ROLLING DOWN THE HIGHWAY: Driving Black Beauty
By Gary Murray
My heart was filled with anticipation and fear as I got behind the oversized wheel of the 1965 Chrysler Impala. Not being afraid of driving but afraid of crashing. This was no ordinary classic car, but one of the actual props used in the new Seth Rogan flick The Green Hornet.
In promotion for the the film, Carl's Jr and the studio have sent this car on a four month US tour. Thousands of fans of both the original TV show and the new film have been flocking to see this piece of Americana. A few lucky members of the press were invited to take the car on a spin through the fast-food parking lot. Since the car is not street legal, it could not be taken out on the actual roads.
The Green Hornet is the latest action-adventure comic book flick to hit the big screen. The story is of a young man whose father is killed by a group of villains. So, Rogan dons the moniker of The Green Hornet and takes on the forces of evil. Along for the ride is Kato ( ) the martial arts side-kick. The film is one of those popcorn chewing spectacles of action and comedy that appeal to all.
Now, I've always been a classic car nut, having both owned and driven many cars from decades past. Cars of today have no personality, while cars from the 1950's and 1960's just ooze muscle and style. This car is no exception.
Black Beauty is solid black, with heavy tinted windows and a solid under carriage. On the front and back are fold-down compartments holding rocket tips. In the film, real rockets fire from the lowest levels of the body while these are just props. Twin machine gun props adorn the hood, menacing harbingers of death. The rear tires are fat and wide, making it easier to keep Black Beauty on the road. The front doors swing out backwards, much like the old suicide doors from 1930's cars. In each door are also rockets, used to a stunning end during the movie.
The most impressive feature of the Black Beauty is the sound of the motor. With the high-performance engine and the muffler system that almost sound like glass packs, the final effect is a loud roar that fills the heavens with dangerous Detroit music.
As I get inside, the first thing noticed is all the movie hardware. There are monitor screens and switches galore, none of which actually work. They are all just movie props, written in Oriental script. Surprisingly, the gear shift also doesn't work. The actual mechanisms to shift the car are built onto the floorboard, making the actual shifting an act of reaching between your legs.
As I slipped the car into drive, it slowly creep forward. The accelerator went to the floor but the car moved slowly. It is torqued down to a low gear ratio. In other words, it sounds high performance but moves like a boat in the water. At the first right turn, Black Beauty sways, the wide rear tires made more for straight ahead movements than turning maneuvers. The sound of the motor was numbingly loud, filling the cavernous interior of black and gray cloth with sounds seldom heard in modern autos. It was a retro chic moment when hot charged carburetor fueled machines dominated the roadways
I kept thinking about how much fun it would be to that this little gem out on the freeways, letting the barrels open up, suck in the cold air and jump down the highway. The attendant of the car said that he personally had taken the car past 100 mph. I declined to ask him the where and when the event occurred. Just knowing that I had that much power under my petal was enough.
This Black Beauty is one of the actual cars used in the film, a show car from the end of the flick. For the movie, the makers used almost 30 vehicles, in different stages of repair and damage. The one was make for the close-up and not one of the ones crashed during the telling of the tale. While The Green Hornet un-spools, different Black Beauties are used and destroyed. This is one of the final vehicles, before the final action sequences where the car performs above and beyond what any engineer imagined.
To learn more about this impressive vehicle, visit TestDriveTheBlackBeauty.com. The site lets one customize their own Black Beauty and battle others. The best part of this exercise with The Green Hornet is that Carl's Jr is giving away this piece of automotive art. That's right, you can win Black Beauty. One can go to a participating Carl's Jr restaurant or go on-line to enter. If you are the lucky one who gets this car, let me know. I'd love to take this monster machine out on again, but this time I'd like to take it on a real road.
