounted machine gun. I think that’s all,” said McCarthy.

Wouldn’t that make your daily grind along the freeway a lot easier to deal with? After all, there nothing like a pair of Gatling guns on the hood to make those hyper-texters move over. However, McCarthy’s work isn’t just about building a unique look.

“The entire drivetrain was replaced on 14 of the 29 cars used for the movie production, starting with GM Performance ZZ454 engines, Turbo 400 transmissions, nine-inch Ford rear differentials with 4.56 gears/Detroit Locker, disc brakes from GT500 Mustangs, Speedway Engineering sway bars, JAZ fuel cells, Holley fuel systems, MSD Ignitions, Coyes Wheels, Goodyear tires, and of course K&N air filters.” McCarthy adds, “For the most part all the gadgets worked, but only specific ones on certain cars.”

Twenty years of off-road racing experience lets McCarthy contribute to some of the movies’ stunt work from time to time. It also led him to rely on K&N’s product line.

“I have always used K&N products in my race cars. When I had my shop, K&N was really the first in the performance air filter business that I knew of, and I have always used their products on customer cars, my personal vehicles, as well as all my movie cars.”

The Green Hornet movie, starring Seth Rogan and Jay Chou, comes to theaters on January 14, 2011.

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