James Hetfield is one of the biggest and most influential rock stars of the past 30 years. He earned big bucks from recording studio albums sold by the millions and from heavy touring around the world. The heavy metal thing about this is that he spends a part of that money satisfying his lifelong passion for cars. He's a car nut, just like you and us guys at autoevolution. James' garage steadily grew in size over the years, but one car from his collection stands out unlike any of the other beauties he owns. He calls it the "Black Pearl" and it recently won the Goodguys 2014 Mother's Custom of the Year award, a custom 1939 Lincoln Zephyr being runner-up of the show.
Built from scratch, the body is heavily influenced by the full rounded contours of European and American cars of the 1930s and 1940s. Designed by the talented Rick Dore, the beautiful tear drop body sits on a custom 1948 Jaguar saloon chassis of which only the outer frame rails remain untouched. Hetfield and Dore were helped by famed panelbeaters Marcel and Luc De Lay to shape the Black Pearl's aluminum body panels.
Under the hood we find a 375 horsepower Ford V8 with a displacement of 302 cubic inches, mated to a Ford C4 automatic transmission. Front suspension comes from a Mustang, while the rear breaking system is borrowed from a not-so-interesting Ford Explorer. The Pearl is painted in a luscious deep PPG black by Darryl Hollenbeck from Vintage Color Studio, a color that beautifully contrasts with the cream leather seats, the brushed brass trim and wheel caps.
Below you can watch a walkaround video of the magnificent Black Pearl from this year's Grand National Roadster Show.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
Would you like AUTOEVOLUTION to send you notifications?
Google News