Black Beauty The Green Hornet (TV Series) AUTOart AU71546 Scale 1:18

September 2015 Shipment! Highly detailed AUTOart diecast model car Black Beauty The Green Hornet (TV Series) AUTOart AU71546 Scale 1:18 1966 Imperial Crown sedan The Green Hornet is a television series on the ABC US television network that aired for the 1966–1967 TV season starring Van Williams as the Green Hornet/Britt Reid and Bruce Lee as Kato. The Green Hornet followed the adventures of playboy-media mogul Britt Reid, the owner and publisher of The Daily Sentinel. As the masked vigilante Green Hornet, Britt fights crime with the assistance of his martial-artist partner Kato, Britt's valet, and his weapons-enhanced car the Black Beauty with license plate V-194. On police records, the Green Hornet is a wanted criminal, but in reality, the Green Hornet pretends to be a criminal in order to infiltrate and battle the criminal gangs, leaving them and the incriminating evidence for the police's arrival. Britt's dual identity is known only to his secretary at The Sentinel, Lenore "Casey" Case and the District Attorney Frank P. Scanlon. The motive behind Britt's becoming a crimefighter was explained on-screen that his father had died in prison after having been framed and imprisoned for a crime he did not commit. The single-season series premiered September 9, 1966, and ran through March 17, 1967, lasting 26 episodes; ABC repeated the series after its cancellation by the network, until July 14, 1967, when The Green Hornet had its last broadcast on network television. The character had originated as the star of a 1930s to 1950s radio series, and had previously been adapted to movie serials, comic books, and other media. Britt Reid shares the same last name as The Lone Ranger, as Britt's father was Dan Reid, the Lone Ranger's nephew. The TV series featured the Green Hornet's car, The Black Beauty, a 1966 Imperial Crown sedan customized by Dean Jeffries at a cost of US$13,000. Two cars were built for the show and both exist today. Black Beauty 1 is located in the Petersen Museum collection and Black Beauty 2 has been fully restored and is located in a private collection in South Carolina. The Black Beauty was stored underneath Britt Reid's garage. A set of switches on a secret control panel behind a tool wall would sequentially set the lights to green, attach clamps to the bumpers of Reid's personal car, rotate the floor of the garage – hiding Reid's car and bringing up the Black Beauty – finally unclamping the Black Beauty's bumpers. The Black Beauty would then exit the garage through a hidden rear door, and enter the street from behind a billboard advertising the fictitious product Kissin' Candy Mint (with the slogan "How sweet they are") designed to separate down the middle and rejoin. The Black Beauty, which carried rear license plate number V194, could fire explosive charges from tubes hidden behind retractable panels below the headlights which were said to be rockets with explosive warheads; had a concealed-when-not-in-use, drop-down knock-out gas nozzle in the center of the front grille and the vehicle could launch a small flying video/audio surveillance device (referred to as the scanner) through a small rectangular panel in the middle of the trunk lid. It was a foreshadowing of today's small helicopter like drones. Working rockets and gas nozzles were incorporated into the trunk lid as well.