General Lee Replica Squanders Landing, Nearly Misses Cameraman

  • A Dukes of Hazzard-themed stunt nearly went badly wrong in Somerset, Kentucky.
  • The fake General Lee jumped over a fountain and nearly took out a cameraman.
  • Stuntman Ray Kohn uses a Ford Crown Victoria dressed up like a classic Charger.

Forty years after The Dukes of Hazzard finished its original run, the image of an orange Dodge Charger flying through the air is still etched in our brains – well, at least to those of us who are old enough to have watched it, anyway. And it’s an image one cameraman will have permanently seared into his memory banks after he was nearly taken out in a modern recreation of one of those famous leaps.

Car fans at an event at Somerset, KY, had gathered to watch stuntman Ray Kohn of Northeast Ohio Dukes launch his General Lee replica in the town center, and he didn’t disappoint. The ’69 Charger lookalike, which is in reality a cleverly disguised Ford Crown Victoria, flew 150 ft (46 m) right through the middle of a fountain whose water had been dyed blue for the occasion to enhance the spectacle.

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The footage is incredible, the jump every bit as spectacular as the original TV ones, but here captured in crisp high definition and from hundreds of different angles by the many cameras and smartphones recording the action.

But where the TV show’s editors would cut away from the true mechanical carnage caused by the landing, we got to see the ‘Charger’ fully hit the pavement, and it really hit that road hard. The car lands having turned slightly left d, and the out-of-control orange missile makes a beeline for a pro video camera and its operator who are just over the dangerous side of the barriers, assuming they’re out of harm’s way.

With the suspension components trashed there’s no way Kohn can steer away from the cameraman, who just manages to get himself and his equipment to safety as the General Lee wannabe speeds past exactly where he had been crouching. Fortunately, both he and Kohn were unharmed, meaning Rodney Mitchell, a cameraman on the original show, remains the only person to die on Dukes of Hazzard duty. Mitchell was, sadly, fatally injured when the camera truck he was riding in tipped over on a wet dirt road while filming.

Hardcore Dukes fans attending the fountain jump in Somerset had also been hoping to see Rick Hurst, who played Boss Hogg’s son Cletus in the show. Unfortunately, Hurst passed away on Thursday, only days before the event, aged 79.

Lead image Northeast Ohio Dukes


The Auto World

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